US manages expectations of a breakthrough before Biden and Xi meet

Of all the issues dividing the United States and China — spy balloons, Beijing’s rapid buildup of nuclear weapons and Washington’s crackdown on advanced computer chips — the White House is embroiled in yet another topic of debate: what the Chinese leader will see if he looks out of his mind. window during his visit to California this week.

When President Biden meets President Xi Jinping on Wednesday, Chinese diplomats want to know what Mr. Xi will be looking at, and to make sure there are no protesters in the setting. Nearly every minute they spend together, from the number of steps it takes for Mr. Xi to reach a chair when he enters a room, to the specific time of their handshake, will be part of a highly choreographed diplomatic dance, designed to them the space to try to defuse a year of bubbling tensions.

The ceremonial details have now been released. But compared to the US-China summits a decade or more ago, expectations for a substantive agreement are minimal at best.

Mr Biden’s advisers have hinted at only one concrete agreement expected to emerge from the meeting, which will take place at the end of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, called APEC, in San Francisco. The leaders, they said, could announce a resumption of military-to-military communications, which were suspended by the Chinese after Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in the summer of 2022.

And both sides have discussed whether they could find a way to make a future commitment to keep artificial intelligence software out of their nuclear command and control systems. While that may seem like a fairly simple discussion, China has yet to engage in any significant negotiation over its rapidly growing nuclear arsenal, so even the first wedge in the issue could be of great importance.

Yet it is significant that the bar is so low. US officials say there is no plan for the two leaders to issue a joint statement of any kind. Instead, each government will provide its own account of the discussions.

There was a time when summits with Chinese leaders resulted in agreements on containing North Korea and preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, on climate targets and economic coordination to prevent financial crises and joint counter-terrorism efforts. Those days are over. While Mr. Biden plans to address China’s continued shipment of technology to Russia to fuel the war in Ukraine, and its purchases of sanctioned Russian and Iranian oil, there is little to no prospect of changing behavior, acknowledging officials.

The summit will mark the first time Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi have spoken in a year, and Mr. Xi’s first visit to U.S. soil since 2017. In their carefully crafted description of their expectations, Mr. Biden refrained from repeating their earlier desire to put “guardrails” in the relationship — a phrase the Chinese reject as a new American style of containment — or to put a “floor” under a relationship that is in a downward spiral has ended up.

In briefings to reporters, they have used phrases like “being clean” and keeping “open lines of communication” to describe a relationship they believe is best managed, not with “engagement” – the China approach that has seen decades has been advocated for for years – but with old-fashioned diplomacy. .

Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, told reporters on Monday that the relationship is now about “responsibly managing competition so that it does not devolve into conflict.” The way we achieve that is through intensive diplomacy,” Mr. Sullivan said. “This is how we clear up misconceptions and prevent surprises.”

Chinese officials say Xi will seek assurances from Biden that the United States is “not seeking a new Cold War,” the country’s ambassador to the United States, Xie Feng, said last week. But over the past year, Mr. Xi has made clear that he believes the United States is deep in Cold War behavior. “Western countries led by the United States have carried out a comprehensive containment, encirclement and suppression of China,” he said in March.

China’s main concerns have been the Biden administration’s efforts to build a patchwork of old allies and new partners in the Indo-Pacific – with new agreements from the Philippines to Papua New Guinea – to meet China’s ambitions counter China.

“We know this because China’s leadership complains frequently and widely about what they see as a US encirclement campaign,” said Jude Blanchette, a China scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Mr. Xi’s visit to APEC, a group of 21 countries that rim the Pacific Ocean, is, according to Mr. Blanchette, an “attempt to slow or change the pace and severity of future U.S. actions, especially in the technological field, which she looks equally precious.”

Both men will question each other about a possible conflict over Taiwan. Six months ago, U.S. officials conducted regular tabletop exercises on how they might respond to an attack on the island, or a stranglehold on the island.

Concerns remain, but U.S. officials now indicate they believe China’s economic slowdown has gained some momentum, leaving Xi in a bad position to risk broad economic sanctions. And in recent conversations with U.S. officials, Chinese diplomats sounded more concerned about Taiwan’s upcoming elections — worried that China could be forced to act if the elections fuel a move toward independence.

Analysts say Chinese officials, in turn, have been watching American political discord from afar. Republicans have attacked Mr. Biden for trying to stabilize the relationship with China, but until the Covid pandemic that was exactly what President Donald J. Trump said he was trying to do as he pursued trade deals. .

A letter Sent to the White House on Wednesday by a House Select Committee on China, Mr Biden called for challenging Mr Xi on several points of tension, including the unlawful detention of Americans, existing regulations on fentanyl production and recent near- clashes between Chinese and American ships and fighter planes.

Administration officials have largely avoided detailing how Mr. Biden plans to raise these issues with Mr. Xi, but said the president would address other concerns, including non-interference in Taiwan’s elections.

The administration has also said very little about how Mr. Biden plans to address the issue of China’s rapid nuclear buildup. The Pentagon recently reported that China’s arsenal had hit 500 strategic weapons, and expects that number to double by 2030. But the current number of weapons deployed by China is still one-third the size of the U.S. and Russian arsenals, and Chinese officials have told their U.S. counterparts that they will not discuss arms control until they are on par with the other two nuclear superpowers. The discussion about artificial intelligence could be the best entry into a broader nuclear discussion, experts say.

Mr. Biden is also expected to raise the war in Gaza with Mr. Xi, Mr. Sullivan said. Beijing has warm trade and diplomatic ties with Iran, a country that helps support Hamas and other militant groups in the Middle East. Biden is expected to emphasize to Xi that an extended war in the Middle East is “not in the interests of the People’s Republic of China,” using an acronym for the Chinese government, and that the United States will respond as Iranian proxies continue to attack US forces.

The meeting will come a year after Mr Biden and Mr Xi met and tried to strike a warmer tone at the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, another tightly scheduled affair.

(Mr. by a protester, and it took several minutes for security officials to reach her and escort her out. At the same event, the Chinese national anthem was announced as the anthem of the “Republic of China” – the formal name for Taiwan. Mr. Hu’s party considered leaving Washington.)

Biden’s advisers go into Wednesday’s meeting betting that the Chinese will be surprised by efforts to develop allies in the Indo-Pacific and build stronger diplomatic agreements with other leaders. That includes President Narendra Modi of India, whose country has been the target of Chinese aggression on its borders and who was guest of honor during a state visit to the White House in June.

In September, Mr. Biden met Mr. Modi again in India and then traveled to Vietnam to announce a new strategic partnership. On Monday, Mr. Biden hosted Joko Widodo, the president of Indonesia, at the White House, where both leaders announced that Indonesia is taking its relationship with the United States to the highest level.

Kurt Campbell, the President’s Coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs and nominee for Deputy Secretary of State, said in an interview with the Atlantic Council that the most important thing the United States must do at the summit is “to make it clear and demonstrate to the Chinese that we still have the power, that we are still the most powerful country, and that we are still committed to our greater target in the Indo-Pacific.”

Outside of the meeting with Mr. Biden, Mr. Xi is expected to spend much of his time in California showing American industry leaders that his country is open for business. After he and Mr Biden meet, Mr Xi is expected to speak to top US officials at a $2,000-a-plate dinner, part of a “CEO Summit” on the sidelines of the main event.

Mr. Biden is expected to attend another event, officials said.