China-US relations: why expectations are low for next week’s Alaska summit
- Chinese observers say Thursday’s meeting between Antony Blinken and Yang Jiechi is unlikely to overcome the clear divisions between the two sides
- Washington has rebuffed China’s description of the meeting as a strategic dialogue and one analyst warned Beijing to beware of ‘nets above and snares below’
The upcoming talks between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi in Alaska are unlikely to lead to a major diplomatic breakthrough, Chinese observers say.
While Thursday’s meeting may offer a starting point for future talks, the first face-to-face meeting between senior officials from the two sides since Joe Biden took office, is not expected to produce any substantive solutions to the tensions between Washington and Beijing.
The divide was already clear when Blinken last week rejected the Chinese foreign ministry’s characterisation of the meeting as a “strategic dialogue” and said there was “no intent at this point for a series of follow-on engagements”.
Pang Zhongying, an international relations specialist at Ocean University, said the US was signalling that relations would not return to the way they were under former US presidents George W Bush and Barack Obama, even if Beijing wants to get things “back on track”.
“A strategic dialogue is yesterday’s story,” he said. “But it is already very difficult for the two sides to have this meeting just 50 days after Biden came into office … There is some goodwill from the US side in inviting the Chinese officials over to the US and to hold the meeting in Alaska, a halfway point.”
On Friday the US President held a virtual summit with the leaders of India, Japan and Australia – the so-called Quad – where the discussions included Beijing’s “aggression” and “coercion”.