Chinese President Xi Jinping was coming to America to participate in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting. That resulted in a private meeting between him and President Biden. The significance of such a meeting might have been greater had it not been more or less a ceremonial sidebar for Xi. When heads-of-state visit other nations for any reason, it is customary to meet with the host head-of-state. If it were not for the APEC event, it is very unlikely that Xi and Biden would have met at this time.
Most observers – and the White House – played down the significance of the meeting in terms of any “deliverables” – as the diplomats call breakthrough agreements on major issues. Most politicians and reporters said that the meeting itself was a significant deliverable. A good thing, in and of itself. I suppose that it was a “good thing” only insofar as it was not a “bad thing.”
Observers and pundits conceded upfront that there would be no agreements on such issues as climate change, Ukraine War, Xi’s political bromance with Russian despot Vladimir Putin … Taiwan … resolution of the South China Sea controversy … Chinese spying … meddling in U.S. elections … harassment of Chinese Americans … intellectual property piracy … human rights violations … democracy movement Hong Kong … and the list goes on. Agreements? Biden did not even bring up most of these topics.
One reason that we will not see much change in China’s aggressive competitiveness with the United States is that America has lost leverage. Xi does not see Biden in the same way that Russian Premier Gorbachev saw President Reagan. Xi does not see America as the strong world leader as did Gorbachev. During a recent meeting with Russian dictator Putin, Xi said that the world was changing and that he and Putin were leading that change. The meeting in the recently sanitized San Francisco did not change that view.
It appears that Biden is claiming some sort of victory on the Fentanyl crisis – in terms of China supplying drug dealers in the Americas with the makings for the deadly drug, if not the drug, itself. The terms of the agreement are vague, to say the least. And Biden’s reliance on President Reagan’s policy “to trust but verify” suggests there is no significant enforcement to the handshake agreement. I may be wrong, but my prediction is that we will not see a measurable reduction in the flow of Fentanyl coming across the southern border. It is a black-market trade, and it is dubious that Xi can do much about it even if he wanted to do so.
China’s controlled media has shifted from attacking the United States, to blowing kisses in conjunction with the Xi/Biden meeting. As they say, “talk is cheap.” The rest of the success of the meeting – or lack thereof – will be seen in the months and years ahead. So far, the meeting does not offer much hope or evidence of any fundamental change in the Chinese/American relationship in the near future.
On terms of policies, there were no “deliverables” coming out of the Biden/Xi meeting – and there never will be until American world leadership is once again real and believed – and not merely words and political narratives espoused for main street consumption.
So, there ‘tis.