Global Courant 2023-04-28 15:30:00
A breakdown in communications between the United States and China raises the risk of an unintentional crisis or conflict between the two superpowers, current and former US and Western officials say.
Diplomatic channels between China and the US have largely dried up as relations between the superpowers have steadily deteriorated over two successive administrations, with Beijing so far unwilling to say when top US officials from the Biden administration will be welcome for meetings at high level.
Even if the two parties can arrange another one phone call Soon between President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping or a cabinet-level meeting to discuss trade, as White House officials hope, an underlying distrust has infected the relationship, according to former US diplomats and Western officials.
“There is so much suspicion on both sides,” said Susan Thornton, a former US diplomat who worked in Asia. “The lack of communication only reinforces and escalates the downward spiral,” said Thornton, now a senior fellow at Yale Law School.
Although the dialogue between China and the US has stalled, Beijing is opening its doors to other governments and promoting itself as a global peacemaker ready to heal conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine.
On Wednesday, Xi spoke for the first time with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying Beijing is “on the side of peace” and announcing plans to send an envoy “to have in-depth communication with all sides” in the war.
The call came after China rolled out the red carpet for French President Emmanuel Macron and hosted the foreign ministers of Iran and Saudi Arabia earlier this month, following a China-brokered deal that restored diplomatic ties between the two regional rivals. .
from China neighbors and US allies worry that the breakdown of communications between the world’s superpowers could derail the world economy or lead to an accidental clash, with each side misinterpreting the other’s intentions, according to Western officials and former US diplomats.
But China sees little value in continuing talks with the Biden administration on trade or other issues as it has come to the conclusion that the US is trying to block its economic progress and “encircle” its military, former officials and officials say. experts.
“The regime has decided that we are out to get them and we will not tolerate the rise of China to a point where it can become a competitor, let alone usurp as king of the mountain said Thomas Fingar, a fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University who has held senior positions in the State Department.
Bonnie Glaser, general manager of the Indo-Pacific program at Germany’s Marshall Fund, said it was unclear if or when China would agree to face-to-face talks with Biden’s top diplomat, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, or with the Treasury and Trade. secretaries.
“They don’t see much gain in dealing with the United States. They are not convinced that the US agenda is beneficial to China,” Glaser said.
Instead, China is pursuing an ambitious global campaign as a power broker and trading partner, counting on being able to strengthen its relations with a range of countries, especially those outside Europe and North America, without having to cultivate relations with the United States.
“China wants to show the rest of the world that it is interested in peace, and in everything China does, it contrasts with the United States by saying, ‘We are constructive, we promote peace, while the United States is do’ add fuel to the fire by supplying weapons to Ukraine,” Glaser said.
The aggressive domestic political climate in both countries fuels the lack of dialogue, former officials say, as neither government wants to be seen as weak or too willing to engage in talks.
A planned visit by Blinken in February should thaw the ice and ease tensions with Beijing. But a 200-foot Chinese airship, which US officials said was a spy balloon designed for eavesdropping, crossed the US for several days before being shot down by a US fighter jet, prompting Blinken to cancel his trip. Some lawmakers sharply criticized the government for not bringing down the balloon sooner.
After the balloon delivery, China and the US must agree on a rescheduled visit to Blinken.
The White House expects a call between Biden and Xi soon, a senior administration official said, and efforts are being made to arrange meetings with the Chinese counterparts of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Talks between the two governments through embassies are continuing, the government official said.
But military-to-military talks have been suspended, despite repeated requests from Washington. And more than 100 communication channels between various ministries and agencies are dormant, depriving both sides of mechanisms that can resolve minor disagreements and disputes.
Former intelligence officers and diplomats are concerned about the lack of communication should an incident similar to a 2001 collision between a Chinese fighter jet and an EP-3E US Navy surveillance aircraft occur near Hainan Island. That episode created a crisis, but relations between China and the US were much better at the time.
In today’s tense atmosphere, a mishap between the two armies can quickly escalate with unpredictable consequences, said John Hamre, CEO of the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.
“I think it would be very difficult to control anything if there was an EP-3-type incident now because everyone is just ready to see dark motives and evil intent,” said Hamre, who in the 1970s served as a senior Pentagon official in the nineties. .
Hammer signed to a call last year from business leaders and policy experts calling for the re-establishment of constructive dialogue between the US and China, arguing that the two countries still had shared economic interests.
However, both the Biden administration and Xi’s administration seem to want to avoid any sign of calling for talks.
“The conventional wisdom in Washington now – and also in Beijing – is that dialogue just for the sake of dialogue is a waste of time, or something negative that shows weakness. So neither of them wants to do that,” said Kurt Tong, a former US diplomat and now a managing partner at The Asia Group, a business consulting firm headquartered in Washington.
In recent years, bilateral talks with China have been candid and helped both sides better understand each other’s views, according to Michael Green, chief executive officer of the United States Studies Center at the University of Sydney, who held senior positions in George W. Bush’s administration. .
But “things changed with Xi Jinping,” Green said.
The Chinese president’s iron grip on power curtailed what officials were willing to say and Beijing took the position that the United States and its Western partners were in decline, Green said. US rhetoric about intense competition with China didn’t help either, he said.
“This combination of aggressive triumphalism over the West … plus his (Xi’s) opaque and authoritarian leadership style made it extremely difficult for the Biden administration to really get the dialogue going,” Green said.
In a speech last week, Yellen offered Beijing a seemingly modest olive branch, saying US national security measures against Beijing were not designed to “suffocate” the Chinese economy and that any attempt to disconnect the US from the Chinese economy would be “disastrous”. are.
The Treasury Secretary said that despite the current tensions, the US and China “can and must find a way to live together”.
In January, Yellen met her Chinese counterpart in Zurich, the highest contact between the two countries since Xi and Biden met in November.
China says the US is responsible for tensions between the two governments.
“China and the US maintain necessary communication,” said Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington.
“Responsibility for the current difficulties in China-US relations does not lie with China. The root cause is the US’s misconceived China policy based on a misguided perception of China.”
“The American side must show sincerity, honor its words and take concrete actions to follow up on the common understandings” agreed between Xi and Biden at a meeting in Bali last year, the spokesman said.
