WASHINGTON — One thin thread may be all that is keeping U.S.-China tensions from escalating further: the personal relationship President Joe Biden has cultivated over the past 12 years with his Chinese counterpart, WASHINGTON officials said. Biden administration and foreign policy analysts.
Now that Chinese President Xi Jinping has consolidated power and effectively ended collective rule, he is the only figure in Beijing making decisions that will drive future relations, according to U.S. officials who were granted anonymity to offer assessments. frank about the relationship
It is Xi who will decide if China invades Taiwan; Xi, who will determine whether China delivers lethal weapons to Russia in its war in Ukraine; Xi, who will gauge how hard to push North Korea to stop a nuclear weapons program that threatens the United States and its allies.
“The answer is China. Now what is the question? Jeremy Bash, a former CIA chief of staff, spoke of the country’s role in global affairs as Xi begins another five-year term.
One question is whether the Biden administration can dissuade Xi from actions that put the two nations on a path to conflict. Biden often tells his aides that when they speak publicly about China, they should emphasize the need to open lines of communication, a senior administration official said.
Yet because of Xi’s dominance of China’s system, the only conduit that really matters for averting catastrophe is the one between the two presidents, say administration officials and analysts.
That is not a lasting solution. Biden’s term ends in less than two years, and if he decides not to run again or loses re-election, his successor may have to build a relationship with Xi from scratch. Meanwhile, his relationship with Xi is under constant strain from the hardline positions each country has espoused. Biden has maintained Trump-era tariffs targeting China and has also imposed new export controls that ban the sale of sophisticated computer chips and high-tech equipment to the country.
«Biden says, ‘We want competition but not conflict with China,'» said Daniel Russell, former director of Asian affairs at the Obama White House. «That sounds perfectly reasonable to you and me. But the way the Chinese hear that is if Biden was saying, ‘I want to be on your grill. I want to get in your face. I want to do all these things vehemently.’ object and, by the way, I want it to be done without risk to me.'»
No one serving in the US government is as familiar with Xi as Biden. He has spent days in face-to-face meetings with Xi since they were both vice presidents, giving him insight into the intentions and motivations of the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong.
Extroverted to the core, Biden has long made personal diplomacy a centerpiece of his foreign policy doctrine. Chemistry matters.
“I know that we make foreign policy a great skill that is in some ways like a secret code,” Biden said at a press conference in 2021 after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva. “All foreign policy is a logical extension of personal relationships. It’s the way human nature works.»
Having met Xi, Biden hopes to use that knowledge to put the US and China on a more secure footing. A recent security assessment written by US intelligence officials warns that China wants to build a «world-class military» capable of «offsetting perceived US military superiority.»
For his part, Xi believes the US is hell-bent on “containing” China.
A new military pact forged by the Biden administration underscores how differently the two nations view the world. Biden traveled to San Diego on Monday to announce a deal with Australia and the United Kingdom that stations nuclear submarines in Canberra in hopes of deterring Chinese aggression in the Pacific. But to Xi, the move could appear as yet another example of the US «encirclement» and «containment» of China.
“In the system that is currently set up in China… there is a growing sense that you have to speak at the leadership level to make decisions,” said a second senior Biden administration official.
«The president’s belief in the importance of personal bilateral relations has been validated in the US-China dynamic,» the official continued. “But it’s also our only option. There are no other places where we can engage deeply in a constructive way.”
Biden’s approach differs from that of his erstwhile running mate. Former President Barack Obama, more secretive and reserved, never placed such importance on personal relationships as a means of governing. In his memoir, «A Promised Land,» she wrote about the non-existent relationship she had with Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao. During a particularly leaden meeting with Hu in 2009, Obama wrote that he «was tempted more than once to suggest that we could save time simply by exchanging documents and reading them at our leisure.»
Biden is not one to exchange memos and leave it at that. One of his mentors was Mike Mansfield, the former senator from Montana who later became the US ambassador to Japan. One of the lessons Mansfield instilled in Biden was “how important it was to listen to what the other person had to say,” said Russell, a former Obama administration official. “I had extensive conversations with Biden when he was vice president about personal diplomacy. … That is very much in Joe Biden’s DNA and foreign policy theory.”
As Obama’s vice president, Biden traveled to China in 2011 to visit Xi, who was seen as a rising figure. After a series of formal meetings, they left the Chinese capital for Chengdu in the southwest, where they ditched their ties, walked together and met at a point on the high school basketball court.
“Some guy had a ball there and Biden picked it up and started shooting,” said Robert Wang, a former US diplomat who was on the trip. He missed the first eight or nine shots and finally made it. He then turned around and gave the ball to Xi, and Xi shook his head. That’s all; he wouldn’t try.
“But Xi was smiling and affable,” he continued. «Clearly Biden thought this was something he could do and maybe be effective.»
Speaking through translators, open questions were asked. Biden asked Xi what kept him up at night, recalled Russel, who accompanied Biden on the trip. Xi asked about civilian control of the military in the United States and how the arrangement worked.
It would be an exaggeration to say that they developed a friendship; a guarded respect might be more appropriate, according to officials who have seen them interact. When they met in Bali, Indonesia, in November for the Group of 20 Major Economies summit, they brought up their time together in China 12 years earlier, not so much to reminisce warmly as to reinforce several points they were making, the second senior said. official.
Biden views Xi «as very tough, unsentimental, a nationalist who believes in his version of Chinese exceptionalism,» the official added. “The president has said this both in private and on record: There is not a democratic bone in his [Xi’s] body.»
At the very least, the relationship between the presidents could prevent the kind of misunderstandings between leaders that have sparked conflicts in the past, some analysts said.
“I have spoken to Biden about this – he is very proud of his relationship with Xi. I don’t think that leads to trust, but it does lead to a level of respect,» said Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, a consulting firm. In general, the relationship [between the U.S. and China] it’s a little more stable because Biden is there. I think that.»
Others are doubtful. Hardcore national interests, not a more amorphous personal connection, will ultimately control how the United States and China navigate a dangerous time for both, say some China watchers.
Former President Donald Trump attempted a sort of charm offensive. He invited Xi to his Mar-a-Lago resort in 2017 and served him a «beautiful» piece of chocolate cake. That did not make Xi any more transparent about the origins and spread of Covid-19 three years later.
Obama, hoping to smooth things over, invited Xi to a summit meeting at the Sunnylands resort in southern California in 2013. They discussed their differences in formal meetings, but also walked around the grounds together in shirtsleeves. However, China defied the wishes of the Obama administration by developing military capabilities in the South China Sea.
“Xi is open to wanting to erode the US-led global order,” said Michael Doran, a former White House national security official under former President George W. Bush. «How much can you charm a guy so he doesn’t have that aspiration?»