For Biden, a subtle shift in the balance of power with China’s Xi Jinping

When President Biden met President Xi Jinping on the edge of Silicon Valley on Wednesday, there was a subtle but noticeable shift in the power dynamic between two countries that have spent most of the past few years denouncing, undermining and sanctioning each other.

For the first time in years, a Chinese leader desperately needed a few things from the United States. Mr. the breakthroughs in artificial intelligence that make these possible.

All this could explain why Mr. Biden’s aides were able, by Chinese diplomatic standards, to negotiate quite quickly potentially major breakthroughs in halting the flow of the chemical precursors to fentanyl into the United States and resuming military-military communication. for two superpowers whose armed forces clash against each other every day.

The lingering question now is whether Xi’s charm offensive – which was on full display Wednesday night as he entertained CEOs – marks a lasting change or a tactical maneuver.

While Mr. Biden’s aides welcomed the summit’s concrete results, they readily conceded they could be short-lived, aimed at guiding Mr. Xi through the toughest era of bankruptcies, real estate collapses and losses in consumer confidence in forty years. . Nevertheless, Biden appears eager to take advantage of the breathing space, hoping he will have more time before the presidential election to rebuild industry competitiveness and limit China’s gains in the Pacific.

But few doubt that Xi will, when he can, resume his efforts to supplant the United States as the world’s most capable military, technological and economic power.

Still, the change in tone, even if temporary, was welcome. It started over the summer, when Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken made a trip to Beijing that had been postponed by the Chinese spy balloon incident. As the depths of China’s economic crisis became apparent, Mr. Blinken reported that he was struck by the eagerness for visits there by Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. There were quiet meetings in Vienna, and then in Washington, between Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, and his colleague Wang Yi.

It was all meant to culminate in the meeting with Mr Xi, which lasted four hours at the Filoli mansion and gardens on Wednesday.

During the meeting, Mr. Xi lamented the damage done to China by portraying the country as a villain in the United States, according to administration officials who declined to speak on the record about the discussions. Mr. Xi made his longest and loudest protests about disabling the fastest computer chips, which Mr. Biden responded would help China’s military. The two leaders fundamentally disagreed on that point: What Mr. Xi sees as economic strangulation, Mr. Biden sees as a matter of national security.

But the tone was always measured, sometimes friendly, peppered with Mr. Biden’s memories of previous trips with Mr. Xi in China, the United States and at summits around the world. Mr Xi then refined his speech so that the CEOs could remember happier moments in the US-China relationship.

“It struck me that it was a speech that could have been given seven or 10 years ago in the age of engagement,” said Michael Froman, the former U.S. trade representative and director of Citigroup who recently became chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations and attended the dinner. “It was as if the era of ‘wolf-warrior diplomacy’ had never happened, and some of the events of recent years had not happened.”

In fact, the most striking element of the visit was Mr Xi’s apparent abandonment of the “wolf warrior” tone – a tone that the Chinese leader himself had encouraged.

The phrase came to embrace a Chinese diplomatic style, focused mainly but hardly exclusively on the United States, in which Chinese envoys described the end of an era of American dominance. China was on the rise, the wolf warriors declared, and America was in unstoppable decline. The arguments closely mirrored some that Mr. Xi himself made in speeches to party leaders and military officials in Beijing.

Mr Xi sent one of his favorite wolf warriors, Qin Gang, to Washington as his hand-picked ambassador. During Mr. Biden’s first year in office, the envoy spoke of “lies, disinformation” about China that were “spreading every day.” He complained: “China is treated like a child and is scolded by his or her parents every day. ‘You are wrong. You have to do this. You should not. ”

So when Mr. Qin was recalled from Washington to become secretary of state, it was assumed in Washington that his approach had been a success — and he was rewarded for the blunt, in-your-face diplomacy that once led Mr. Sullivan asked out loud: “Who calls their diplomats wolf warriors?”

Mr Xi appears to have reconsidered the wisdom of this. Mr. Qin disappeared over the summer, not long after meeting Mr. Blinken in Beijing. The conversations that have taken place since then have been largely practical, not polemical.

Mr. Blinken was able to spend his summer vacation negotiating the contours of the crackdown on fentanyl precursor chemicals, and the Chinese quickly made it illegal to traffic in those chemicals — and began arresting violators in the past week or so, most of whom were identified by the United States. It was reminiscent of a previous era when China would crack down on weapons and technology companies that sold parts to North Korea or Iran. Still, U.S. officials warn they fully expect some makers of the chemicals will figure out how to get around the sanctions and return to the market. But this complicates their lives.

When the conversation on Wednesday turned to military-to-military communications, Mr Xi repeatedly urged Mr Biden to simply pick up the phone and call him if there was a problem. Of course, conversations between the leaders of the two countries are never that simple.