US-China talks again?

While Chinese leaders have joined others in formally congratulating Joe Biden, they sent the next US president a very different message recently by cracking down on Hong Kong's elected legislature. It's obvious there will be no quick détente between the US.and China no matter who occupies the White House. That only makes it more important for the two sides to start talking again.

Before the election, President Donald Trump bluntly said of his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping: "I have not spoken to him in a while because I don't want to speak to him."

Instead, in recent months, the administration has launched a series of broadsides - sending more warships into the South China Sea, expanding weapons sales to Taiwan, choking off critical supplies to Chinese technology companies, sanctioning top Chinese officials, and expelling diplomats. It is now threatening more sanctions over the ouster of pro- democracy legislators in Hong Kong, and Secretary of

State Mike Pompeo says the US "is not finished yet".

For its part, China has given American hawks plenty of ammunition with aggressive actions along its periphery and against its own citizens in Tibet and Xinjiang, as well as Hong Kong. With trade talks moribund and the US standing aloof from global efforts to combat climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic, the two countries have been reduced to communicating largely through action and retaliation.

The US and the Soviet Union competed far more aggressively during the Cold War, of course. But after narrowly avoiding nuclear catastrophe during the Cuban missile crisis, the two countries wisely constructed a framework of confidence-building measures, codes of conduct, armscontrol talks and people-to-people exchanges that kept Armageddon at bay.

The US and China haven't erected similar buffers yet; an accident or miscalculation could well spark open conflict.

Mr Biden's China advisers will know from experience that more long-winded "strategic dialogues" won't improve matters. It's also going to be hard in the short run to do big things together - such as combating nuclear proliferation, pandemics or climate change - even when nations' interests align.

A more practical approach, then, is for both sides to focus for now on hard-nosed bargaining. The Trump administration's trade war has left both countries worse off; negotiating a rollback of some tariffs in exchange for a more substantive levelling of the economic playing field in China shouldn't be impossible.

Rather than engaging in titfor-tat expulsions of journalists, the two countries should hammer out a more balanced formula for the number of media visas each will allow. They should also seek talks about each other's nuclear arsenals and doctrines.

Most important will be improving communications between the two militaries. Chinese forces have too often chosen to ignore existing mechanisms set up to de-escalate confrontations - including codes governing conduct at sea and in the air, as well as military hotlines.

Rather than simply adding more, the US first needs to press Chinese leaders for greater transparency on their military's capa

the two bilities and crisis- management protocols. Ongoing talks over crisis communications need to be sustained.

The goal isn't to eliminate all tensions in the relationship. Indeed, to prevent a wider conflict, the US will have to improve its deterrent capabilities in Asia. That will require investing in advanced weapons systems and strengthening ties to regional allies.

As Mr Biden has pledged, the US needs to rally a coalition of democracies if it hopes to change Chinese behaviour, whether in Hong Kong, the South China Sea or cyberspace.

This will all take time and is sure to raise hackles in Beijing. That's all the more reason Mr Xi and Mr Biden should also begin a frank dialogue - not about soybeans but rather, as former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger recently suggested, about "the limits beyond which they will not push threats".

Empty dialogue won't prevent a war between the US and China. Not talking at all could hasten one. -