China drives John Kerry talks beyond climate change to US relations

US climate envoy John Kerry’s visit to China has gone beyond discussions about global warming, with Beijing making clear it expects broader efforts to improve the two nations’ overall relations. Kerry held talks on Thursday with Vice-Premier Han Zheng and later with China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, via videoconference. Yang told Kerry that Beijing was open to dialogue and cooperation but that Washington should correct its “wrong policies” on China, according to the Chinese foreign ministry readout. He said the two sides could “intensify communication, coordination and cooperation on climate change, pandemic control and economic recovery among a wide range of … major global and regional issues” but cooperation “should be two-way and mutually beneficial”. Kerry said the US was willing to step up dialogue and cooperation with China in a mutually respectful way, according to the Chinese readout. Foreign Minister Wang Yi had made clear on Wednesday, in a call with Kerry, that any cooperation on climate change would be inextricably linked to improved China-US ties. “Sino-US climate change cooperation cannot be separated from the overall sentiment of Sino-US relations. The United States should meet China halfway and take positive actions to push Sino-US relations back on track,” Wang said. “The US side wants to turn climate cooperation into an ‘oasis’ in China-US relations. But if the oasis is surrounded by desert, it will soon become ‘desertified’.” Kerry’s trip came after two phone conversations between Wang and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in the past two weeks when Wang reiterated Beijing’s demands for Washington to stop its hostile approach. During the call with Kerry, Wang said that the US “should stop seeing China as a threat and opponent, and stop besieging and suppressing China all over the world”, according to a readout from the Chinese foreign ministry. “In recent years, Sino-US relations have undergone a sharp decline and serious difficulties. The reason is the US has made a major strategic misjudgment of China.” Wang said the US should take concrete actions to improve ties and respond to the two lists presented in July to deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman during her visit to Tianjin. The first outlined remedial actions that Washington should take to improve its relations with Beijing – including lifting visa restrictions on Communist Party members – while the second referred to China’s key concerns. China warns rapid climate change will bring Tibet extreme weather Wang said he hoped there would be a “constructive outcome” from Kerry’s trip. “Of course, we have shown our sincerity. As you know, according to our Covid-19 prevention protocols, whoever has met you must be quarantined for 14 days. But we are willing to make the sacrifice to communicate with the US on issues of our common interests,” Wang told Kerry, according to a video clip circulating on social media. “Given the science and what’s happening, we’re all going to deal with this certainly for the rest of our lives. This challenge is as big as any that we face on a global basis. And China, my friend, plays a super critical role,” Kerry said. Beijing also spelt out its three “bottom lines” during Sherman’s visit, which were reiterated by Wang in his discussion on Wednesday with Kerry – that the US should not seek to subvert China’s model of governance, not interfere in Taiwan and should remove sanctions imposed over human rights concerns. According to the US State Department, Kerry used the meeting with Wang to call on China to do more to reduce emissions. “Secretary Kerry affirmed that the United States remains committed to cooperating with the world to tackle the climate crisis, which must be addressed with the seriousness and urgency that it demands, and encouraged the PRC to take additional steps to reduce emissions,” a spokesperson said. Kerry, a former secretary of state under president Barack Obama, is on his second visit to China in five months as part of US efforts to convince Beijing to accelerate cuts to carbon emissions. During his stay he is expected to continue talks with his climate counterpart Xie Zhenhua in Tianjin. Asked about the meeting in a regular briefing in Washington, US State Department spokesman Ned Price said the US government aims to engage with China on climate change as a discrete issue, separate from the more adversarial bilateral matters. “We are committed to working with the international community and with the [People’s Republic of China] on climate as an urgent issue, and we certainly hope that Beijing will engage with us on the same basis on this issue,” Price said. “We are the world’s two largest polluters,” he added. “If we are not able to find a way to cooperate, to work together to achieve greater climate ambitions, it’s not only to our mutual detriment, it is to the broader detriment of the international community.” China, US draw lines in sand at top-level meeting but agree to keep talking Lu Xiang, a research fellow on US studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said China’s remarks were a clear sign that cooperation would be compromised if bilateral relations were dominated by confrontation. “The political climate right now is still very bad. You can even say that bilateral relations are the worst they have been since Henry Kissinger came to China in 1971,” he said. “China is conveying its request that the US take a big picture approach to the future of the relationship … so they need to see how to remove this confrontational element. Competition is understandable, as there is always some level of this between countries. But confrontation is another thing. “From the various US remarks, the confrontational element between China and the US seems like it is even their strongest priority, so under these circumstances climate can be a window, a chance for the two sides to have some mutual understanding,” he said. “I believe that for Kerry to come at this point in time to Tianjin, his purpose must not only be for climate talks but also with a broader mission.” Zhu Feng, a professor of international relations at Nanjing University, said Wang wanted to stress to the US that cooperation should be reciprocal. “Such talks will be very positive because the climate change issue is a big, definitive problem not just for bilateral relations but also for the future of the international community,” Zhu said. “On the one hand, they will continue to talk … but on the other hand, China has also made clear that cooperation on climate change cannot just exist alone … so it’s also Beijing’s new gesture of some sort.” He said Beijing had already announced its carbon reduction targets, but the two countries’ different schedules and composition of energy production were problematic. “China uses a lot of coal so now the US wants China to just present a very clear-cut schedule to get coal usage shrinking,” Zhu said. “Emissions reduction is not just dependent on the Americans’ schedule, but ourselves – we need some sort of balanced approach.” Securing a public commitment from Beijing to stop financing overseas coal projects ahead of the UN global climate summit in Glasgow in November is reportedly among Kerry’s top priorities. Li Shuo, a senior global policy adviser for Greenpeace East Asia, said: “China has been rolling back its support for overseas coal plants in recent years amid the drive for high-quality growth for its belt and road projects. “The shift is also driven by the lowering of energy appetite in a lot of developing countries because their manufacturing industries have been hit by the pandemic. But China’s public commitment to a moratorium remains critical to make sure that this shift is not temporary.” Additional reporting by Sarah Zheng and Robert Delaney