Why screening Xi-Biden summit for harmony may be mission virtually impossible

The two presidents have met in person on several occasions, but do so this time by video link, without the interaction and hospitality of a state visit
Ability to build a rapport may be impaired – and even the countries’ past face-to-face meetings brought mixed results

US-China relations

Teddy Ng

Published: 11:00pm, 12 Nov 2021

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When US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping have their long-anticipated summit on Monday, one aspect – a sign of the times – will be missing compared with their past meetings.

When they met previously, it was face to face – which usually allows scope to gauge the mood with clues from body language, facial expressions and chat on the sidelines. This time, it will be virtual, as has been customary for Xi’s interactions with foreign leaders during the pandemic.

The pair will still address each other face to face in the video meeting, but the usual features of hosting fellow leaders, such as informal conversation and social activities planned around the formal business, will be impossible.

“Face-to-face meeting is definitely better than online, with more direct communication between the leaders,” said Su Hao, a professor at Beijing’s China Foreign Affairs University. “There would be more exchanges of ideas. And more importantly, it will be easier for the leaders to build personal rapport.”

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But Shi Yinhong, an international relations professor at Renmin University of China, argued that although face-to-face interaction is generally preferable, this summit may be different, with no sign of an end to the escalating tensions between China and the United States.

“Sometimes a face-to-face meeting can be counterproductive,” he said. “Sometimes people have too high an expectation of the meeting, and such expectation is just not possible to fulfil. Then people will ask afterwards: what’s the point of meeting?

“The previous presidents, Barack Obama and Donald Trump, met Xi many times, but it seemed that those meetings did not achieve much.”

Biden’s predecessor Trump made a state visit to China in November 2017, when China shut down the Forbidden City to give a personal welcome, including a tea gathering between Xi, Trump and their wives Peng Liyuan and Melania Trump.

China-US relations still did not develop in Beijing’s favour, as the Trump administration imposed tariffs on Chinese imports that led to a trade war between the two nations. His administration also imposed sanctions on Chinese officials over alleged human rights violations, and accused China of being the origin of the coronavirus.

“Whether a face-to-face meeting is good really depends on whether the two leaders have mutual trust and are willing to accommodate each other’s concerns,” said Wu Xinbo, director of the Centre for American Studies at Fudan University. “Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in June, but there is no substantial improvement in US-Russia relations.”

Biden and Xi had telephone conversations in February and September. The two leaders had previously met in Beijing in 2013, Xi as president and Biden as Obama’s vice-president.

Xi, when still a vice-president, also went to the US in 2012. As well as holding official meetings, he visited farmers in Iowa and, with Biden, met students at the International Studies Learning Centre in California, when Xi offered a glimpse of his personal life by saying it was difficult to find time to relax.

“It’s like the name of that American movie, Mission: Impossible,” he said.

At that time, Biden said he had spent more than 20 hours in relatively private talks with Xi during the visit. He said Xi had “been very frank about the economic and political dilemma he faces in China”.

Will the time ever be right for Biden and Xi to sit down together?

“He’s absolutely responsive,” Biden said. “When we disagree, it’s a clear statement of disagreement.”

The trip came a few months after another Biden visit to Beijing, when he ordered delicacies at a local restaurant.

These informal and private gatherings would be lost during the virtual meeting, said Pang Zhongying, an international relations professor at Ocean University.

“You probably won’t be able to see the body language,” he said. “But I don’t think that is going to significantly affect the outcome.”

Additional reporting by Jun Mai and Liu Zhen

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Xi-Biden summit success may be virtually impossible