U.S., China Leaders May Be On Track To Meet In November – China Think-Tank Chief

The leaders of the U.S. and China may be on a path toward a face-to-face meeting in November even as the two countries face a “difficult, unstable” period in ties, the leader of an influential Beijing think tank said in an interview.

“There could be a summit” between the two during a meeting of the G20 nations scheduled for November 15-16 in Bali, Henry Huiyao Wang, president of the Beijing-based Center for China and Globalization, said in New York earlier this month.

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That meeting would occur after an important China Communist Party gathering in the fall in which Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping will likely win backing for a third five-year term as chairman.

“China will probably have had its 20^th Party Congress, and President Xi will have a new mandate” by mid-November, Wang said. “It will be a good time to let the world know where China is heading.” Xi last month traveled to Hong Kong for the 25^th anniversary of Hong Kong handover from Britain to the People’s Republic of China government.

The settlement of China’s leadership for the next five years and a summit with President Joe Biden could in turn could pave the way for U.S. and China relations to “enter a relatively stable period for some time,” Wang said.

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“I still think there is a possibility that we can really make this relationship manageable, which means we recognize differences. We can have bottom lines,” he said. “We can have guard rails. But more importantly, we can keep the relationship from getting into a conflict or a hot war.”

Geopolitical strains between the two, expected by some to ease after President Joe Biden’s election haven’t. Earlier this month, China said it drove away the USS Benfold from South China Sea waters it claims; the U.S. says the area is international waters. That came after U.S. Secretary of State and China Foreign Minister held talks in connection with a G7 ministry-level meeting last week.

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China’s cozy friendship with Russia at a time of the latter’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has damaged the country’s image in the U.S., according to a Pew survey published in June which found 82% of Americans have a negative view of the country. For its part, China didn’t know of Russia’s invasion plans in advance, Wang said.

Wang stands out among China’s foreign policy experts for his international background. After obtaining his bachelor’s degree in English and American literature from the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, he earned an MBA and a PhD in international management at the University of Windsor, the University of Western Ontario and University of Manchester, successively. He later studied at the Harvard Business School and was a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. He has been a visiting fellow at Brookings Institution. He once served as chief trade representative for Canadian Quebec Government Office in Hong Kong and Greater China. He also served as counselor of China’s State Council.

In Wang’s view, relations between the two sides – the world’s two largest economies – are facing two “traps.” The first, the “Thucydides Trap,” occurs when an existing power doesn’t provide enough room for an up-and-comer to ascend in the world. The second is the “Kindleberger Trap,” the result of an existing power not providing enough global public goods compared with an up-and-coming rival. China is willing to fill gaps not being filled by the United States, Wang said.

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“China will become the country with the largest economy in the world,” and wants more room for itself globally, Wang said. “We’re entering a difficult adjustment period, which could take five, 10, maybe 15 years,” he said.

The end of the pandemic – whenever that will be – will likely bring improvement in ties as people-to-people exchanges resume, Chinese tourism revives, and student exchanges between the U.S. and China will recover, Wang said. “Zoom meetings cannot replace face-to-face meetings,” he added.

Though lockdowns have led many businesses in the mainland to suffer, many U.S. companies and multinationals will likely take a long-term view of China’s deep industrial base and state of the art telecommunications infrastructure, Wang believes. U.S. investors in the country include many members of the Forbes Global 2000 list, including Tesla, GM, Ford and Intel.

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The U.S. and China should try to work together on providing infrastructure to developing countries and, along with Europe, promote tighter global partnership among development banks, Wang said.

Though the G7 has launched a “Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment,” it was ridiculed in China state media this month as “an instant laughingstock for its empty rhetoric and its bid to ‘counter’ the China-led Belt and Road Initiative.”

It’s that kind of rhetoric that underscores the current “difficult, unstable” period between the two countries.

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