Global Courant
In June 2023, four months after a quirky surveillance balloon his upcoming visit spiraled out of control, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Beijing to begin erecting the “guard rails” envisioned by US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Bali in November 2022.
He was succeeded by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in early July. The United States and China may be close to stabilizing their rocky relationship — an opportunity they shouldn’t pass up.
That of the Biden administration strategy on China has been to invest in domestic competitiveness, align efforts with a network of allies and partners and, by leveraging these assets, compete with China. The government has also tried to isolate China through the Summit for Democracy, Quad and Indo-Pacific Economic Framework and through bodies such as the G7.
Having boosted or leaning on allies chip away As for their relations with China, Washington is now trying to create a “bottom” under its own working relations with Beijing.
For China, forging the “least worst” relationship with the United States retains value from a geopolitical and development standpoint, given the ties that still exist with the United States. point of total destruction.
However, there are no illusions that bilateral trade and technological frictions are purely an economic matter. They are meant to suppress China’s development and get up – calls for ‘self-reliance’.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen meets with Premier Li Qiang in Beijing, July 7, 2023. Photo: Screenshot/NBC
The guardrails between the US and China must be aware of these eroding political foundations. To be sustainable, they must adhere to certain broad beliefs.
The “pressure valve of the dialogue” must be the “first and most basicguardrail on the relationship. While beneficial involvement cannot coexist with coercion, dialogue should not be construed as leverage or a favor to be extended.
Dialogue should be based on mutual respect. Both sides are free to introduce sanctions for reasons of national security or public interest. Similar to the European Parliament’s suspension of ratification of the European Union-China Investment Agreement in May 2021 after Beijing sanctioned some EU actors, neither side should cherish the illusion that business-as-usual measures or open communication channels can be maintained with sanctioned parties.
Subsequently, the practice of self-control rather than the pursuit of the other’s behavior change should become standard order. Both Washington and Beijing must rise above their views of ideology and ideology to form a lasting consensus. This includes the formation of civilian-led crisis management channels, rather than relying solely on the unsatisfactory military-military mechanisms.
Just because the era of strategic cooperation ushered in by the Shanghai communiqué is over does not axiomatically mean that the United States and China are doomed to succumb to conflict. An intermediate balance is achievable, but its authorship requires exceptional diplomatic skills.
Third, US-China relations should be framed with the eye reassuring the other and reduce differences without losing sight of the underlying challenges. In Bali, Xi had offered “three no.” China is not trying to change the existing international order, is not interfering in the internal affairs of the United States, and has no intention of supplanting the United States.
Biden Tendered”five no.” The United States is not striving for a new Cold War. It is not intended to change the Chinese system. The revitalization of its alliances is not aimed at China. It does not support Taiwanese independence. And it does not seek conflict with China.
These guarantees are a ballast to stabilize the ship of US-China relations. It makes little sense for either party to dwell on the underlying intentions of the other party’s assurances. Both parties should accept them in good faith and strive to commemorate them in a joint communiqué when the opportunity arises.
Fourth, both sides should strive to respect the inviolability of each other’s territorial interests. Washington swore in the Shanghai communiqué that it “would not contest the (Chinese) position” that Taiwan is part of the People’s Republic of China – even if it “recognised” but did not “acknowledge” Taiwan to be part of China.
Today, the United States is relentlessly challenging that proposal, inclusive remove the phrase “Taiwan is part of China” from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs factsheet on relations with Taiwan. The challenge must stop and Washington must credibly signal that its “one China policy” is not being eroded.
A helicopter flies a Taiwanese flag in Taoyuan, Taiwan. Photo: Ceng Shou Yi/NurPhoto/Getty Images
Beijing, in turn, must credibly signal that peaceful reunification remains on the table and that there is no specific timetable for reunification. Episodes like the balloon incident should also not be repeated. But until China’s human rights record improves and state intervention in the economy is reduced, the deep perceptual divide between the two sides will not appreciably narrow.
Finally, both parties must anchor their relationship in established international law. China must fully comply with the South China Sea arbitration award court award. The ruling by a tribunal established in Annex VII of the Law of the Sea that the vast military base of Diego Garcia in the western Indian Ocean of the United States was in fact housed in illegally occupied Mauritian territory (under British colonial administration) is also binding.
Succession arrangements should be made with due respect for the sovereignty of Mauritius. Statements of the World Trade Organization (WTO) must to be honored at. After all, the international trade sequence is part of the ‘rules-based sequence’.
The prospects for sustainable progress in US-China relations may be modest in the near term. Depending on the result of the 2024 US presidential election, an opportunity to create a more sustainable strategic framework could open. Seizing that opportunity depends a lot on getting the guardrails right at this point.
Sourabh Gupta is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for China-America Studies in Washington, DC.
This article was originally published by East Asia Forum and has been republished under a Creative Commons license.
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