Beijing and Washington tried to lay down safeguards for their growing rivalry during US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to China, but it only resulted in blanket, no-holds-barred promises for the future. .
Leaving the Chinese capital on the night of Monday to Tuesday, the highest American diplomat notably regretted the non-resumption of dialogue between the armies of the two leading world powers.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and his American counterpart Joe Biden, however, hailed the visit as a success after months of tension.
“It was clear that the relationship was unstable and both sides recognized the need to work to stabilize it,” Blinken told reporters in Beijing on Monday.
The Biden government regularly claims to want to strengthen communication with China to prevent errors of assessment from degenerating into conflict.
It was clear that relations were unstable and both sides recognized the need to work to stabilize them.
But Antony Blinken acknowledged that the United States had not obtained the resumption of military dialogue, one of its main objectives in this regard.
China accuses the United States of insincerity in this matter, because it regularly sends planes and military ships near its territory.
The two powers also continue to have divergent views on Taiwan. Washington has approached in recent years the authorities of the island claimed by Beijing, for which it is a territory awaiting reunification with the rest of China – by force if necessary.
According to Antony Blinken, the United States wants to preserve the status quo and is worried about “provocations” by Beijing, which has carried out military exercises around the island after meetings between senior American officials and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing- wen.
The head of diplomacy within the Chinese Communist Party, Wang Yi, in this capacity head of foreign policy, told the US Secretary of State on Monday that China will make “no concessions” in this file.
“Both sides agreed to explore the possibility of stabilizing bilateral relations. There is no certainty that they will achieve this goal, ”said Bonnie Glaser, China specialist at the German Marshall Foundation of the United States (GMFUS in English), an institution which aims to promote transatlantic relations.
“It takes two”
For Yun Sun, director for China at the American think tank center Stimson, the United States has its share of responsibility for the non-resumption of military dialogue.
China’s current defense minister, Li Shangfu, has been under US government sanctions since 2018 for buying Russian weapons. The Biden government assures that this does not prevent him from discussing with his American counterpart, Lloyd Austin.
“Of course, that is not a problem for the Americans. But that poses one for the Chinese, ”notes Mme Yun.
“To dance, it takes two. In any case, it is not an unreasonable request” to lift these sanctions, she said.
For Shi Yinhong, professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing, the results of Antony Blinken’s visit remain in line with expectations.
Transit times are, he said, still good for a possible visit by Xi Jinping to the United States in November, when Joe Biden will host foreign leaders in San Francisco for an Asia-Pacific summit.
The idea of increased communication and closer cooperation “is of course positive, but it is difficult to implement it in practice”, laments Mr. Shi.
Xi Jinping and Joe Biden met in November in Bali, Indonesia, at a G20 summit, where they similarly pledged to control bilateral tensions.
But the good intentions were shattered less than three months later, when the United States shot down a Chinese balloon accused of spying on American territory.
The episode had led to the postponement of a then imminent visit by Antony Blinken to Beijing, and Xi Jinping castigated a few weeks later the “policy of containment” and “encirclement” led by the United States.
With continued US sanctions against Chinese companies, restrictions on the export of semiconductors to China, and US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy wishing to visit Taiwan, clouds remain in the Chinese-American skies.
“This temporary resumption of contact will not survive” this type of episode, believes Yun Sun, of the Stimson center.