Xi and Biden can go beyond diplomatic kabuki by setting up a US-China secretariat

The personalised politics of leader-to-leader exchanges needs to be augmented by an institutionalised framework of relationship management
Establishing a permanent secretariat to share information and tackle common issues would build trust and elevate the bilateral relationship to the importance it deserves

Stephen Roach

Published: 2:15pm, 29 Nov 2022

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Summits have long been portrayed as the crown jewels of diplomacy. Such was the hope with the Bali meeting between US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

Notwithstanding the images of two beaming presidents grasping hands before their three-hour meeting, the summit accomplished little. Predictably, it was long on rhetoric. Biden ruled out any possibility of a new cold war, and Xi stressed the need to put the US-China relationship back on track. Post-summit readouts stressed the platitudes of frank, direct and candid discussions between old friends.

But with the US-China conflict having escalated dramatically in the past five years – from a trade war to a tech war, to the early skirmishes of a new cold war – the summit was remarkably short on action.

The bilateral relationship had deteriorated further in the three months leading up to the summit – underscored by Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, the Chips and Science Act and the Biden administration’s sanctions on exports of advanced semiconductors to China. America’s hardline approach was on a collision course with China’s increasingly muscular intransigence.

The rhetoric at the summit did nothing to change that. High tariffs remain in place. And the Biden administration is building a new “coalition of the willing” to join its campaign to stifle Chinese efforts in artificial intelligence and quantum computing – crucial to the country’s push for indigenous innovation.

Moreover, while Taiwan anxieties were lowered, that may be short-lived; America’s presumptive next Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, has promised a quick trip to Taipei – taking aim at the diplomatic “red line” Xi highlighted in Bali. The cold-war denialism in both leaders’ summit statements doesn’t exactly fit the facts.

This disconnect between rhetoric and reality is hardly unique in the kabuki of diplomacy, especially when conflict resolution is placed in the hands of leaders and, by inference, subject to the politics of their projections of power.

Bali enabled Xi with the ideal platform to show China’s extraordinary concentration of power after last month’s 20th party congress. It also gave Biden the opportunity to muster a stirring defence of a fragile democracy following his party’s surprising resilience in the midterm elections.

The summit was a classic example of diplomatic stagecraft. But de-escalation of conflict ultimately requires depersonalisation of policies and actions. That was all but impossible under former US president Donald Trump. It is still challenging with Biden. And now it is very difficult in a Xi-centric China.

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As I argue in my new book, what is needed is a new framework for Sino-American engagement. The personalised politics of leader-to-leader exchanges needs to be augmented by an institutionalised framework of relationship management – a US-China secretariat.

The secretariat’s mandate would be broad. It would address contentious issues ranging from economics and trade to technology and state-subsidised industrial policies to human rights and cybersecurity. But it would tackle those issues collaboratively, with high-level Chinese and American professionals working as co-mingled teams.

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Located in a neutral venue, the secretariat would focus on all aspects of the relationship, supplanting temporary staffing efforts hastily assembled to prepare for specific summits.

The new US-China secretariat would have four key responsibilities:

Relationship framing: This would feature jointly written policy “white papers”, along with joint database development and quality scrubbing of dual-platform statistics. These activities would support regular meetings between leaders and senior officials, as well as background for military discussions.

Convening: The secretariat would bring together networks including academics, think tanks, business and trade associations, and groups engaged in “Track II” dialogues. The goal would be to serve as a talent clearing house to address problems of mutual interest. Collaborative efforts during the pandemic would have been an obvious and important example.

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Oversight and compliance: This role would target the implementation and monitoring of agreements between the US and China. With conflicts bound to arise, the secretariat, empowered with a transparent conflict-resolution and screening function, could provide a first stop for grievances.

Outreach: The secretariat would support a transparent, open, web-based platform, complete with a public version of the US-China database, working papers of secretariat researchers, and a co-authored quarterly review of US-China relationship issues.

In short, a US-China secretariat could elevate the bilateral relationship to the importance it deserves. It would come with the added benefit of a shared workspace to nurture familiarity. Trust-building often starts with small steps.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken talk before a meeting in Nusa Dua on the Indonesian resort island of Bali on July 9. Photo: AFP

Bali offered photo opportunities, assurances of diplomacy, more hype for US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Beijing and vague promises of new working groups on climate and food security. It was, at best, a public-relations effort.

But there was no substance, no strategy, no path to de-escalation. The personalised leader-to-leader summit played to the power on which autocracies thrive and to which precarious democracies cling. It was more a political statement than a road to compromise.

A US-China secretariat would have turned the Bali summit into a collaborative opportunity for conflict resolution. It could have presented a rich, depersonalised agenda that tackled the tough issues and false narratives that divide the two superpowers. Embroiled in their worst conflict in 50 years, the United States and China need a new framework of engagement more than ever.

Stephen S. Roach, a former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, is a faculty member at Yale University and the author, most recently, of Accidental Conflict: America, China, and the Clash of False Narratives. Copyright: Project Syndicate