White House reaches out to China to avert confrontation

Overture could be the biggest push of Biden presidency

WASHINGTON — After three years of self-isolation by China, President Biden’s top aides are flying into Beijing throughout the summer to try to convince and cajole Chinese officials, including Xi Jinping, the nation’s leader, on building a new foundation for relations.

It could amount to the most consequential diplomatic push of Biden’s presidency. He is betting that high-level dialogue can itself act as a ballast in a relationship that has been in a dangerous free fall for years. “I think there is a way to resolve, to establish a working relationship with China that benefits them and us,” Biden said in a CNN interview broadcast on Sunday as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was ending her visit to Beijing.

Yellen met for hours with China’s premier, Li Qiang, and with a vice premier and top economic aide to Xi who was relatively unknown to US officials — a sign that these exchanges might help establish important one-on-one channels. Since May, the CIA director and the secretary of state have also traveled to Beijing. The special climate envoy and the commerce secretary are following soon.

Biden and his aides say forging these personal ties could be necessary for defusing crises between the world’s two main superpowers. But the recent visits have also thrown into sharp relief the worsening structural problems in the relationship, ones that some analysts say could lead to armed conflict if mismanaged.

The diplomacy has done nothing to address the single thorniest issue between the two nations — the status of Taiwan — and China’s military ambitions in the Asia-Pacific region, which are incompatible with US military dominance there. When Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Xi in June, the Chinese leader refused to even acknowledge there needed to be a framework for the rivalry.

That means China will continue to view a wide range of policies by Washington as hostile acts, including export controls on advanced semiconductor technology and new military agreements with other Asian nations. US and Chinese officials recognize the relationship is becoming increasingly defined by military tensions, with talk of a possible war being normalized in the two capitals.

Both the Biden administration and Chinese officials are bracing for domestic US politics to add to strains next year. Republican and Democratic candidates in the 2024 elections are expected to try to outperform one another in hawkish rhetoric on China. US officials say the trips this summer are intended to give the two governments a chance to have frank conversations about the relationship before the political campaigning heats up.

“For the Chinese, this year is the last chance before things presumably turn much more sour next year with the US presidential election,” said Yun Sun, a scholar of China’s foreign policy at the Stimson Center in Washington. “Combined with China’s own economic challenges, especially the sluggish recovery, Beijing has incentives to make amends. Washington does, as well.”

When Yellen visited last week, China’s finance ministry issued a lengthy statement on Monday describing her comments in favorable terms seldom seen in other recent declarations on US-China relations. The statement highlighted Yellen’s insistence that the United States is not seeking to decouple, or unplug, its economy from China’s. Less than two weeks ago, China’s premier warned in a speech that the United States was trying to do just that.

Perhaps most important, the finance ministry’s statement echoed recent calls by Yellen and Blinken for the United States and China to collaborate in areas where they have common interests, including global economic stability and climate change. “Effectively addressing global challenges requires coordination and cooperation between China and the United States,” it said.