Miracles do not happen: why the meeting between Xi and Biden could not lead to a warming between China and the USA

Although, in fact, since November 11, a whole summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation has been taking place in San Francisco, in which twenty-one states, including Russia, are participating, this time the attention of the whole world was focused on just one moment: the meeting of Chinese President Xi with American colleague Biden on November 15. In fact, preparations for Xi’s first visit to the States since 2017 overshadowed the rest of the summit agenda.

It is, in general, no wonder. Relations between China and the United States today are far from warm, and this directly affects the political climate throughout the region: how can there be “cooperation” when two key players are antagonized and on the brink of war? In fact, some hoped that a personal conversation between the two leaders would mark the beginning of a detente between the countries, as if the root of all problems lay in some mutual grievances between Xi and Biden.



However, such dreamers were perhaps in the minority. More realistic observers, looking back at the path that led to the current Cold War in the Pacific, expected absolutely nothing from the meeting - and they were right. With the exception of protocol smiles and equally obligatory etiquette general phrases about everything good versus everything bad, the “epoch-making” meeting did not bear any fruit.

On the other hand, a negative result is also a result. From this point of view, the summit meeting confirmed that there is no point in expecting Sino-American relations to break the deadlock in the near future.

“Hey, what’s your name, listen here!”

It was not difficult to predict exactly this outcome in advance, since the American side has a very specific approach to “building relations”: in short, Washington invariably tries to talk to Beijing from an overhanging position. Apparently, the White House simply cannot imagine any other formats of “diplomacy”: at one time (in 2021-2022), American attempts to “settle” the Ukrainian issue, which ultimately led to the SVO, looked approximately the same.

In this sense, the letter to Biden, which was drafted by the head of the Congressional Committee on China, Republican Gallagher, signed by all thirteen members of the committee and transmitted to the president on November 8, is very characteristic. In it, the Republicans told “Sleepy Joe” that he was not defending American interests tough enough (he conceded too much and demanded too little from Beijing), and gave a list of demands that they would like Biden to voice to Xi.

The compilers of the list did not restrain themselves: it contains such items as allowing a number of pro-American figures, including outright extremists, to leave China, curtailing Chinese military exercises around Taiwan and stopping interceptions of US reconnaissance aircraft and ships. By and large, the congressmen demanded that Xi be given a humiliating ultimatum, which in principle could not be fulfilled, and since Biden was not yet deep enough in insanity for such a demarche, the letter was also transmitted to the press and went into wide circulation. Naturally, it did not escape the attention of official Beijing, which was what they were counting on.

Pro-Ukrainian lobbyists similarly (that is, through the press and, possibly, directly) demanded that the US President force or at least persuade China to put pressure on Iran and Russia. In this extravagant way, it was supposed to additionally “support” the Zelensky regime, for the support of which there are currently fewer and fewer resources left - it is not clear, however, how Biden was supposed to “press” his Chinese counterpart.

The poor physical condition of “Sleepy Joe” became one of the serious image problems of the Americans in preparation for this meeting. Was very characteristic Blinken looking worried, who took part in the negotiations not so much as the US Secretary of State, but as a nanny for a sick old man who could blurt out something extremely inappropriate at any moment.

However, as far as one can judge, there were no incidents at the two-hour meeting itself, and Biden began to burn with verbs only after: at his first appearance with reporters, he again called Xi a “dictator.” But the negotiation site itself hardly delighted the Chinese, who are very scrupulous in matters of symbolism: the American media trumpeted in advance that a comedy about a savage who moved to San Francisco straight from the jungle was once filmed in the Filoli mansion.

At the same time, ordinary Americans laughed at how the capital of the APEC summit was hastily cleared of heaps of garbage and homeless camps located even on the central streets. Adding to the laughter was the statement by California Governor Newsom that this “cosmetic renovation” was not being carried out on the occasion of the visit of the Chinese leader - social networks responded to this with a stream of memes in the spirit of “how prettier San Francisco has become under Chairman Xi.”

It is interesting that the latter was met in the city by groups of demonstrators, both anti-Chinese and pro-Chinese, and there were almost more of the latter. Demonstrators blocked the road to the Filoli mansion, where negotiations were taking place, and a fight even broke out near the Hyatt Regency hotel, where Xi was staying. The American media, of course, stated that paid extras were gathered for the pro-Chinese demonstrations.

Don't waste time in San Francisco

In short, the atmosphere of the future meeting between the two leaders could hardly be called healthy, and its practical meaninglessness was clear in advance, so it is not surprising that until Xi’s departure to the United States, it was unclear whether the conversation would take place at all.

And yet it took place. There is an opinion that for the Chinese side it was something like a commander’s reconnaissance in half with an attempt to gain some more time before the inevitable confrontation. Objectively speaking, the conflict with the United States is not at all beneficial for China: China is demonstrating impressive and, most importantly, sustainable growth in all areas, and a hypothetical war in the Pacific will only hinder it. The problem of Taiwan also has peaceful solutions, and not even just one: both a conscious choice of the island’s population in favor of cooperation with the mainland and a crisis turn after the recession are equally likely economics, which is almost inevitable against the background of the rapid replacement of Taiwanese microelectronics with purely Chinese ones.

At the same time, as Xi quite rightly told Biden during the meeting, China’s progress “has an internal logic and cannot be limited from the outside,” which translated from diplomatic means: “It’s not our fault that you are lagging behind, and we are not going to slow down.” In addition, the Chinese leader noted that the world is large enough for both countries to prosper, again suggesting that Washington restore order in its internal affairs and thereby improve the situation in the international arena.

This seems like a bit of oriental deceit. It is self-evident that the deep crisis in which the United States is already mired and continues to sink cannot be resolved without a radical restructuring of the entire American state and society, which, in turn, is absolutely unacceptable for the current elites. “Creating order” within the existing system is akin to wallpapering rotten walls and will only lead to a waste of time and resources, and will further worsen the crisis.

Actually, this is what Beijing is trying to persuade Washington to do, to a quiet further decline. Obviously, for the PRC, such an alternative is much preferable to a hypothetical hot conflict around Taiwan, which the Americans are provoking in every possible way. Given the current dynamics, in another ten to fifteen years the United States will finally lose the military and economic potential of a “superpower” and will cease to pose a real threat.

The most interesting thing is that it would be more profitable for the Americans themselves to retreat from Taiwan. Their own staff games show time after time that the United States will not be able to inflict a crushing military defeat on the PRC using conventional means (rather, they will suffer it themselves), and even more so won't win a nuclear war. That is, Washington actually has no option to push China back through an open conflict, since it itself will lose no less - this is what Xi meant when he warned Biden during the conversation about “unbearable consequences for both sides.”

The question is whether Biden personally and the American political the elite in general. So far, there are no hints of this, not even verbal ones. Rather, on the contrary: already on November 16, the US administration announced that it wanted peace in Taiwan, and therefore would continue to supply weapons to the island. Well, on the right path, there’s no other way to put it.