Biden, Xi mark out their turf

By Andrew Hammond

Expectations had been set low for this week's first presidential summit between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping. Yet, they spoke for an unexpectedly long three and a half hours, with the Chinese leader greeting his U.S. counterpart as his "old friend."

While it is much too optimistic to say that bilateral ties have now turned a corner, atmospherics have ― at least temporarily ― improved and this underlines that the direction of bilateral relations need not inevitably be toward ever greater hostility. The occasional warmth of the summit builds from the unexpected bilateral climate cooperation deal announced at the Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow.

Amidst the wide-ranging security and economic-related disagreements that exist between the two sides, this month's climate accord indicates that there may remain scope to work together where there are clearly defined common interests. After all, tackling global warming is a key political priority of both nations, and Xi said in the meeting that "humanity lives in a global village, and we face multiple challenges together. China and the United States need to increase communication and cooperation."

The fact that Biden and Xi have a personal backstory, getting to know each other originally when they were both vice presidents, may prove helpful too. This is because, while potentially very difficult economic and security fundamentals will largely determine the course of ties in coming years, personal chemistry helps, and Biden told Xi that "we need to establish some common sense guardrails, to be clear and honest where we disagree, and work together where our interests intersect so that competition does not turn into conflict."

The importance of this personal factor was shown during the Trump presidency when the then-U.S. leader's erratic nature accentuated the natural zig-zags in ties. During the Obama years, by contrast, relations remained generally cordial, in significant part because of the commitment of Xi and Obama to bilateral stability. At that time, Xi even outlined a desire to fundamentally redevelop a new type of great power relationship with the United States to avoid the conflictual great power patterns of the past.

That latter goal still lacks any obvious definition the best part of a decade later, and the dynamics of the bilateral relationship have changed very significantly in the intervening years. This is not just because of the controversies of the pandemic, or the extra uncertainty injected into ties by Trump.

Take the example of Taiwan where China's recent incursions into the disputed island country's Air Defense Identification Zone have alarmed many in Washington. During the summit, Biden said he opposes unilateral efforts to change the status quo or undermine peace and stability across the strait, while Xi said that the U.S. president is playing with fire on the issue.

Even if such tensions can be managed in coming years ― a big "if" ― there are wider in-built hazards in the bilateral landscape. This includes U.S. legislation requiring the U.S. Commerce Secretary to deliver a "Report on Chinese Investment" in the United States to Congress every two years up to 2026.

The bill singles out Chinese investment as a security threat, and zeroes in on Beijing's "Made in China 2025" plan. This, and other legislation such as the Hong Kong Democracy Act, have set the seeds for future strife with the Chinese defense ministry asserting that they "abound in Cold War thinking, exaggerate the level of the China-U.S. confrontation ... undermines the atmosphere of development of China-U.S. military ties, and damages China-U.S. mutual trust and cooperation."

Amidst all these challenges, a key question that Xi will be pondering is how long Biden will be in power. For while the Chinese president is tightening his grip with a third term, it is not certain that his U.S. counterpart will even seek a second one, by which time he will be in his early 80s.

This is a non-trivial point as Xi would be more likely to engage, substantively, with Biden if he knows the latter will be in power for eight rather four years. Both may ultimately favor a strategic dialogue to try to find a framework, or "grand bargain," to renew bilateral relations, but this is the type of initiative that may require more than a single U.S. presidential term to formulate.

Xi is also acutely aware that, for all of the new U.S. president's indications that he might row back some of Trump's overt hostility to China, Biden has yet to reverse any of his predecessor's fundamental policies. Indeed, he has reaffirmed several of them, including rejecting nearly all of China's maritime claims in the South China Sea.

The most likely prognosis for U.S.-China ties in the short to medium term is therefore one of biding time and tensions. However, this is not inevitable, despite the growing conventional wisdom that views bilateral ties from an ever more pessimistic prism.

Andrew Hammond (andrewkorea@outlook.com) is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.