Biden-Xi Have Historic Chance To Reset Troubled Ties

On the economic front,
the US“five-pillar strategy” aims to pursue an expansive industrial policy at home, work with like-minded partners to build a leading-edge techno-industrial base, move beyond traditional trade deals to new international partnerships, mobilize large sums for global anti-poverty and climate change efforts and protect foundational technologies with a“small yard, high fence” approach.

Four of five pillars have no role for or aim to decouple from China.

Having assembled bespoke coalitions such as the Quad, AUKUS, the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity and the US-Japan-South Korea trilateral framework and thereby shaped the strategic environment around China, the administration now seeks to cement a“floor” under its working relations with Beijing.

In China's view, the US strategy aims to exclude it economically, isolate it diplomatically, encircle it militarily and suppress its development technologically. Washington's network of alliances, partnerships and minilateral groupings are also seen as an accelerant of major power conflict – not a building block for deterrence and stability.

China faces a delicate balancing act. The primary external ballast of its modernization strategy – an enabling international environment backed by dense Trans-Pacific trade and technology exchanges – has shifted to its disfavor ever since the Trump administration labeled China a revisionist power and unleashed a trade and technology war.

China's preferred economic counterpart today, the European Union, views Moscow – China's most important geopolitical power – with repellence. It views Beijing, by extension, with disquiet.

Balancing these two relationships to its advantage while simultaneously
working out guiding principles
to steer China-US ties toward peaceful coexistence is the essence of Beijing's dilemma.

The United States and China hold discordant views regarding their interests, terms of engagement and conceptions of order. With the ongoing rearrangement of the Indo-Pacific's strategic furniture, a“structure of peace” that features a predictable network of rules and relationships among major powers is unlikely to emerge.

A stable equilibrium
will not come
from a clash of rival interests, and the administration's canvassing of“on demand” cooperation on one-sided terms will not leaven the underlying tendencies.

Going forward, it is crucial for Washington and Beijing to candidly share their divergent perspectives within a steadying framework. The ambition should be to craft overarching principled understandings – howsoever incredulous each side's assurances might appear at first blush to the other – and embed them over the passage of time in their conduct of relations.

Both countries should do this with good faith that maintains consistency between words and deeds. Common actions could flow from these shared convictions.

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“Five noes” were tendered by President Biden during his virtual meeting with President Xi in November 2021 and reiterated in Bali a year later. The United States“does not seek a new Cold War, does not seek to change China's system, does not support Taiwanese independence, does not seek conflict with China and does not direct the revitalization of its alliances at China.”

A helicopter flies a Taiwanese flag in Taoyuan, Taiwan. Photo: Asia Times Files / Ceng Shou Yi / NurPhoto / Getty Images

President Xi
reciprocated
with“three noes” in Bali - China“does not seek to change the existing international order or interfere in the United States' internal affairs and has no intention of challenging or displacing the United States.” These principles provide a judicious and steadying framework for future-oriented ties.

Like the Nixon–Brezhnev“Basic Principles” agreement
of 1972 that facilitated productive cooperation in exchange for restraint and moderation, the two presidents should memorialize their“noes” in a joint statement.

Washington and Beijing should lock down near-term deliverables at the San Francisco APEC Summit. They should also seek to lessen the gap between their rival approaches by committing to a revamped relationship founded on these principled understandings in this new
era of strategic competition .

Sourabh Gupta is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for China–America Studies in Washington, DC.

This article was originally published by East Asia Forum and is republished under a Creative Commons license.

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