The Xi-Biden meeting at APEC in San Francisco is set for Wednesday. But will the two sides overcome their thorny differences? The relationship is likely to remain in “prolonged crisis,” says one observer of US-China relations.
Big business to shell out $2,000 a head to join dinner with China’s leader. And scores of parties to be held on the economic meeting’s sidelines.
Entrepreneurs’ confidence at lowest level since 1978, says well-connected Chinese financier. China slips back into deflation. And foreign firms pull funds from the country while FDI shrinks.
Xi wants youth to go down to the countryside. Investors snap up stocks with company dragon names, in run-up to next lunar year. Last of pandas to depart US in sign of troubled bilateral relationship. And is China becoming a nation of singles?
Xi-Biden meeting set for San Francisco
With China’s leader Xi Jinping and U.S. president Joe Biden to meet Wednesday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Cooperation Forum (APEC) in San Francisco, what are Beijing and Washington hoping to achieve?
China would like to see Trump-era imposed trade tariffs cut, an end to Biden’s technology curbs, and aims to reassure nervous investors that it is still open for business, during what will be Xi’s first visit to the U.S. in over six years.
For the U.S. which is hosting the 21-member forum for the first time in twelve years, the hope is that China will agree to resume military talks, crackdown on the production of chemicals used in fentanyl, and show more restraint in the South China and East China Seas.
But the reality is that the bar at which China and the U.S. end up declaring the meeting a success may be set much lower.
“The two sides have some consensus on some of the lowest common denominators. The U.S. does not want to see further deterioration” in the relationship, and neither does China, says Li Mingjiang, a professor at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
“Although China and the US still share many common interests, especially when it comes to global issues, there is little chance of substantial progress,” Li says.
“As far as breakthroughs on major or sensitive issues, like the South China Sea, Russia-Ukraine, Gaza-Israel, technology controls, etc, the gaps are unbridgeable,” says Sourabh Gupta, a senior policy specialist at the Institute for China-America Studies in Washington.
“[The two leaders’ meeting] will mean a sigh of relief in both capitals that the diplomatic impasse triggered when a Chinese balloon entered the skies over Montana earlier this year has been broken,” writes Lingling Wei, in WSJ China, a new must-read newsletter. “That isn’t a small thing, but it also shouldn't be confused with a change in the underlying relationship.”
“Xi continues to see the U.S. as an existential threat. In Washington, a rare point of bipartisan agreement is that the U.S. should forcefully seek to stop China from ruining U.S. competitiveness,” Wei notes.
US and China’s ‘prolonged crisis’
“The extended period of continuous tensions is not the result of a specific, sudden event. In fact, it represents a policy sustained by both political parties in the United States, regardless of the president in office; this policy has been continuous across the last three administrations,” said University of Denver’s Suisheng Zhao, speaking at the Center for China and Globalization in Beijing in late October.
“While the U.S. parties often find themselves at odds on numerous issues, their stance on China policy has been virtually identical. Many now describe this situation as a new Cold War. However, I prefer the term ‘prolonged crisis’ to characterize it.”
Here is the full video of Zhao’s speech.
Execs to shell out $2,000 for Xi dinner
Executives from big businesses are planning to shell out big bucks to join a dinner with Xi Jinping, happening next Wednesday evening on the sidelines of APEC.
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