A Chinese leader arriving on U.S. soil for an international summit and meeting the American president would, until recently, have been rather unremarkable.
But times are changing.
The fact that Xi Jinping will be in San Francisco next week for the annual Asia-Pacific summit, then meeting Wednesday with Joe Biden, is now significant news.
“This is not the relationship of five or 10 years ago,” said a senior U.S. official who briefed reporters on the meeting.
1st meeting since spy-balloon affair
It comes in a year of unusual tension for two countries with arguably the most consequential relationship on Earth. For months, the superpowers’ senior officials stopped talking entirely, after the spy-balloon affair.
This is the first Xi-Biden encounter since then.
WATCH | A report from the Chinese spy-balloon controversy earlier this year:
Featured VideoThe Biden administration says the suspected Chinese spy balloon that was shot down was part of a fleet being flown around the world. Officials faced questions from Republicans at two hearings over why the balloon wasn’t taken down sooner.
A U.S. congressman lamented the other day different surveys showing Americans increasingly worried the countries are on a path toward war.
“Right now we’re kind of sliding to a place where no one wants to go,” said Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat on a committee studying U.S.-China competition.
“Where we’re sliding toward a potential armed conflict, you know we’re in a wrong place.”
Fears grow for 2024
If this year was frosty, the countries fear worse in 2024.
The relationship now faces a stress-test with two elections ahead: one in January in Taiwan, with a front-runner who has in the past expressed support for Taiwanese independence.
Then there’s the election in the U.S., where the parties are locked in a competition with each other over who’s toughest on China.
“[That] could make this quite a bumpy year,” said the senior U.S. official, speaking anonymously in a background briefing.
“We’re looking to stabilize the relationship,” another senior U.S. official said.
And that’s how this meeting is being billed. As an effort to establish a floor, to keep the relationship from collapsing in 2024.
WATCH | Washington, D.C., zoo loses giant pandas to sour China-U.S. relations:
Featured VideoOnce a symbol of cooperation between China and the U.S., the giant pandas that were the centrepiece of Washington’s Smithsonian National Zoo for 51 years are headed back to China. Now some say their departure is a symbol of deteriorating relations between the two countries.
Otherwise, the countries are downplaying expectations. The Chinese government issued a succinct statement, while the U.S. warned reporters not to expect much.
One summit will hardly solve the superpowers’ grievances — over espionage, fentanyl shipments, intellectual property theft, rights abuses, foreign interference, trade penalties and, most dangerously, the powder keg of Taiwan.
But here are five ways to judge whether the meeting yields progress.
1. Fentanyl: Does Xi promise new steps to control it?
Will Xi promise concrete efforts to prevent the export of fentanyl-making products from his country?
Approximately 75,000 Americans died last year from a fentanyl overdose. The U.S. accuses and has charged Chinese-based companies of supplying Mexican drug cartels with the chemicals to make it.
A Republican congressman this year angrily accused the Chinese government of allowing its companies to intentionally poison Americans: “We are at war with China,” said Tony Gonzales of Texas.
Biden will raise this. One longtime China-watcher called it a pressing U.S. priority. It came up repeatedly recently when members of Congress met Xi.
“The Chinese have not been helpful on the issue,” said Dennis Wilder, a former official at the CIA and the White House, now a Georgetown University professor.
“I would hope that Xi Jinping has come in with a bit of a new attitude.”
2. Do the militaries start talking again?
Military communications have broken down. China halted them last year in anger over a visit to Taiwan by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The U.S. has asked repeatedly to resume them, without success. The Chinese have been reluctant, U.S. officials say.
Two programs were especially useful, said an expert on Asian security at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies: policy discussions involving senior defence officials; and a dialogue of maritime operators who discussed incidents at sea.
Re-establishing those programs would send important messages, Bonny Lin told a panel discussion this week.
“That the two sides can work together … [in] preventing incidents,” and can communicate about “unprofessional, risky, and coercive Chinese behaviour in the air and at sea.”
3. In fog of tech war, does China get clarity?
The previous two issues are U.S. demands. China has complaints, too. In particular, it’s fuming over recent U.S. trade restrictions.
They include restrictions on semiconductor sales to China, ongoing steel tariffs, state efforts to block Chinese land purchases in the U.S., and a ban on Americans investing in China to produce certain tech products, like computer chips, that could have military applications.
It’s not just China complaining. On Wall Street, the business community gave members of Congress a scolding during a recent meeting.
During a visit to New York, Krishnamoorthi said, business people told members of his committee that other countries will invest in China while the U.S. is left out, arguing, “Someone else is going to make money and we’re not.”
He said lawmakers argued back. Americans should not be investing in companies modernizing the Chinese army or participating in the genocide of Uyghurs, he said.
China wants the measures relaxed. Or, at the very least, Wilder said, it wants greater clarity about the long-term U.S. plan, to know how far it will go.
This one won’t be easily resolved, said one Washington China-watcher.
“I think [the Chinese are] going to be disappointed,” Jude Blanchette, a China chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told this week’s panel discussion.
“This will be one of the issues where the U.S. and China will have longstanding tensions.”
4. Taiwan: Will China be reassured?
Taiwan is the most imminent danger zone. It’s the reason Xi has ordered China’s military to put all its effort into war preparations, and why U.S. lawmakers are gaming out war scenarios.
Biden will reiterate the longstanding American position, his senior aides told reporters: That the U.S. does not support Taiwanese independence.
Several Washington-based China analysts view this as a particularly pressing priority for Xi; the independence-friendly Lai Ching-te could win the Taiwanese election in two months.
“They’re going to want to hear that we are committed to our one-China policy, that no matter who wins the Taiwan election, we will stick with our position — that we don’t support independence of Taiwan,” Wilder said.
“[That will be a] reiteration of American policy. But the Chinese always need that. They always need reassurance on that subject.”
5. What does the post-summit propaganda look like?
As important as the meeting itself is the reaction to the meeting, which is why Blanchette will be monitoring China’s state-controlled news outlets.
The reaction, for example, in the People’s Daily will send a message from Xi to the rest of China’s political system, he said.
For example, Blanchette said, positive coverage will mean: “Yes, I know I [Xi] said the United States was containing us in March, but we still have work to do together.”
Then there are unforeseen events.
Recall that Xi and Biden met late last year. Weeks later, China’s spy balloons appeared over North America, and relations swirled right down the drain. The U.S. cancelled a high-level meeting, and then China refused to reschedule any others for months.
Blanchette cited a famous boxing quote to make a point: that expected events, like an accident in the Taiwan Strait involving China and the U.S. or an ally, could easily lay waste to the most carefully crafted strategy.
“As Mike Tyson said, you can have a plan until you get punched in the face.”