For Xi Jinping, the ambition is different. He would like Biden to walk back from the current policy of an all-round confrontation with Beijing. Xi would like to negotiate a bilateral accommodation that would consolidate the Chinese quest for Asian dominance.
Thaw in US-China relations would calm economic and political nerves in world capitals. Delhi too would be relieved
By: Editorial
November 14, 2022 6:00:20 am
Asia has reasons to welcome the first face-to-face summit between the US President Joe Biden and the Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the margins of the G-20 summit in Bali, Indonesia this week. Any tempering of the current conflict between the world’s leading powers — the US and China — should calm economic and political nerves all around the world that is struggling to recover from the twin blows delivered by the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. The prospect of an imminent conflict between the US and China over Taiwan had indeed put the world on the edge of a precipice. President Biden hopes to “put a floor” below which the relationship between Washington and Beijing will not slide. For Washington, this policy of reducing the dangers of a war is a necessary complement to its determination to compete with China to retain its global leadership and Asian primacy. For Xi Jinping, the ambition is different. He would like Biden to walk back from the current policy of an all-round confrontation with Beijing. Xi would like to negotiate a bilateral accommodation that would consolidate the Chinese quest for Asian dominance.
One summit is certainly not enough to bridge the divide between the US and China that has rapidly deepened in recent years. As Beijing began to assert itself under Xi Jinping, who took charge in 2012, the broad consensus within the US in favour of a positive engagement with China turned into a strong bipartisan commitment to push back. When Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump unveiled a policy of challenging Xi’s trade and security policies, it was widely viewed as an aberration that would not survive the maverick leader’s tenure. But Biden has simply doubled down on Trump’s China policies; he also brought greater coherence and expanded the confrontation to include the full range of high technologies. At the same time, the Biden Administration has underlined the importance of keeping communication channels open with China and leaving the door open for cooperation, especially on trans-national issues like climate change.
Any engagement between US and China generates concern in the Indian foreign policy community at the potential for a rapprochement between the two great powers. But three factors today make Delhi less nervous. It is convinced that the current conflict between the US and China is deeply structural and is not amenable to quick solutions. Delhi is more confident than ever before about the depth and stability in its partnership with Washington. Finally, like the rest of Asia, India has a stake in the “responsible management” of the US-China conflict for the costs of such a conflict could be devastating for the entire region.
© The Indian Express (P) Ltd