U.S.-China Relations Fray As Xi Escalates Rhetoric

"Harsh new verbal attacks on the U.S. by Beijing's top leadership demonstrate just how unsteady relations have become between the world's two major powers.

Just a few weeks ago, China and the U.S. were tiptoeing toward something akin to a diplomatic cease-fire. President Biden's envoy was due in Beijing to craft a possible framework for high-level government-to-government dialogues and stabilize ties after years of bitterness.

Then, a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon was detected crossing North America, casting a new shadow over relations. The fence-mending trip was postponed and relations between the two powers have plunged further into a spiral of recrimination and tension.

This week, China's leader, Xi Jinping, and his foreign minister accused Washington of suppressing China's development and driving the two countries toward conflict.

"Everything the other side does is seen as negative and done with evil intention," said Suisheng Zhao, a China foreign-policy specialist at the University of Denver. "That is the Cold War mentality."

Mr. Xi elevated the rhetorical tension with an accusation straight out of that bygone era. China, Mr. Xi charged, faces "all-round containment, encirclement and suppression" at the hands of Western nations in league with the U.S.

On Tuesday, his new foreign minister, Qin Gang, followed up with a warning that unless the U.S. changes course, "there will surely be conflict and confrontation."

A spokesman for the National Security Council, John Kirby, when asked about the rhetoric from Beijing, said the Biden administration policy is unchanged: It seeks competition with China, not conflict.

"There is nothing about our approach to this most consequential of bilateral relationships that should lead anybody to think that we want conflict," he said Tuesday. "We absolutely want to keep it at that level."

The breadth of discord in U.S.-China ties, however, shows the difficulties in constraining tensions. The Biden administration has continued Trump-era trade tariffs, sharpened controls on exports of advanced semiconductors and rallied allies and other countries to counter China's influence around the world.

Beijing has drawn closer to Moscow, and stepped up military provocations against Taiwan, while last summer cutting off more of the few channels for U.S. dialogue that had existed, including military-to-military exchanges.

Congress has added to the strains. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) said Tuesday he will meet with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen when she visits the U.S. this year. Beijing wants to isolate Taiwan, which it considers part of China's sovereign territory. 

Mr. McCarthy's predecessor, Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), infuriated Beijing last year by visiting Taiwan.

For years, Mr. Xi has sounded ever darker in his assessments of international relations, though until this week he usually avoided criticizing the U.S. by name. In the past, he has also warned fellow officials to be ready for unpredictable events with dire consequences, known as black swans.

Now at the tail end of several months of domestic horse trading in the Communist Party, Mr. Xi has solidified his standing as China's paramount leader -- he is expected to emerge with a third term as president this week -- just as numerous indicators are turning negative for the country, from its political relations with Europe to its economic data.

The comments about encirclement demonstrate a Mr. Xi "unchained" by the political season and echo a long tradition by Communist officials of positioning China as a victim, said Michael Auslin, a historian at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

In the balloon episode, the U.S. quickly rejected China's claim it was a harmless weather-monitoring device and shot down what it said was a spy craft with a Sidewinder missile on Feb. 4. Behind the pointed remarks that followed are worries by both countries that they are on a trajectory toward future armed conflict.

After the balloon incident, the U.S. postponed its best gambit for a detente: a visit to Beijing by Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Both sides had pitched the trip as a critical step toward reopening communication channels that had narrowed during the Trump administration, then all but collapsed during the Covid-19 pandemic and tensions over Taiwan.

Instead, Mr. Xi's top foreign envoy, Wang Yi, toured Europe and bad-mouthed the U.S. at each stop.

Washington responded by rejecting a 12-point Beijing position paper calling for talks to end fighting in Ukraine as a proposition only Moscow could like. Mr. Blinken also publicly warned Beijing not to fan the Ukraine conflict, saying the U.S. had intelligence China was considering providing Russia with lethal aid, like drones and armaments. 

China has responded by highlighting U.S. weapons assistance to Ukraine.

Much of the rhetoric from both governments appears designed for their domestic audiences.

Mr. Xi delivered his "suppression" comments to a legislative advisory body packed with business leaders who are grappling with the worst economic outlook in 25 years, including a 5% expansion in gross domestic product.

For the U.S., the balloon incursion showed a brazenness that demanded a tough response -- and it served as a lightning rod for congressional Republicans and security hawks from both parties who want President Biden, a Democrat, to take a more uncompromising stance toward Beijing.

The diplomatic setback makes it harder to improve U.S.-China exchanges, like visas for journalists or joint cancer research, while organizing a leadership summit that both countries hope for this year becomes all the more complex. Meanwhile, nations in Asia and Europe pine for more stable U.S.-China relations that might reduce the political risk of trading with each of the world's two largest economies -- or trying to choose between them." [1]

1. U.S.-China Relations Fray As Xi Escalates Rhetoric
Areddy, James T; Hutzler, Charles.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 08 Mar 2023: A.1.