Xi-Biden summit: why the US push for military guard rails with China could be a near miss

Name: Mainland China launches military drill near Taiwan in ‘severe warning to separatist forces’
Uploaded: 2023-11-14T14:12:01.000Z
Duration: 2 min 36 s
Description: Mainland China launches military drill near Taiwan in ‘severe warning to separatist forces’

Washington is hoping the meeting between the two leaders will lead to some crisis management safeguards such as a reconnected hotline

‘The Chinese basically view all of these crisis management mechanisms as ways for the United States to constrain Chinese actions,’ says analyst

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Mark Magnierin San Francisco

Published: 10:12pm, 14 Nov 2023Updated: 5:16am, 16 Nov 2023

When Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Washington late last month to meet US counterparts in advance of Wednesday’s presidential summit, sources say he “scoffed” when asked about establishing military-military guard rails, countering that the best guard rail would be US adherence to historical commitments on Taiwan.

Washington has been pressuring Beijing in recent weeks to agree to safeguards, a meaningful hotline and rules of the road governing military-to-military relations.

US negotiators hope to make these among the few deliverables expected out of the meeting between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco.

But even if they adversaries agree on some language, experts and former US military officials say it is questionable whether the frequent close calls and near misses between their armed forces will stop happening any time soon, given China’s limited interest in doing so.

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Mainland China launches military drill near Taiwan in ‘severe warning to separatist forces’

“The Chinese basically view all of these crisis management mechanisms as ways for the United States to constrain Chinese actions,” said Zachary Cooper, senior fellow with the American Enterprise Institute.

“If they really were worried about crisis management, they wouldn’t be doing the dangerous air intercepts they’ve been doing, they wouldn’t be doing the dangerous maritime intercepts they’ve been doing.”