Friday, July 29, 2022 at 23:58 China time
Bye-Xi call: Biden downplays expectations Xi's worries about bilateral ties
July 29, 2022 10:21
Photo posted by President Biden on his Twitter after a phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping. (July 28, 2022)
U.S. President Joe Biden spoke again with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday (July 28), after which the two sides issued a briefing on the call. This is the fifth meeting between the leaders of the United States and China in a year and a half, and it comes at a time when bilateral relations have declined sharply, economic and security competition is fierce, and tensions between the two sides over the South China Sea, Taiwan, and the war in Ukraine are rising. Time.
A senior administration official in the Biden administration told reporters after the call between the U.S. and China leaders that the two leaders also "discussed the value of face-to-face meetings and agreed to have their teams follow up to find a mutually agreed-upon time to do it. talks".
The White House said in a statement on the two-hour call that the United States had not changed its policy on the Taiwan issue and that "the United States strongly opposes any unilateral move that alters the status quo or undermines peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait."
Zhang Yan: The U.S. side intends to "two downplays"
Ian Johnson, a senior fellow at the American Council on Foreign Relations, said that judging from what the two sides released, the U.S. intentions could be summed up as "two downplays," while reports from China showed that Xi Jinping had more concerns.
"I think they (the White House) want to downplay expectations for this type of meeting"; followed by downplaying the Taiwan issue, "trying to de-escalate the situation by re-emphasizing that U.S. policy has not changed." Zhang Yan said.
Zhang Yan, a senior fellow at the American think tank Association for Foreign Relations, and a Pulitzer Prize winner for journalism
Zhang Yan believes that Xi Jinping's concerns about the development of bilateral relations between the United States and China are more prominent, even more than the Taiwan issue. "You will see that China is very worried and disturbed about how the United States views China. So there is such a long paragraph," Zhang Yan said.
Xinhua issued a more than 800-word draft, the longest paragraph refuting the U.S. positioning of China as a long-term strategic competitor. "Xi Jinping stressed that to view and define Sino-US relations from the perspective of strategic competition, and to regard China as the main rival and the most severe long-term challenge, is a misjudgment of Sino-US relations and a misinterpretation of China's development," Xinhua said.
"So they rejected this (positioning) and tried to make a stronger response to it. Because obviously they don't like the change in this area of the United States, which is to regard China as the number one enemy." Zhang Yan said, US Secretary of State Blinken Every speech since May has said China is the biggest strategic competitor. "It upsets Beijing and they don't like it. It's a counterattack from them."
Regular calls to ensure smooth communication channels between the two parties
Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank, said Biden's call with Xi, while nothing concrete, was a "safeguard to the United States." The growing rivalry between China and China will not turn into a military conflict effort."
"Maintaining regular leadership exchanges is a tool for President Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to exchange views, including on any issue on which they clearly disagree."
Singleton argued that the U.S. and China both face serious economic challenges, so the call was also a way for the two leaders to relieve their respective "increasing domestic pressures to stabilize the bilateral relationship." As such, he sees the call as "an attempt to reassure jittery investors who remain deeply skeptical about the health of the world's two largest economies."
Zhang Yan of the Council on Foreign Relations also believes that the Biden administration is trying to explore a form of engagement to replace the US-China strategic and economic dialogue that has been scrapped. This dialogue has been held annually in the past. The Trump administration scrapped this mechanism.
"Leaders can have a conversation every six months to make sure things don't get out of hand," Zhang Yan said. "You still have to deal with countries like China," he added.
Beijing warns Washington not to 'play with fire'
Xinhua News Agency reported that Xi Jinping talked about the Taiwan issue. In addition to reiterating China's consistent position, what is more notable is the use of "playing with fire and self-immolation" to describe that the United States' support for Taiwan's independence will reap its own consequences.
"This is not the first time," Zhang Yan said. "So I don't think it's a radical change," Zhang Yan said. It's a bit of a warning. "It's an implicit warning to Pelosi's visit (to Taiwan)."
Biden's Xi call comes amid media reports that U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may lead a bipartisan delegation of members of Congress to visit Taiwan. The issue of Pelosi's possible visit to Taiwan has sparked a heated debate between the United States and China. The Speaker of the House of Representatives is the third-in-line president of the United States after the Vice President. Beijing argues that the US lawmaker's trip to Taiwan contradicts what Washington calls the "one China" policy. China believes that self-governing Taiwan is part of its territory.
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (file photo)
“China is always in a state of high tension,” Robert Daly, director of the Wilson Center’s Kissinger Institute for China and the United States, told VOA via Zoom, “and they always seem to be angry about something in the U.S. So it's hard to tell when they're actually a little pissed off and possibly taking action, rather than when they're yelling 'the wolf is coming' or just protesting formally."
"This time, I think it's different," Daly added. "The Speaker of the House is third in line to the president. She (Pelosi) has also long been a human rights provocateur against China... China tends to see her as a special thorn in their side. So China has made it clear that if she goes on this trip, China will escalate in some way.”
Beijing may decide to follow Pelosi's plane or send more planes over Taiwan's airspace, Daibo said.
Singleton: Beijing may still want to improve US-China relations
But Singleton believes that the possible consequences of Pelosi's scheduled visit to Taiwan will not be too serious. "We are likely to see an immediate increase in Chinese air defense incursions around Taiwan, possibly even provocative midline incursions, in which Chinese aircraft cross the maritime border on the midline of the Taiwan Strait." But he said, "So far, official Chinese statements have There is little indication that China is considering more serious military action, although that could change."
Singleton predicts that Xi Jinping may work on improving U.S.-China relations amid enormous economic pressure ahead of the 20th Party Congress. "China is working hard to repair ties with Australia and Europe," he said. "Chinese officials are likely to launch a similar charm offensive against the U.S. in the coming months, even as the two sides remain at odds over Taiwan."
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