90-minute meeting
Last week, Joe Biden and Xi Jinping held their second phone conversation since the former assumed the US presidency, with the leaders of the world's two largest economies speaking for 90 minutes.
Who will blink first?
"The two leaders had a broad, strategic discussion in which they discussed areas where our interests converge, and areas where our interests, values, and perspectives diverge. They agreed to engage on both sets of issues openly and straightforwardly," the White House's readout of the call said.
While Washington is in the process of completing the "pivot to Asia," Biden "underscored the United States' enduring interest in peace, stability, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific." Furthermore, since the US perceives China as the top challenger to its unrestrained foreign policy, Biden felt the urge to remind "both nations to ensure competition does not veer into conflict" and framed it as their "responsibility."
President Xi, on his part, did not shy away from highlighting that "for some time, due to the US policy on
China, the China-US relationship has run into serious difficulty" and reminded his interlocutor that "this serves neither the fundamental interests of the people of the two countries, nor the common interests of countries around the world."
Xi added that "whether [the two countries] can handle their relationship well bears on the future of the world," concluding that "getting the relationship right is not an option, but something we must do and must do well."
All of this can be achieved, and cooperation between the US and China can be maintained if, as Xi believes, it is done "on the basis of respecting each other's core concerns."
Unfortunately, it seems that the current hegemon is much more concerned with talking down to its peer competitor than paying attention to what it says - in other words, having a proper dialogue.
"We continue to believe that setting parameters and guardrails for the competition, and maintaining open lines of communication, is really important," CNN cited an unnamed White House senior official as saying before the call. "But these lower-level engagements have not been very fruitful, and, candidly, we've not been very satisfied with our interlocutors' behavior."
Indeed, during the first phone conversation between the newly elected US president with his Chinese counterpart, which took place on February 10, Biden unilaterally laid out the parameters of their engagement. What followed were lower-level talks between US and Chinese officials, which aimed at securing the former's demands.
In March, at a high-level meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan clashed with State Councilor and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and the director of the Chinese Central Foreign Affairs Commission, Yang Jiechi.
"China urges the US side to fully abandon the hegemonic practice of willfully interfering in China's internal affairs. This has been a longstanding issue, and it should be changed. It is time for it to change," Wang told the US side during the summit in Alaska.
When Blinken tried to use a mafia-like technique of "persuasion" and warned that "it's never a good bet to bet against America," Yang shot back that "the United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to
China from a position of strength … because this is not the way to deal with the Chinese people."
Yang added that he believes that "the American people are certainly a great people, but so are the Chinese people."
On September 1, Foreign Minister Wang held a virtual meeting with the US special presidential envoy for climate, John Kerry, who was in Tianjin for China-US negotiations on climate change at the latter's request.
While Wang acknowledged that cooperation between the two countries in this policy area serves not only US and Chinese interests "but also befits all mankind," he also insisted that it "cannot be divorced from the overall situation of China-US relations."
He urged the US to work with his country "to meet each other halfway" instead of "viewing China as a threat and rival." In addition, Wang advised the US to "cease containing and suppressing China all over the world" and "attach importance to and actively respond to the 'two lists' and 'three bottom lines' put forward by" Beijing.