US President Biden and Chinese President Xi met in the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Meeting in San Francisco last week. This was a highly anticipated and hoped-for meeting, which we discussed in previous columns. The meeting took place at a time when two major wars are taking place, i.e. the war in Ukraine and the war in Israel (which may be connectedwith one another) and when the Sino-American relations are at one of the lowest points in recent history.
Very high on the agenda was the US request to re-establish military-to-military communications, which were interrupted by China after the visit of former US House of Representative Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan in August 2022. Tension had further increased after the discovery of the Chinese spy balloon, which led to the cancellation of the trip by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to Beijing earlier this year. The visit eventually took place in June, but Blinken failed to re-open the interrupted military lines. Finally, one of the positive outcomes of this meeting was that the military-to-military communications were re-opened.
Other tangible results were an in-principle agreement to fight climate change, ahead of the COP28 conference in Dubai later this month, and the joint effort to stop fentanyl trafficking. The two presidents also agreed to continue talking on a bilateral basis to avoid miscommunication and misunderstandings, and Xi agreed to send more pandas to the US zoos, a symbolic gesture akin to holding out an olive branch.
So far so good. But here is the less good news. The re-opening of military lines is a very positive step, but it was also unavoidable, considering the number of incidents that have occurred in the Taiwan Strait in the last few months, which had led to a near collision between US and Chinese vessels. The re-opening of communications may also be indicative of a possible intensification of the disputes, before the beginning of year 2024, which will open with the elections in Taiwan and will close with the US presidential election – a time window during which Chinese pressures on Taiwan are set to increase. Second, the commitment on climate change is as positive as it is vague, lacking as it is in any serious joint target and enforcement mechanism. Third, when explicitly asked, President Biden did not refrain from repeating that Xi is a “dictator,” causing much disappointment to his Secretary of State.
Additionally, in spite of the meeting, Cold War 2 remains in full swing: China is putting no pressure on Russia to stop its brutal invasion of Ukraine. Regarding the Middle East, the BRICS group has just expanded to Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE, among other countries. Perhaps it could exert some pressure on those countries to induce them to find a solution for the Israeli-Palestinian perennial conflict.
Finally, President Xi reportedly said: “Earth is big enough for both our countries to succeed,” which recalls the 007 movie “The World is Not Enough.” But what lies beneath that sentence is the suggestion to “partition” the world into spheres of influence led by the US and China respectively, which can grow and prosper at the same time instead of cooperating for the management of global emergencies. The growth of spheres of influence is what defined Cold War 1, and is likely to be the main characteristic of Cold War 2 as well.
