US, China leave room open to talk after contentious meeting

Bloomberg

The US and China left open the possibility of a summit between their presidents despite a contentious day of talks between officials from both sides in city of Tianjin.
Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng told visiting Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman during a meeting on Monday that the relationship was “in a stalemate and faces serious difficulties.” Xie presented the No. 2 American diplomat with two lists of demands he portrayed as necessary to stabilise ties, including “US wrongdoings that must stop” and “key individual cases that China has concerns with,” according to official Xinhua News Agency.
Senior Biden administration officials told reporters afterward that Sherman’s visit, which included a meeting with Foreign Minister Wang Yi, was focused on setting guardrails on the relationship, rather than negotiating specific issues. Even as they described the talks as forthright and professional, they said it was at times a tough conversation.
Yet the talks in Tianjin — about 60 miles east of Beijing — could be first step towards a meeting between President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping, possibly at a Group of 20 summit in October.
“The deputy secretary underscored that the United States welcomes the stiff competition between our countries — and that we intend to continue to strengthen our own competitive hand — but that we do not seek conflict with the PRC,” the State Department said in a statement, referring to China’s formal name.
The challenge facing Washington and Beijing is showing they can get to grips with their disagreements without appearing to domestic audiences to be giving ground. That is proving a tall order given the sour feelings many in the Chinese government still harbour after the trade war that erupted under former President Donald Trump, and amid disagreements over Xinjiang, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
The juggling of sharp criticism was illustrated in the State Department’s “readout” summarising Sherman’s talks.
After recounting a litany of sharp criticism — from “the anti-democratic crackdown in Hong Kong” and “the ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang” to Beijing’s conduct in cyberspace and “across the Taiwan Strait” — the department shifted tone to conclude, “At the same time, the deputy secretary affirmed the importance of cooperation in areas of global interest, such as the climate crisis, counternarcotics, nonproliferation, and regional concerns.”
Xie’s remarks show that the talks were “very tough indeed” and “look like a continuation” of the tense meetings in March in Alaska, said Zhu Feng, a professor of international relations at Nanjing University. “His comments are also aimed at giving the Chinese public confidence that the government will not succumb in the face of heightened pressure from the US side.”
Earlier this month, Xi signaled that his government would be more assertive on the world stage, saying at a speech marking the 100th anniversary of the ruling Communist Party that his people “will never allow any foreign forces to bully, coerce and enslave us.”
Xie used the meeting to take a swipe at Sherman’s boss, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who said earlier this year that Washington’s dealings with Beijing were the defining test of the century.
“The Chinese people look at things with eyes wide open,” Xie said, according to a statement released by the Foreign Ministry. “They see the competitive, collaborative and adversarial rhetoric as a thinly veiled attempt to contain and suppress China.”
Among the demands on the Chinese diplomats’ lists were revoking sanctions on Chinese officials and government departments, and ending US efforts to extradite Huawei Technologies Co. Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou from Canada, an issue that has been a major sticking point between the nations.
Sherman’s visit follows a series of Biden administration actions challenging China’s red lines on what it considers its internal affairs, prompting Beijing to protest and announce fresh sanctions against Americans including former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. Sherman raised US concerns about Beijing’s policies in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, and urged the Asian nation to stop its economic coercion of allies, US officials said.
Sherman’s trip is part of a broad US diplomatic push in the region, as Biden attempts to extract American forces from Afghanistan and bolster Washington’s frayed foreign relationships to better answer the challenges posed by China. Blinken is slated to visit India this week while Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is traveling to Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines.
The US and numerous allies this month blamed the hack of Microsoft Corp.’s Exchange email server software to actors affiliated with the Chinese government and said Beijing’s leadership was responsible for an array of “malicious cyber activities.” The US also charged four Chinese nationals linked to the Ministry of State Security with a campaign to hack into computer systems of companies, universities and government entities.
China and the US are also at odds over the coronavirus. The White House said on Thursday China was “stonewalling” a World Health Organization probe into the origins of SARS-CoV-2, including the possibility that it escaped from a lab. Chinese officials said earlier that day there was no evidence for the theory the virus leaked from a facility in Wuhan, the city where it was first observed in humans, and that no further resources should be put into such a probe.
Still, Sherman’s discussions with Chinese diplomats offer both nations a chance to manage their differences.
“There won’t be any substantial breakthrough,” said Zhu, the academic. “Hopefully behind closed doors the two sides could try to steer the meeting toward stabilization of ties.”