Ian Bremer summary: hello everyone. We’re kicking off the week with a quick take with Ian Bremmer. US Secretary of State Tony Blinken is currently in the Middle East. But he just came from China, Beijing, Shanghai, and what I’m thinking about is the US-China relationship. I would like to tell you how the game is playing.
It’s better managed than ever before, and stability continues to improve. However, it is not clear that this will necessarily be the case, given the number of issues and places where there is friction between the two countries. In recent weeks, President Biden has imposed new tariffs on Chinese steel and launched new investigations into Chinese shipbuilding. Anti-TikTok policy introduced by U.S. Congress. Taiwan has received $2 billion in additional military aid from the United States. It has also received a lot of criticism from the Americans for its continued support of China and its dual use of technology that would allow Russia to better fight the war in Ukraine.
Considering all this, is the relationship starting to become even more adversarial? And the answer is actually not. It is true that China’s foreign minister has said that the United States needs to choose between a relationship of containment and a relationship of partnership, and it is certainly true that Americans would rather have both. be. They want partnership in areas that are good for Americans and containment in areas that are good for Americans. Americans can get more than other countries because America is the most powerful country in the world, and ultimately the Chinese need Americans more than Americans need China. Because there is. Still, the interdependence is strong and there are also forces of repulsion. How much is China actually doing? The answer is that, despite the policies I just described, there will be little direct retaliation from China. Indeed, overnight, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that additional support for Taiwan, which is a red line that China should not cross, was concluded, and that it would take resolute and strong measures if the United States continued to provide support for Taiwan. thinks so. This means we will see further sanctions from China against US defense contractors.
It’s mostly symbolic. It’s tit for tat. But the other policies that the Americans have brought out against China that I mentioned, we see China focused on making itself and its economy more resilient to American containment efforts. But the Americans have not fought back, and the movement of sanctions and mutual investigations is uncoordinated. In fact, the Chinese are quite stable.
Also. We confirmed that Xi Jinping is still meeting directly with Secretary of State Blinken, but this meeting would be very easy for the Chinese government to call off, and historically there has been great tension in the relationship. I definitely wouldn’t have attended in that case. They chose not to. And Blinken actually went to a record store. As you know, he plays the guitar and sings and is interested in music. And the Chinese state media coverage of that visit was very humane and frankly very friendly, better coverage of the U.S. Secretary of State than at any point I’ve seen since Xi Jinping took power. was. If the Chinese government wants to express its dissatisfaction with the current state of relations with the United States, it is very easy to assess that. I think of Obama and the town halls he wanted to put together, and of China, who didn’t want to give him the kind of coverage Americans wanted at the time. You know, this person is a junior U.S. official who, frankly, is still being treated very badly by the Chinese government. I think that’s very important.
That being said, this relationship is becoming increasingly difficult to manage. that’s the truth. Because in the United States, whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, one of the few things you can agree on in foreign policy is that there are benefits to going after China. In other words, U.S. policy will not only be decided by Mr. Biden himself, but also by members of Congress. It’s about the governor. It’s about media. Everyone is taking photos as they please. And they are not coordinated. No matter where China went, everyone basically stood up in the same direction if Xi Jinping wanted it. Many American companies and banks are now sending their CEOs to China. And there is much more people-to-people exchange between the two countries, which Chinese officials are strongly focused on.
There’s more communication and cooperation on things like climate, as well as in response to the U.S. fentanyl crisis, where China is shutting down labs at companies that were exporting precursor chemicals. That’s what’s important. they are engaged. The United States also has a strong desire at the highest levels to provide China with more information about what it sees as happening in the Middle East conflict, where China wants a ceasefire. . At this point, Americans are probably doing the same. Also, China does not have many of the high-ranking diplomats and intelligence-gathering capabilities that the Americans have. And when American officials talk to their Chinese counterparts about the Middle East, the Chinese are in note-taking mode and grateful to be getting that information from the United States.
Overall, we continue to see a lot of very constructive, high-level engagement. However, we are faced with relationships where there is virtually no trust and where the basis for conflict arises in different ways and in different parts of the world. As time goes on, it will become harder to maintain a stable lower bound for U.S.-China relations. But for now, I think this situation is likely to continue at least until the November election.
That’s it for me. I’ll tell you all soon.
