Blinkens trip to China shows both sides want to stabilize ties

Tensions in the South China Sea remain a dangerous flashpoint, as the United States has responded to China's aggressive actions by strengthening its alliances and partnerships in the region and intensifying its maritime military exercises. While the two sides are unlikely to reach a resolution on the wide range of bilateral and international areas of disagreement any time soon, Blinkens' trip highlighted key areas of cooperation and engagement between states -United States and China.

USIP's Rosie Levine, Carla Freeman, and Andrew Scobell discuss what this visit tells us about the U.S. approach to China and what it means for relations between the two powers.

What were the expectations of Blinkens' visit to Beijing and was it effective?

Levine: Bilateral relations between the United States and China remain marked by deep tensions and growing strategic competition. The visit is the latest in a series of high-level contacts between the United States and China aimed at improving communication. This is Blinkens' second visit to China in the past 12 months. The latest visit, in June, marked the resumption of communications after a period of frozen high-level contacts following former House Speaker Nancy Pelosis visit to Taiwan in August 2022 and Blinkens' visit in February 2023 , which was canceled in response to the Chinese spy balloon.

President Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinpings recent phone call based on the joint agenda generated at their San Francisco meeting in November 2023. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen led an economic delegation to China. earlier this month, Foreign Minister Wang Yi and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan have met regularly in recent years, including in Washington, Bangkok and Vienna. Notably, in April, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin resumed military dialogues with its Chinese counterpart in Hawaii, enabling the first high-level military exchange since November 2022.

Despite the higher frequency of contacts, there was limited optimism that the visit would bring significant change in bilateral relations. It was clear that Blinken approached the meetings with a agenda items wishlistincluding cooperation on AI governance, supply chain management of precursor chemicals used in fentanyl production, conflict risks over Taiwan, escalating hostilities in the South China Sea and warnings addressed to Xi regarding China's support for Russia's war in Ukraine.

Areas where the meeting appeared to break new ground included issues of cooperation to curb the flow of synthetic opioids, willingness to collaborate on AI governance, and people-to-people connections. Blinken met with Chinese Public Security Minister Wang Xiaohong and highlighted early successes in bilateral relations. Counter-Narcotics Task Force. He also discussed formal negotiations between the United States and China on artificial intelligence that will take place in the coming weeks. Blinken visited the New York University campus in Shanghai and stressed the importance of next generations of Americans and Chinese to better understand each other in order to solve common challenges in the future.

Xi praised Blinken and both reiterated their desire to stabilize the relationship. If Xi had not greeted Blinken, it could have meant that restoring ties with the United States was no longer a priority.

It is clear that Blinken has sent various messages on issues important to US interests as well as global peace and security. One point highlighted by Blinken during his press briefing was the dissatisfaction of the United States, NATO allies and G7 partners with China for its role in supporting the war effort of the Russia by supplying machine tools and other components that Russia uses to produce munitions. Although it is clear that the message was book, it is still unclear if and how China will respond to this criticism. Russian President Vladimir Putin is program to visit China in May, and there is no indication that China will change its approach to its relations with Russia.

What does Blinkens' visit reveal about America's approach to China?

Free man: Blinkens' visit marks a U.S. effort to stabilize U.S.-China relations. The government's policy of managed competition with China continues to define its approach, but Washington is now seeking to instill greater stability in bilateral relations with its rival by pursuing a number of key approaches.

First, Blinkens' visit made clear that there was no new framework for the bilateral relationship that could refocus it on expanding U.S.-China cooperation, amid significant areas of divergence between the two parties. However, Blinken outlined a set of U.S. priorities for its diplomacy toward China. Amid distrust and friction over a range of issues, action-reaction dynamics have characterized recent bilateral interactions, lending the relationship a risky unpredictability and further escalating tensions. The effort to articulate a focused set of administrative priorities for the relationship aims to reduce this volatility by focusing bilateral diplomacy on core U.S. interests. These include the areas of potential cooperation between the United States and China noted above, as well as areas where the United States considers China's policies and actions to be harmful to U.S. interests. and their allies.

Second, the visit made clear that the administration will work to open and maintain more channels of bilateral communication to reduce the risk of miscalculation and military escalation between the two sides. Military-to-military communications are a key priority, which Blinken stressed are urgently needed to reduce the risk of a military escalation between the two countries clashing in the waters and skies of the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.

But it also includes more diplomatic lines of communication, people-to-people connections and information flows that help reduce misunderstandings between the two sides. As Blinken emphasized, information flows are also essential to combating the trafficking of illicit drugs and their precursors, as well as other areas of transnational crime. Keeping channels open will be a priority as the administration seeks to address concerns on such sensitive issues as how China uses advanced U.S. technologies, as well as China's industrial capacity.

Third, although Blinken warned about the impact of China's current economic cooperation with Russia, feed After the war in Ukraine, America's top diplomat also suggested that the administration view China as a potentially constructive player in resolving international conflicts, including in the Middle East.

The fact that Blinken did not present any grand vision for US-China relations during his visit to Beijing makes it clear that the administration has no intention of reframing US relations. and China. Instead, Washington will focus on easing turbulence in the relationship through more robust diplomacy on issues of friction in the relationship. Cooperation is not excluded, but it will not constitute the central axis of interactions between the United States and China.

What does Blinkens' visit mean for US-China relations?

Scobell: Blinken's recent three-day visit to China underscores both the value and limitations of in-person meetings between senior U.S. officials and their Chinese counterparts. In the current frosty period in U.S.-China relations, direct, high-level dialogue is important. As Flashing noted before his meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi: There is no substitute for face-to-face diplomacy to try to move forward, but also to ensure that we are as clear as possible on the areas in which we have differences. avoid misunderstandings [and] calculation errors. It should be noted that other, more targeted dialogues have resumed or are expected to begin in the near future. The latter includes discussions between military personnel, while the former includes discussions on artificial intelligence.

But the limits of face-to-face discussions are also real. Although objectively speaking, Xi is right saying to Blinken that [t]The world is big enough to accommodate the simultaneous development and prosperity of China and the United States, that is frankly not how leaders in Beijing or Washington view each other and the current tumultuous global situation. China's communist leaders perceive that the United States is trying to contain China militarily and curb its economic growth. U.S. leaders, meanwhile, feel that China's communist leaders are actively working to undermine the rules-based international order and weaken the United States. Chinese leaders say the United States is strengthening its security ties with allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific and beyond to encircle China, while U.S. leaders say Beijing is stepping up coercive activities against several neighbors, notably Taiwan and the Philippines, as well as strengthening an alliance-type relationship with Moscow.

While Blinkens' discussions with Xi, Wang and other top Chinese communist leaders last week were far from dialogues of the deaf, it appears that, at least to a large extent, each side was speaking beyond the 'other. That said, the good news is that both sides seem to sincerely desire a more stable bilateral relationship and are willing to try to work toward it. The bad news is that each side blames the other for the dire state of U.S.-China relations and expects the other side to make the first move to improve relations. At least neither side wants to back down.