Anchorage meeting offers possibility of cooperation reboot, albeit faint

It has been said that those who make the fewest mistakes and may expect to prosper most, while following the course to which nature inclines them, act in accordance with the times in which they live. The United States while certainly acting in accordance with its natural inclinations is doing so as though compelled to forever do what it has done in the past.

Thus, the Joe Biden administration has sought to build a firewall around China, even as it prepares to engage in talks with it.

The first-ever leaders’ summit of the four Quad countries — Australia, India, Japan and the US — was held one week before the meeting of senior officials of China and the US in Anchorage, Alaska. And so-called security talks with Japan and the Republic of Korea have been held this week.

The Biden administration is hoping to use coercion and aggression to contain China’s autonomy of action. And it is reinforcing these with an orchestrated campaign of character assassination.

But even the US has no defensive shield against the arrow of time. The world is no longer what it was and countries are all too aware that there can be considerable collateral damage from these ploys. The US is destined to be disappointed if it believes that thoughtlessly following a previously successful playbook will produce the same kind of dividend now as it did before.

The Anchorage meeting presents an opportunity for the US to embrace the future, and apply its natural inclinations to the common good. Yet its moves before the meeting display its lack of confidence in being able to adapt to a world in which it is one among many, rather than one above all. And its paucity of wisdom and lack of courage mean that it is seeking the comfort of the familiar by retreating to the past.

Yet its efforts to replay the moves that brought it to preeminence will not force China to bow to its will.

Which means that rather than taking the meeting as an opportunity for it to indulge in its customary navel-gazing, it should take it as the chance to demonstrate that it is willing to be a responsible stakeholder in global affairs.

The US needs to show that it is standing on the right side of history by engaging with China. The world does not want and cannot afford another Cold War. Like the rest of the international community, China does not expect one meeting to resolve all the differences between the two countries. But like them, it hopes it will mark a new beginning.

If Washington can regain its senses and accept that it is impossible for it to step in the same river twice, there is still the possibility that the two sides can have a candid, constructive and rational dialogue.