Blinken’s Visit Sends Positive Signal but Warming Ties between US, China Still Need Work

The purpose of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s recent visit to China was to actualize the consensus that American and Chinese heads of state reached at their meeting in Bali last year; it was also a necessary step toward stabilizing relations between the two countries. Blinken was originally scheduled to visit China last February, but the drone incident prevented him from doing so. This high-level meeting between the two countries and their effort to implement the agreement in Bali effectively puts China-U.S. relations back on the right track.

Better Late Than Never; Conversation over Confrontation

A continued decline in China-U.S. relations is not good for either side. China stated unequivocally where the responsibility for deteriorating China-U.S. relations lay and that the U.S. should respect China’s core interests and concerns by implementing President Joe Biden’s promise of “Five Won’ts and Four No Intentions.” This promise includes the following commitments: The U.S. will not seek to change the Chinese system; it will not seek a new Cold War; it will not seek to oppose China by strengthening alliances; it will not support Taiwanese independence, and it will not support “one China, one Taiwan”; and the U.S. has no intention to enter into conflict with China; no intention to seek to decouple from China; no intention to obstruct China’s economic development; and no intention build a fence around China.

High-level meetings between China and the U.S. are particularly important, but they should not be meeting for their own sake; rather, these meetings should produce tangible results aimed at stabilizing and improving China-U.S. relations. China, therefore, displayed a positive and open attitude about Blinken’s visit – better late than never, and dialogue is preferable to confrontation, even if it is difficult to resolve the many issues in the China-U.S. relationship through a single, high-level meeting.

As far as the U.S. is concerned, it has its own interests at heart in having expedited Blinken’s visit to China. For one, the prolonged deterioration of China-U.S. relations has had a profound impact on the American economy and its society, putting the Biden administration under ever greater domestic pressure. For another, now that Biden has announced his bid for reelection, a moderate easing of China-U.S. relations would help manage and control China-U.S. competition and also serve the United States’ global strategy. Finally, many countries, including U.S. allies, do not want competition between China and the U.S. to be too intense, as this would aggravate the dilemma of having to choose sides between the two superpowers.

The relationship between China and the U.S. is currently one of the most important bilateral relationships in the world and is of great value and significance not just to both sides, but to the world at large. The intensification of strategic competition between the two nations in fact sends a negative signal to the outside world and affects the strategic space of other countries. At the same time, it also has an untoward effect on global governance, making the current deficit faced by global governance all the more obvious.

One thing about Blinken finally visiting China is that it has reduced the pressure on U.S. allies to develop relations with China. When the leaders of American allies in Europe visited China in the past, they in fact expressed the differences between their policies toward China and those of the U.S., with some allies even being unwilling to take too many of their cues from the U.S. if it meant harming their own interests and strategic autonomy. Following Blinken’s visit, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has now also expressed his desire to visit China, which actually reflects the positive signals conveyed by meeting, to a certain extent easing restrictions for American allies.

Second, the high-level meeting between China and the U.S. also sent a positive sign to companies around the world, including in the U.S., that a China-U.S. decoupling is not realistic and that de-risking is itself not without risks. Companies in the U.S. and its allied countries have been operating in the Chinese market for many years and have become important interests, so the loss associated with being forced to abandon the Chinese market would outweigh any gain.

Third, a vast number of developing countries want to maintain good relations with both China and the U.S., but the America’s hard-line China policy has caused some developing countries hesitate about increasing cooperation with China. On the whole, Blinken’s visit to China conveyed a strong message that China and the U.S. are willing to maintain high-level communication and that the world will not lapse into a cold war scenario.

Differences between the 2 Sides Are Hard To Resolve in the Short Term

China clearly attached great importance to Blinken’s visit. This is amply borne out by the fact that Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Qin Gang, CCP Central Committee Politburo member and Director of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission Wang Yi, and Chinese President Xi Jinping himself all met with Blinken while he was there. Going by the outcome, talks between the two sides were frank and sincere, in depth, and constructive — and in particular reached consensus on improving cultural and educational exchanges between China and the U.S.

However, this does not mean that relations between the two will bottom out and rebound any time soon. While neither China nor the U.S. shies away from the problems and differences between them, they diverge on many points that are hard to reconcile in the short term, including the U.S. strategic perception of China, its suppression of China’s high-tech industry, and its interference in China’s internal affairs. Even cultural exchanges between China and the U.S. face the challenges of politicization and securitization.

During his meeting with Blinken, Xi indicated that China has always hoped for a healthy and stable relationship with the U.S., and that Xi believed the two great powers could overcome their difficulties and find the right way to work together with mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and a win-win form of cooperation.

In short, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the thaw in China-U.S. relations still requires much effort.

The author is a professor and deputy director of the China Foreign Affairs University’s Institute of International Relations, Beijing.