Superpower romance on life support
President Barak Obama has lavished more personal attention on Chinese President Xi Jinping than any other world leader over the past several years.
But as Xi makes his first state visit to Washington, the romance is all but dead.
Observers said there is little personal warmth, and even less trust, between Xi and Obama as the White House prepares to roll out the red carpet with a pompfilled arrival ceremony today.
Xi has aggressively sought to expand China’s influence in Asia, and his assertiveness has caught the Obama administration off guard, often making the White House appear indecisive in its responses.
Obama aides insist the president’s strategy of engagement over confrontation will pay long-term dividends. They point to a major climate pact with Beijing last year and China’s backing for the US-led nuclear accord with Iran.
If Xi has been more forceful on the world stage, the aides said, he has also provided evidence that China has the potential to be the kind of responsible global partner that the US has sought.
At the same time, escalating tensions have led others to conclude Xi has the better of Obama, taking advantage of the US president’s impulse for collaboration while Xi furthers his own ambitions to consolidate power in China and assert greater authority abroad.
‘‘It’s not possible to deal with this approach without doing things that create risk,’’ said Aaron Friedberg, a former aide to President George W. Bush on Asian affairs. ‘‘China is taking risky actions believing that others will back away fearing confrontation. We’re going to have to take risks as well.’’
The Obama administration has resisted calls in Washington to enact new economic sanctions on Chinese businesses over the cybertheft of US trade secrets or to dispatch Navy ships into waters recently claimed by Beijing in the South China Sea, a crucial international shipping corridor.
Critics, including several Republican presidential candidates, have said Obama’s inaction has emboldened Xi, and foreign policy analysts said Beijing is intent on pushing the boundaries in Obama’s final years in office amid fears that the next US administration will be less friendly toward China.
Ruan Zongze, who served as a minister at China’s embassy in Washington from 2007 to 2011, said during a recent interview that calls for a tougher policy toward China are rooted in anxiety among US officials ‘‘to prove they’re not in decline’’.
In China, he said, the view is that US relations with Russia and in the Middle East are ‘‘not in desirable shape’’, and that there is no upside for the Obama administration to pick a fight with Beijing.
‘‘China is not challenging American supremacy,’’ Ruan said.
White House officials said Obama would hold off on any punitive actions until after he meets with Xi. In a speech to business leaders in Seattle this week, Xi denied a role by his government in the cybertheft of trade secrets, and said he would seek to strengthen cooperation with the US on the issue.
‘‘This summit will be an opportunity for us to hear directly from him what form that takes, and then we’ll be able to make a judgment based on those conversations,’’ said Ben Rhodes, a White House deputy national security adviser.
At the heart of those conversations is a relationship between leaders who have struggled to develop a personal rapport and enter Friday’s summit on different trajectories.
Obama, 54, is in the final stages of his presidency, having steered the US onto firmer financial footing but still working to realise a foreign policy strategy aimed at lessening the United States’ focus on the Middle East and shifting attention to Asia.
Xi, 62, is in the third year of a 10-year term as head of China’s ruling Communist Party, a leader who has ambitions to return China to a central role in Asian affairs but has struggled to enact changes to modernise its economy. In Xi, who assumed power in 2013, the White House saw a figure who was more dynamic than his predecessors, including Hu Jintao, with whom Obama had made little headway in his first term. Obama advisers viewed Xi, who had studied in the US, as a potential reformer who would make China willing to shoulder more responsibility to solve global challenges, and the White House was determined to enlist Xi as an ally even before he became president.
In November 2011, Obama held an unorthodox introductory meeting with Xi, then China’s vicepresident, on the sidelines of a regional security summit in Bali. Three months later, Xi arrived for a cross-country US tour, hosted by Vice-President Joe Biden.
‘‘I’m glad you will get an opportunity to get out of Washington . . . maybe even taking in a Lakers game,’’ Obama told Xi in the Oval Office during that visit. ‘‘I look forward to a future of improved dialogue and increased cooperation.’’
When Xi became president, Obama invited him in June 2013 for a two-day summit at the Sunnylands estate in Southern California, a lush retreat favoured by Ronald Reagan.
At a working dinner, each man laid out his domestic agenda and the political challenges he faced at home – the better to understand how each other’s foreign policy aims might be affected by domestic concerns.
Rhodes said because the United States and China had such a long bilateral agenda, the two sides were forced to plough through issues in face-to-face talks that get consumed by talking points.
Washington Post-Bloomberg