U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping plan to speak by telephone in the next few weeks. This was one of the outcomes of a meeting of senior U.S. and Chinese officials during the last week of August, and the one highlighted by many media reports.
Direct dialogue between the two top leaders raises hopes for pulling China-U.S. relations out of a downturn that dates back to pandemic-related acrimony in 2020. Xi and Biden have met in person twice and spoken by phone or videoconference six times since Biden became president. These dialogues, however, have delivered disappointingly few lasting, positive outcomes. China-U.S. relations have reached the point where, because of past experience and larger structural factors, a negotiated breakthrough in relations is unlikely.
Thus, the usefulness of high-level bilateral discussions is largely limited to performing for each side’s domestic audience – demonstrating competence in managing the relationship plus courage in calling out the other side for bad behavior – with occasional and usually fragile agreements for modest cooperation on a few issues.
The two governments now habitually talk past each other. When U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with Xi in August, the Chinese leader reportedly said, “First of all, we must answer the general question of whether China and the United States are rivals or partners.” Xi knows, but refuses to accept, the answer to his question.
For decades, U.S. policy has treated China as both a partner and a rival. The Biden administration has repeatedly reiterated that its approach to China combines strategic competition with cooperation in some areas.
Part of Xi’s program is to promote the notion of international relations with Chinese characteristics. According to this idea, the inevitability of conflict among states and attempts by the strong to dominate the weak are inventions of the Western countries. Chinese history and philosophy, on the other hand, supposedly establish the viability of a harmonious international order in which no hegemon presides and all states enjoy equal benefit. It is patriotic, therefore, for Xi and other officials to push back against what the CCP has characterized as a flawed, Western view of international relations as inherently conflictual.
Xi’s government describes the model for China-U.S. relations as “win-win cooperation.” Chinese officials resist calling the relationship “competitive” because a competition implies only one side can win.
In another disconnect, Chinese officials continue to say the U.S. government must abide by the “Bali consensus.” This refers to four promises Beijinhs says Biden made while meeting with Xi in Bali, Indonesia in 2022. (There is no mention of this “consensus” in the U.S. government readout form the meeting.)
The statements attributed to Biden are anodyne: The United States does not intend to overthrow the CCP, start a new Cold War against China, or suppress China’s economic development, and does not support Taiwan independence. China’s government seems to believe these statements preclude Washington from criticizing Chinese policies, selling arms to Taiwan, or restricting China’s access to certain advanced technologies. No American president, however, would interpret Biden’s statements as having these implications.
In a few circumstances, high-level bilateral talks can substantially improve inter-state relations. Sometimes one government can credibly present an alternative and more benign explanation of its actions, reducing tensions with another government. In an unfortunate example, after repeatedly calling out China for refusing to solve the North Korea nuclear weapons crisis, former U.S. President Trump said following a telephone call with Xi that he accepted Xi’s position that China has limited influence over Pyongyang. “After listening for 10 minutes, I realized it’s not so easy…. it’s not what you would think,” Trump said.
In general, however, the likelihood is very low that Beijing will manage to persuade Biden or a future U.S. president not to be alarmed by actions that Americans now perceive as aggressive – including China’s nuclear weapons buildup, economic coercion, cyber theft, interference in other countries’ domestic politics, expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea, and threats to use military force against Taiwan. On all of these issues, Americans know the Chinese narratives and mostly reject them.
Similarly, no presentation by U.S. officials is likely to convince Beijing that U.S. support for Taiwan or opposition to high-tech transfers to China is justified.
In some instances, one government successfully persuades another that a change in behavior is necessary to preclude an outcome both want to avoid. An example was the announcement by then-U.S. President George W. Bush, with China’s Premier Wen Jiabao standing by his side, that U.S. policy was to oppose Taiwan making “unilateral” changes to the status quo across the Taiwan Strait. Wen had convinced Bush that Taiwan’s President Chen Shui-bian was moving Taiwan toward formal independence and that this would lead to a China-U.S. war. The public U.S. rebuke of Taiwan’s government was unusual, and a win for Beijing.
With regard to current China-U.S. relations, however, there are two problems. First, major policies of both countries – such as U.S. policy toward Taiwan – are by now refined to the point that a major revision aimed at pleasing the negotiation partner is very unlikely. Each side focuses mostly on insisting that the other side is responsible for the problem and bears the onus for making policy changes.
Second, even when one side makes a concessionary change, the impact is fleeting. Bush’s statement helped the relationship safely navigate the Chen Shui-bian years, but the danger of a China-U.S. war over Taiwan soon returned and is now greater than ever.
In another example, getting China to sign the Code for Unexpected Encounters at Sea in 2014 originally seemed like a significant success, and a major step toward reducing the chances of an accidental war. Since then, however, “unprofessional” actions by China’s ships and aircraft toward U.S. and other foreign crews have become routine.
In theory, two countries that have a recent history of relatively poor relations may recognize they have unrealized potential for cooperation and agree to re-characterize their relationship as friendly rather than adversarial. This describes the China-U.S. rapprochement that emerged in the 1970s. The conditions for a shift of this magnitude, however, no longer exist. There is no common geopolitical foe like the Soviet Union providing a rationale for China-U.S. strategic cooperation.
Instead, a set of fundamental strategic disagreements irreconcilably divide Beijing and Washington: the legitimacy of U.S. alliances and influence in Asia, whether Taiwan should enjoy self-determination, China’s purported ownership of the South China Sea, Beijing’s support for Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, and how to deal with North Korea.
Xi, of course, knows the United States will have a new president in a few months, but even after that, don’t expect summit meetings or phone calls to rehabilitate the relationship. Neither country is prepared to cease pushing its agenda for the Asia-Pacific region, which is the deep source of tensions. U.S. and Chinese officials don’t necessarily know each other’s countries well, but their conceptions – and misconceptions – about each other’s intentions are deeply ingrained.