{"id":68658,"date":"2021-11-17T15:20:16","date_gmt":"2021-11-17T04:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=68658"},"modified":"2021-11-17T17:33:52","modified_gmt":"2021-11-17T06:33:52","slug":"biden-and-xi-kerry-and-xie-monologues-not-dialogue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/biden-and-xi-kerry-and-xie-monologues-not-dialogue\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden and Xi, Kerry and Xie: monologues, not dialogue"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Yesterday\u2019s virtual summit between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping followed two presidential telephone calls and last week\u2019s joint declaration<\/a> on enhanced climate action drafted by US climate envoy John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua.<\/p>\n

The meeting\u2019s outcome<\/a> was underwhelming: vaguely reassuring but laden with warning bells for how both Biden and Xi see the result and think about what happens next.<\/p>\n

The danger is that Biden thinks he\u2019s achieved more than he has, and that Xi feels more empowered to continue on his current path. We\u2019ll get signs on both in the weeks ahead.<\/p>\n

Biden clearly intended to set the terms to compete intensely on a range of issues where US and Chinese interests clash\u2014Taiwan, China\u2019s military aggression in the South China Sea, human rights and the use of trade as a weapon against US allies.<\/p>\n

Biden also wanted to map out where holding the advantage is important for national power and prosperity, like in high technology.<\/p>\n

His administration has worked hard with allies and partners to create a unified assessment on this key issue. That was most clearly expressed in the June Brussels communiqu\u00e9<\/a> from the 30 NATO allies: \u2018China’s stated ambitions and assertive behaviour present systemic challenges to the rules-based international order and to areas relevant to Alliance security. We are concerned by those coercive policies which stand in contrast to the fundamental values enshrined in the Washington Treaty\u2019 (which created NATO).<\/p>\n

Biden told Xi<\/a> he sees competition in these intense areas as needing \u2018guard rails\u2019 along with communication and engagement to limit the risks of escalation. This is a worthy goal. There\u2019s no direct phone line between the US and China for crisis contact and, and even if there was, Xi has empowered no one to answer it whose words would matter.<\/p>\n

In their September phone call, Biden told Xi<\/a>: \u2018It seems to me our responsibility as leaders of China and the US is to ensure that our competition between our countries does not veer into conflict, whether intended or unintended.\u2019<\/p>\n

At the same time, the Biden administration has sought to cooperate with Beijing on key global challenges where collective action is deeply desirable, notably pandemic control and climate change. This is significant for Biden\u2019s base and fits with much of his domestic economic program, to the extent he can get it through Congress.<\/p>\n

Xi went to the summit with equally clear intent. He bases his policy towards the US on the assessment that its power is waning as China\u2019s grows<\/a>. He sees the current decade as a perhaps unique window of opportunity because the US and its partners are preparing to raise the political and military costs to Beijing of conflict over Taiwan, and because China has entered a period of demographic decline and slowing growth.<\/p>\n

At the summit, Xi continued his line that the US must make compromises to get the relationship \u2018back on track\u2019.<\/p>\n

He declared that he was ready to \u2018work with President Biden to build consensus and take active steps to move China\u2013US relations forward in a positive direction\u2019, also using the Beijing boilerplate language of \u2018mutual respect\u2019.<\/p>\n

Chinese state media<\/a> reports of earlier discussions didn\u2019t mention US concerns over Chinese intimidation of Taiwan, human rights and Xinjiang, or economic coercion of US allies. Instead, state media represents Biden\u2019s statements on Taiwan as accepting a \u2018one China\u2019 policy, without noting the fundamental differences between Beijing\u2019s version of this and the US\u2019s<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The content of the six-page summit release<\/a> from China\u2019s foreign ministry is unchanged from speeches Xi delivered in 2017<\/a> and at the Chinese Communist Party\u2019s centenary<\/a> celebration, despite the marked changes in China\u2019s external environment. It reads like Xi was giving Biden a rousing lecture about the path he needs to take to benefit from Xi\u2019s leadership, just as he repeatedly tells the Chinese people to do.<\/p>\n

Xi\u2019s talking, not listening. He raises not a glimmer of a possibility of Beijing making policy or behavioural change on any of the difficult issues in the US\u2013China relationship: any change must come from Biden as the price of engagement.<\/p>\n

Xi sees the Biden meeting and phone calls as global recognition of China as a great power, at least equal in status to the US, and as a means of achieving concessions from. He conveys<\/a>\u00a0his overarching narrative that engaging with China is \u2018win\u2013win\u2019 or \u2018not zero sum\u2019 cooperation, while underlining that he has no intention of shifting where Beijing\u2019s \u2018core interests\u2019 are involved. We hear about \u2018managing differences\u2019 and \u2018showing mutual respect\u2019, but there\u2019s no indication he sees any need to reciprocate for US compromises or policy moves benefiting Beijing.<\/p>\n

This words\u2013action gap has characterised Beijing\u2019s international commitments under Xi. Whether at this summit, the World Trade Organization<\/a>\u00a0or the United Nations<\/a>, on Covid-19, on state-owned enterprises<\/a>\u00a0or on the militarisation of the South China Sea, in each case, Xi has authorised officials to commit to \u2018best efforts\u2019, to consider future actions to address outstanding issues, or to promise cooperation and openness\u2014or he\u2019s used this approach himself<\/a>. But these future promises have led to little.<\/p>\n

In almost all of the above areas, as well as on Hong Kong<\/a>, Xi has simply broken his word without suffering embarrassment or adverse consequences.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s ideology and policy<\/a> at work. International engagement with Chinese socialist characteristics in the \u2018new era of Xi Jinping thought<\/a>\u2019 was the foundation for the Xi\u2013Biden summit and will remain for future engagements.<\/p>\n

On climate change, Biden worked Congress<\/a> hard to be able to take new commitments to Glasgow that Kerry clearly used in negotiating with Xie. Xi didn\u2019t see a need to turn up at Glasgow, and after a splash globally<\/a> about not building more coal-fired power stations outside China, he noted that it would continue to build<\/a> coal-fired power stations for its domestic needs.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s commitment to \u2018net zero\u2019 emissions by 2060, while late, is welcome. It sees value in acting on renewable energy for its economy and as a source of technological and economic power, so we can expect actions here\u2014with the US and the rest of the world finding out about them as they unfold, not because of clever US diplomacy and engagement.<\/p>\n

The Kerry\u2013Xie negotiations that resulted in the joint climate declaration unveiled to a surprised<\/a> COP26 falls into a familiar pattern of Beijing\u2019s statecraft.<\/p>\n

Putting aside whether a two-nation deal that blindsides the international gathering is good for collective action, it\u2019s worth examining what each committed to. It looks like neediness from the Biden administration\u2014and certainly Kerry\u2014to achieve a deal. That\u2019s predominantly bad news, for both climate action and strategic stability.<\/p>\n

The declaration begins well saying<\/a> the US and China \u2018recognize the seriousness and urgency of the climate crisis\u2019. They\u2019re committed to tackling it through their respective accelerated actions in the critical decade of the 2020s and \u2018committed to pursuing such efforts, including by taking enhanced climate actions that raise ambition in the 2020s\u2019. It has clear commitments from the US, and blurry words from China on enhanced actions.<\/p>\n

The US announced a methane emissions reduction action plan it had worked on with the EU but which is at least an actual plan. China said it \u2018intends to develop a comprehensive and ambitious National Action Plan on methane\u2019 and would join the US in convening a meeting in 2022 to focus on the specifics of enhancing measurement and mitigation of methane.<\/p>\n

The US has committed to reaching 100% carbon-pollution-free electricity by 2035. China will phase down coal consumption during the 15th\u00a0five-year plan and make \u2018best efforts\u2019 to accelerate this work.<\/p>\n

Kerry gave China the status of a cooperating partner on climate change at a price to the US but no price to China. That gives Xi grounds to expect that Biden will operate the same way in issues beyond climate change, now that the positive \u2018atmospherics\u2019 of this first summit have set the scene.<\/p>\n

The warning bells come from how these US\u2013China interactions create the prospect of a \u2018G2\u2019 setting the terms for how the broader international community then engages on multiple issues.<\/p>\n

This is the new type of great-power relations<\/a> Xi offered Barack Obama when he was president, and Obama was smart not to accept. Here a strengthened China is offering it again. If Biden thinks he\u2019s found a better way to work with his old friend<\/a> Xi than Obama\u2014or Donald Trump\u2014did, it should worry us all.<\/p>\n

The Kerry\u2013Xie deal is bad news for multilateralism and a disturbing sign that parts of the US administration do not grasp the multiplier effect the US gains from working with its allies and partners.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a contrast to Biden at the NATO summit and G7-plus<\/a>, let alone his announcing AUKUS<\/a>, and we have to stop it becoming contagious to broader US China policy.<\/p>\n

The net effect of the summit is that both leaders expressed their carefully prepared, consistent messages and they\u2019ve established a less fraught atmosphere between them, while leaving all the underlying stark differences and tensions in place.<\/p>\n

If Xi puts the summit conversation and the Kerry\u2013Xie deal together and concludes it all adds up to consequence-free pursuit of everything he\u2019s engaged on\u2014because Biden, like Kerry, is needier than him\u2014we\u2019re in for a troubled time and increasingly disappointing US\u2013China summits.<\/p>\n

So, whether the motivation is addressing climate change or deterring China from conflict, or both, may Kurt Campbell and Jake Sullivan, not John Kerry, be Biden\u2019s primary implementers, and the ones briefing him on what to do next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday\u2019s virtual summit between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping followed two presidential telephone calls and last week\u2019s joint declaration on enhanced climate action drafted by US climate envoy John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart, Xie …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":766,"featured_media":68663,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[283,2825,392,2380,204],"class_list":["post-68658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-climate-change","tag-joe-biden","tag-taiwan","tag-us-china-relations","tag-xi-jinping"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBiden and Xi, Kerry and Xie: monologues, not dialogue | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/biden-and-xi-kerry-and-xie-monologues-not-dialogue\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Biden and Xi, Kerry and Xie: monologues, not dialogue | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yesterday\u2019s virtual summit between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping followed two presidential telephone calls and last week\u2019s joint declaration on enhanced climate action drafted by US climate envoy John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart, Xie ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/biden-and-xi-kerry-and-xie-monologues-not-dialogue\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-11-17T04:20:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-11-17T06:33:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/GettyImages-1236590960.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"672\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Michael Shoebridge\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Michael Shoebridge\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\",\"name\":\"The Strategist\",\"description\":\"ASPI's analysis and commentary site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/biden-and-xi-kerry-and-xie-monologues-not-dialogue\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/GettyImages-1236590960.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/GettyImages-1236590960.jpg\",\"width\":1024,\"height\":672,\"caption\":\"US President Joe Biden gestures as he meets with China's President Xi Jinping during a virtual summit from the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC, November 15, 2021. 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