The Biden Admin’s China Thaw Collides with Reality

The Biden administration is in the middle of a push to restore diplomatic engagement with China resembling somewhat the level of dialogue that existed before the Trump era’s more adversarial China policy. That hasn’t led to a wholesale reversal of Washington’s increasingly hawkish stances toward Beijing, and in some areas, such as technological competition, the White House is actually forging ahead with an approach that breaks radically from the past.

Nonetheless, President Biden’s meeting with Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit in November has led to a thaw of sorts, as the State Department and other agencies work to re-establish regular diplomatic exchanges with Chinese officials to advance cooperation on climate and other issues. Emphasizing that agenda, deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman today posted a picture from the Xi–Biden meeting in Bali, featuring the two leaders smiling and shaking hands:

The administration’s line is, as Sherman put it, that “we must work together — for the good of people around the world.”

But this unconditional drive to restore elements of the previous policy of engagement that long shaped the U.S. approach to China is being undermined by Beijing’s actions every day — as it was recently, when a Chinese People’s Liberation Army jet got within 20 feet of a U.S. aircraft over the South China Sea. U.S. Indo-Pacific Command disclosed the incident in a statement today:

On Dec. 21 (China Standard Time), a People’s Liberation Army – Navy J-11 fighter pilot performed an unsafe maneuver during an intercept of a U.S. Air Force RC-135 aircraft, which was lawfully conducting routine operations over the South China Sea in international airspace. The PLAN pilot flew an unsafe maneuver by flying in front of and within 20 feet of the nose of the RC-135, forcing the RC-135 to take evasive maneuvers to avoid a collision.

That followed several previous similar incidents featuring aggressive PLA tactics in recent months, in addition to the Chinese side’s decision to dodge Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s calls this year. Eventually, Austin spoke on the phone with the Chinese defense minister and met him in person in Singapore in June — but only after he dropped his longstanding demand to speak with the senior party official whom the Pentagon views as Austin’s true counterpart.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is poised to move the administration’s rapprochement along during an anticipated visit to China in 2023, presumably in order to establish guidelines for strategic competition between the two countries. But in light of incidents such as the PLA intimidation maneuver revealed today, there’s a risk that the Biden administration will undertake a high-level dialogue for its own sake, when Beijing might be willing to entertain substantive discussion only when the U.S. offers concessions.