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Soriek  5mo ago (text post)   1115 thread views

Transnational Thursdays 25

This is a weekly thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or IR history. I usually start off with coverage of some current events from a mix of countries I follow personally and countries I think the forum lives in or might be interested in. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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China

Chinese President Xi Jinping has spent the past month meeting delegates from the American government, including Governor Gavin Newsom and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. All this has been building towards his current visit to the United States, ostensibly for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group meeting, but during which he will also hopefully meet President Biden. In the meantime, Secretary Janet Yellen will fly out this week to San Francisco, where the Chinese delegation is currently residing, to meet with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, who roughly counts as her counterpart given that he is (among other things) the top economic official in the government. Ideally they want to mend relations and find points of common agreement, though this is of course challenging due to current tensions:

The Biden administration’s policy toward China is geared toward defending and securing national security while stressing that the US isn’t trying to hold China back economically — a message that Chinese officials have criticized, given US export controls enacted last year that are designed to deprive China of key technologies.

While the Biden approach is less combative than the Trump administration’s trade wars, it nevertheless marks a stark departure from the prior two decades of more-open economic relations. In fact, the Biden administration has kept President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods, and there’s no indication they’re easing anytime soon.

The US has said it doesn’t seek to decouple from China, though it has been looking to “de-risk” and diversify, partly through strengthening economic ties with allies in the Indo-Pacific region, a strategy that will be a key theme for the Biden administration during the upcoming APEC summit.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has also asked to meet with the top Chinese defense official but right now there, well, isn’t one, since the last guy got ousted. Issues of focus would likely include China’s recent moves towards opening a military base in Oman, historically neutral but also partnered militarily with the US.

Xi is also visiting some tech executives in SF, crawling pathetically back to the Californian trough after Governor Gavin Newsom restored American prestige by handily dispatching his Chinese competitor in a game of basketball.

If Biden gives Xi Jinping anything, I will consider him a total failure as a president. The rise in hostile actions from China came entirely during Xi's regime, and they came amid reassurances that they wouldn't happen.

He is crawling back now because China is in a position of weakness, but things will go back to the way they were the moment he feels confident.

To be clear the crawling back thing was a facetious joke about the video of Newsom knocking down that kid; visitng tech leaders during an international conference of Asian countries seems like normal business. I'd be pretty surprised if anything super concrete came of any particular meetings, but hopefully having some normal diplomatic interface will keep our countries farther from conflict.

I didn't take your comment as serious, but I very much think that Xi is coming from a position of weakness hoping to get Biden to back off with some vague promises. China has enough systemic economic problems right now without the US making things significantly harder.

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