On March 19, the China-U.S. high-level strategic dialogue came to a close in Alaska. Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan attended. 

It was the first face-to-face meeting between high-level officials of China and the U.S. since U.S. President Joe Biden took office.

"The relationship with China is obviously the key foreign policy issue," said Jorge Heine, a research professor at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University and former Chilean Ambassador to China, adding that the resumption of negotiations between China and the U.S. is a good sign.

Heine told CGTN Dialogue that up until a few months ago, there were no rules in Washington's policy toward China and that it was all spur-of-the-moment improvised hawkish measures. But now that both China and the United States have expressed support for multilateralism, he believes there is still room for the two countries to converge and agree on rules.

"Climate change, the pandemic … there might be other sorts of financial crisis in the future. All of these will need the cooperation between the United States and China," he said. "Whatever these global challenges are, if the United States and China agree on them, they will be able to move forward.”

Martin Sieff, a senior fellow at the Global Policy Institute, agreed with Heine that the world needs China-U.S. cooperation, adding that the world's prosperity has depended on cooperation between China and the U.S. for generations.

But unexpectedly, the attitudes in Washington have fundamentally changed in the last few years. "Former U.S. President Donald Trump and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo succeeded far more profoundly than people outside the U.S. realize in changing strategic attitudes in Washington," Sieff said. "Unfortunately, there is a deeply, widely held prejudice among policymakers, not just in the military but diplomatic areas and economic areas as well. They see China as a competitor rather than a partner."

Sieff said the key issue is whether President Biden has the strength of personality and the conviction to turn the clock back in a positive way and whether he can roll back attitudes of suspicion and xenophobia.

However, President Biden now seems more inclined to follow the short-term political advantages in Washington and going alone with the constancy inheritance, rather than turning back to resolve China-U.S. conflicts, which is what he needs to do, Sieff said.

He said the Biden administration is still thinking in terms of the past, not the present, as President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken and National Security Advisor Jack Sullivan all served in the Obama administration, but in lower positions than they do now. 

"The three top policymakers are all living in the past, and they are not looking on China as it is. They are looking in terms of their own assumptions, which were not even true then, 10 or even 30 years ago," he said. "This is very unsettling."

Speaking of how to restore China-U.S. diplomatic ties, Sieff argued that the real barrier for the U.S. is its domestic affairs. Biden has been a lifelong senator, and the emphasis in the U.S. Senate has always been on domestic politics and avoiding confrontation. In a bid to avoid confrontation with Republican critics, Biden chooses to go up against China. However, he noted that Joe Biden won the election with 7 million more votes than former President Donald Trump. More Americans voted for Biden for president than any other political candidate in U.S. history, giving the president tremendous moral force.

Heine agreed that Biden is facing huge pressure from his opponents and the U.S. public, but he believes that China and the U.S. should "look at some low-hanging fruit and try to solve a couple of issues" to begin moving forward.

"Dialogue" is a prime time English-language daily talk show on CGTN. The 30-minute program covers a wide range of domestic and international topics, providing a balanced and critical perspective on current affairs and analysis within the framework of cross-cultural and multi-disciplinary comparisons.

Schedule: Monday-Sunday

Time (GMT): 03:30, 11:30, 19:30

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