US manages expectations before Biden and Xi meet
Advisers warn joint statement not possible
WASHINGTON — Of all the issues dividing the United States and China — spy balloons, Beijing’s rapid nuclear buildup, and Washington’s crackdown on advanced computer chips — the White House has been engaged in one more topic of debate: what China’s leader will see when he looks out of his window during his visit to California this week.
When President Biden meets with President Xi Jinping on Wednesday, China’s diplomats want to know what Xi will be looking at, and to make sure the scenery does not include protesters. Nearly every minute they spend together, from the number of steps it will take Xi to reach a chair when he enters a room to the specific timing of their handshake, will be part of a highly choreographed diplomatic dance, one designed to give them the space to try to defuse a year of bubbling tensions.
Biden’s advisers have hinted at only one concrete agreement expected to emerge from the meeting, which is scheduled to be held near the end of the AsiaPacific Economic Cooperation summit, called APEC, in San Francisco. The leaders, they said, could announce a resumption of military-to-military communications, which were suspended by the Chinese after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in the summer of 2022.
And both sides have been discussing whether they could find a way to a future commitment to keep artificial intelligence software out of their nuclear command and control systems. While that might seem to be a pretty straightforward discussion, China has never entered a significant negotiation about its fast-expanding nuclear arsenal until now, so even the first wedge into the issue could prove significant.
Yet the fact that the bar is this low is telling. US officials say there is no plan for the two leaders to issue a joint statement of any kind. Instead, each government will provide its own account of the discussions.
There was a time when summits with Chinese leaders resulted in agreements on containing North Korea and keeping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, on climate goals and economic coordination to avoid financial crises, and joint efforts in counterterrorism. Those days are over. While Biden plans to address China’s continued shipment of technology to Russia to feed the war in Ukraine and its purchases of sanctioned Russian and Iranian oil, there is little to no prospect of changed behavior, officials acknowledge.
The summit is set to be the first time Biden and Xi, who arrived in San Franciso in the late afternoon, have talked in a year. It is Xi’s first visit to American soil since 2017.
In briefings to reporters, Biden’s advisers have used phrases such as being “cleareyed” and keeping “open lines of communication” to describe a relationship they believe is best managed not with “engagement” — the approach to China advocated for decades — but oldfashioned diplomacy.
Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, said Monday the relationship is now about “managing competition responsibly so that it does not veer into conflict. The way we achieve that is through intense diplomacy,” Sullivan said.
Chinese officials say Xi will seek assurances from Biden that the United States “does not seek a new Cold War,” the country’s ambassador to the United States, Xie Feng, has said. But over the past year, Xi has made it clear that he considers the United States to be deep into Cold War-like behavior. “Western countries led by the United States have implemented allaround containment, encirclement, and suppression of China,” he said in March.