After Blinken's visit, the Sino-American thaw remains fragile

June 20, 2023

Beijing and Washington tried to lay down safeguards for their growing rivalry during Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to China, but it only resulted in sweeping, no-holds-barred promises for the future.

Leaving the Chinese capital on the night of Monday to Tuesday, the highest American diplomat notably regretted the non-resumption of dialogue between the armies of the two leading world powers.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, like his American counterpart Joe Biden, however hailed this visit as a success after months of tension.

“It was clear that the relationship was unstable and both sides recognized the need to work to stabilize it,” Blinken told reporters in Beijing on Monday.

The Biden administration regularly claims to want to strengthen communication with China to prevent errors of assessment from degenerating into conflict.

But Antony Blinken acknowledged that the United States had not obtained the resumption of military dialogue, one of its main objectives in this regard.

China accuses the United States of lacking sincerity on this issue because it regularly sends military planes and ships near its territory.

The two powers also continue to have divergent views on Taiwan. Washington has in recent years moved closer to authorities on the island claimed by Beijing, for it is a territory awaiting reunification with the rest of China – by force if necessary.

According to Antony Blinken, the United States wants to preserve the status quo and is concerned about “provocations” by Beijing, which has carried out military exercises around the island after meetings between senior American officials and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen .

The head of diplomacy within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Wang Yi, as such head of foreign policy, told the US Secretary of State on Monday that China will make “no concessions” on this file.

“Both parties have agreed to explore the possibility of stabilizing bilateral relations. There is no certainty that they will achieve this goal,” said Bonnie Glaser, China specialist at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, an institution which aims to promote transatlantic relations.

For Yun Sun, China director at the American think tank Stimson Center, the United States has its share of responsibility for the non-resumption of military dialogue.

China’s current defense minister, Li Shangfu, has been under US government sanctions since 2018 for buying Russian weapons. The Biden administration assures that this does not prevent him from discussing with his American counterpart Lloyd Austin.

“Of course, that’s not a problem for the Americans. But it’s a problem for the Chinese,” notes Ms. Yun.

“To dance, it takes two. In any case, it is not an unreasonable request” to lift these sanctions, she says.

For Shi Yinhong, professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing, the results of Antony Blinken’s visit remain in line with expectations.

The passage times are, according to him, always good for a possible visit of Xi Jinping to the United States in November, when Joe Biden will welcome in San Francisco the foreign leaders for an Asia-Pacific summit (Apec).

The idea of increased communication and closer cooperation “is of course positive, but it is difficult to implement it in practice”, laments Mr. Shi.

Xi Jinping and Joe Biden met in November in Bali, Indonesia at a G20 summit, where they similarly pledged to keep bilateral tensions under control.

But the good intentions were shattered less than three months later, when the United States shot down a Chinese balloon accused of spying on American territory.

The episode led to the postponement of a then imminent visit by Antony Blinken to Beijing and Xi Jinping castigated a few weeks later the “policy of containment” and “encirclement” led by the United States.

With continued US sanctions against Chinese companies, restrictions on the export of semiconductors to China, and US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy wishing to visit Taiwan, clouds remain in the Chinese-American skies.

“This temporary resumption of contact will not survive” this type of episode, said Yun Sun of the Stimson Center.

“After Blinken’s visit, the relationship still remains extremely vulnerable.”