Diplomacy Beijing-style leaves Washington’s truce-seekers deflated
When it comes to diplomacy, China often blows hot air. On the surface, its efforts to meet with foreign counterparts appear encouraging but when the “photo ops” are over there’s little to show.
In other words, engagement for engagement’s sake, and moving forward with whatever plans suit Beijing. It comes across as insincere and immature, especially coupled with China’s aggressive rhetoric.
This week has been no different, with Beijing probably just at the beginning stages of howling at Washington because one of its fighters shot down what China says was a weather research “airship” that had simply been blown off course.
The United States government has said the balloon was a surveillance tool. Indeed, it flew over a major US nuclear missile silo field.
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, cancelled a trip to Beijing that had been aimed at figuring out a way forward after sour bilateral relations hit a new low in recent years. Efforts to improve Us-china relations are now at a standstill and back to square one.
Things were far from a thaw but at least Washington and Beijing were talking at some level after years of antagonism. Getting both sides into the same room, let alone around the same table, will now be harder and more dangerous than before, increasing the risk that a misunderstanding may spark a further deterioration.
The balloon incident – and ongoing challenges between the two sides – are counter-productive. It could become increasingly difficult to reset the relationship as the back-and-forth gets ever-sharper, and the US and China each attempt to have the last word. On both sides, the political will to find common ground will also probably wane. Republican politicians have already started saying President Joe Biden, a Democrat, is too soft on China.
That sets up a challenging context for the Biden administration – even cursory meetings with Chinese officials could be used as domestic political fodder to his disadvantage.
The anti-china rhetoric in the US will prompt Beijing to push back, giving weight to its claim that only Washington is to blame for worsening relations. Chinese state media blasted the US for its “clamour on so-called spy balloon, [which] showed that some anti-china hawks, who are obsessed with Cold War competition and US hegemony, are doing whatever they can to sabotage China-us relations”.
And that means there’s a long way to go before the US and China can find a way forward to something remotely resembling a truce.
The biggest mystery of the Chinese surveillance balloon incident is why they would carry out such a mission when they have spy satellites and cyber-warfare capabilities. Beijing insists it was a weather balloon gone astray – conveniently over the main nuclear missile bases of the United States. While meteorological balloons have been known to deviate from planned paths, this explanation seems fanciful and was evidently not believed by the Americans. Joe Biden ordered the US Air Force to shoot it down over the Atlantic once there was no risk of debris falling on land, meaning the instruments that would show it was on a spying mission are probably lost at sea.
But if it were a spy balloon, the Chinese must have known it would be spotted and intercepted. Some analysts say this was their intention but it makes little sense when Beijing is trying to improve relations with America and the rest of the world now it has emerged from Covid hibernation. Xi Jinping is anxious to kick-start the Chinese economy by restoring global trade volumes, and Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, was due in Beijing this week to continue the process of rapprochement. It would have been the first high-level diplomatic meeting between the two countries for five years. But the balloon put paid to that, with the state department cancelling the visit and China accusing the US of overreacting. Its foreign ministry said it regretted the incident and would work with the US to resolve the issue.
If it was a spying mission, it was a gross violation of American territorial sovereignty; if not, then Beijing needs to produce the evidence to demonstrate its innocuous purposes if relations are to refrain from going back into the deep freeze.