US President Joe Biden met Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday before an APEC summit in San Francisco. Prior to the meeting, Biden was the more eager party, but it is Xi who does not wish for a complete decoupling, and harbors a desire to turn back the clock so that both nations can create a win-win situation and ensure strategic cooperation.
The so-called win-win situation would be a ruse. The US would be duped by China to facilitate the theft of intellectual property, and Beijing would become an increasingly influential country that would grow to outperform its biggest competitor.
Under former US president Donald Trump and certainly at the beginning of the Biden administration, relations between the US and China became extremely frayed. The pandas at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park returning to China this month was a symbolic mark of the end of an era that began with a cuddly gift at an inflection point in the Cold War and has ended with the anxious dawn of a new one, with an empty panda house in Washington.
Even though the US was the more proactive side, it was Xi who flew to meet with Biden, instead of Biden visiting Beijing. With the advantage of home turf, Biden would not face the same humiliation as former US president Barack Obama did when he was diplomatically snubbed by China in Hangzhou in 2016.
With Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee (李家超) under US sanctions and prevented from attending the APEC events in California, China sent Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan (陳茂波) to represent the territory, hinting at Xi’s focus on business links.
Xi wanted to meet business leaders ahead of his meeting with Biden, but the proposal was nixed by the White House. It was clear that Xi wanted to tell the business community that China is still open for business to put pressure on Washington to back off its export restrictions.
China has resumed its “gifting” trick by lifting a ban on Boeing 737 Max aircraft and placing orders, as well as making a massive purchase of more than 3 million tonnes of US soy. Nonetheless, its ties with the US are not based on “gift-giving.”
China has always purchased from Boeing and Airbus SE, while soy is a domestic necessity. If China thought it could acquire high technologies with such purchases, it had better think again. After all, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo has said on multiple occasions that the US would not budge on matters concerning national security.
Nevertheless, a worldly wise leader like Biden would always give Xi a grace period.
Despite trade restrictions, Chinese imports of semiconductor manufacturing equipment surged by more than 93 percent last quarter, with imports from the Netherlands spiking sixfold. Most of the equipment is believed to have come from ASML Holding NV.
Nvidia has also announced that it has developed three new chips tailored for China, aiming to meet the region’s growing demand for artificial intelligence (AI) technology, while Corning Inc has agreed to sell its German laser technology business to China’s Suzhou Delphi Laser.
Nonetheless, the most sensitive issue that Washington and Beijing face is still Taiwan.
Xi wants to hear from Biden that he would not support Taiwanese independence, but the US leader, unlike the fawning dog former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), is unlikely to comply.
Instead it might be the other way around.
If Biden were to ask China not to interfere in Taiwan’s presidential and legislative elections, Xi would be in a tight corner. If he denies interference, it would only mean that Taiwan and China are two independent nations, and if he admits interference, Biden could have more to say on the matter.
Biden wants to re-establish military-to-military ties with China in a bid to prevent conflict.
With China ousting its minister of foreign affairs, perhaps the chairman of the Chinese Central Military Commission — ie, Xi — has boosted that aspect of his power.
However, before the meeting with Biden, Xi sent his most trusted man, Chinese Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia (張又俠) to reassure Russian President Vladimir Putin, meaning Xi would not have a change of heart about military ties with the US, even after his meeting with Biden.
As long as Xi maintains that stance, the icy diplomatic relationship will remain.
Biden would have to know that Xi is using strategic duplicity in a bid to solve its domestic and external predicament. After former US president Richard Nixon met with Mao Zedong (毛澤東) in 1972, there was a shift in the relationship, but that was because many Chinese of the time had a favorable view of the US and were easily swayed to direct their antagonism toward the Soviet Union.
With Chinese nationalists, known as “little pinks,” today brainwashed to harbor ill feelings toward the US, there is no way that Xi could explain away a policy of “strategic duplicity” with Washington.
Paul Lin is a political commentator.
Translated by Rita Wang
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