Business News/ Politics / Why the U.S.-China Relationship Isn’t as Predictable as It Sometimes Seems
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Midway through 2001, the U.S.-China relationship looked to be in a dire place.
Midway through 2001, the U.S.-China relationship looked to be in a dire place.
Two years earlier, NATO missiles had hit the Chinese Embassy in Serbia, killing three Chinese citizens. Then the spy plane crisis of April 2001—where a Chinese plane collided with a U.S. jet near China’s coast, killing the Chinese pilot—ratcheted tensions up even more.
Two years earlier, NATO missiles had hit the Chinese Embassy in Serbia, killing three Chinese citizens. Then the spy plane crisis of April 2001—where a Chinese plane collided with a U.S. jet near China’s coast, killing the Chinese pilot—ratcheted tensions up even more.
Many thought that the relationship would keep souring and become a major source, perhaps the major source, of global instability in the coming years.
Yet by late 2001, these forecasts seemed foolish or at least premature. Chinese leader Jiang Zemin and U.S. President George W. Bush exchanged smiles at the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting. They appeared pleased to be in each other’s company at that Shanghai summit, and agreed to work together on combatting terrorism.
The parallels with 2023 are striking. The year began with tensions running high. Another airborne surveillance incident—the February downing of a Chinese spy balloon that had traversed the U.S.—sent a chilly relationship into deep freeze.
Once again, it was thought, a downward spiral in relations was inevitable. The idea that a new Cold War between the countries was under way and getting fiercer gained traction. The notion that this could spill over into a devastating hot war even started seeming less far fetched. There were also internationally rooted causes of concern, such as Washington’s frustration at China’s coziness with Moscow despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and China’s increases in military maneuvers meant to intimidate Taiwan.
But then came a November seismic shift. At the San Francisco APEC summit, President Biden and Xi Jinping had a cordial exchange and smiling photo ops.
There were at least modest steps forward made on some issues (fentanyl, climate, militaryhotlines, AI), even if there was silence or discussion but no movement on many others (Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, the chip industry, and so on). And both leaders conveyed a sense that the countries were moving back from a precipice, returning to a steadier course after moving along a globally dangerous path.
What history teaches us
This is not to suggest that nothing ever changes in U.S.-China relations—nor that history ever repeats itself exactly.
But it does suggest that even in the chilliest times, there are still many factors that make the relationship between Beijing and Washington markedly different from that between Moscow and Washington during the Cold War.
China may be a nominally Communist country and certainly has Leninist features (single-party rule, a love of anti-imperialism rhetoric even while seeking to extend its reach and influence in imperialistic ways), but it is enmeshed in global capitalist structures in a way the Soviet Union never was. And China remains a place filled with consumers that U.S.-based multinational corporations want to get to buy their products, and a place where many of those products are made, even at a time when some manufacturing is moving to new locales.
Beltway talk of “decoupling" and Chinese state media talk of the evils of American capitalism aside, a lot of business kept being done across the divide in 2023 as in previous years. One thing that should not have surprised us in November was that U.S. CEOs wanted to meet with Xi and that Xi wanted to speak to them.
Not exactly parallel
Still, there are important then-and-now contrasts between 2001 and 2023 to keep in mind, lest the parallels between the years seem even greater than they are. In 2001, for example, there were a small set of U.S.-China issues to navigate, now there are many. China in 2001 had a rapidly growing economy but wasn’t yet the second biggest in the world.
In addition, at the 2023 summit, the last thing Xi wanted was for Xinjiang to come up. The U.S. rightly sees China as responsible for committing terrible human rights abuses against that territory’s Uyghurs. Beijing dismisses all talk of this as misleading propaganda.
In 2001, by contrast, Jiang wanted Xinjiang on the agenda. He saw Bush’s “War on Terror" as offering an opportunity to get international support for his drive to have a specific small organization of Uyghurs (a largely Muslim ethnic group) designated as terrorists. He succeeded. This was one factor that has led to the repression of hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs with no ties to that or any other organization.
In addition, while in 2001 a meeting between Jiang and Bush was important, it wasn’t in a totally different category than bilateral exchanges between other high-level officials. Much more now rides on Xi’s meetings with heads of state, for he is much less the representative of a collective leadership group than Jiang was.
Jiang, like Xi, was both Communist Party General Secretary and China’s president, but he was expected to cede the former post—the most powerful one of all—to Hu Jintao in 2002, and the latter to that same designated successor in 2003. And he did.
By contrast, Xi could well be leader for life. His premiers have been lower profile and less powerful than Jiang’s were. And he has been more pre-emptory in dismissing officials, as the recent mysterious falls of the defense and foreign ministers illustrate. The nature of Xi’s rule, unconstrained by term limits and accompanied by a growing personality cult, brings an added new dimension of instability to relations between China and all other countries, including the U.S.
The ultimate lesson
And yet, placing 2001 and 2023 side by side reminds us of an enduring feature of the U.S.-China relationship: Unexpected events tangentially related, or not related at all, to that relationship can always affect it. It’s easy to fall prey to the idea that the only thing that matters is how powerful people in each capital see each other, and that incidents that involve just the two countries are still all that matters. But it isn’t true.
The 2001 Summit would have been different, for instance, had 9/11 not taken place and altered Bush’s policy priorities. It also mattered that China was focused in 2001 on its bid to host the 2008 Olympics and join the World Trade Organization. This put a check on how strong a line Beijing would take on the spy-plane incident.
Similarly, factors extraneous to the relationship kept the fallout from the early 2023 dirigible debacle in check. Bad economic news for Xi as the post-Covid recovery stalled, and difficult diplomatic times for Biden with major wars in Europe and the Middle East, were factors shaping both sides’ priorities in San Francisco. Neither was in the mood to pick a fight.
What does this mean for the U.S.-China relationship in 2024 and beyond? The past never provides a blueprint for the future, and the prospect of a second Trump presidency is the wildest of wild cards. But we will likely keep seeing a mix of conciliatory moves, strains, hyperbolic predictions. And periodic surprises. What would be most surprising of all would be if the relationship in the years to come did not continue to be influenced as much by domestic developments in the U.S. and China and global events as it is by the leaders themselves and their teams of diplomats.
Jeffrey Wasserstrom is Chancellor’s Professor of History at UC Irvine, the author of “Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink," and the editor of “The Oxford History of Modern China." He can be reached at reports@wsj.com.
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