Going forward, more changes likely in China-U.S. relations

Editor's note: As the curtain falls on 2023, China and the U.S. are ending the year with a detente after the balloon incident and fight over semiconductors. Two experts share their views on China-U.S. relations in 2023.

Wang Yiwei is Jean Monnet chair professor, director of Institute of International Affairs at Renmin University of China. Sun Chenghao is a research fellow at the Center for International Security and Strategy, Tsinghua University.

The article reflects the authors' opinions and not necessarily those of CGTN.

From the balloon incident in early 2023 to the San Francisco meeting in November, the tone of the China-U.S. relationship changed through the year. What do you think could explain the changes? And what do you think the short- and long-term significance of the San Francisco meeting could be?

Wang Yiwei: In the past year, relations between China and the United States experienced dramatic V-shaped changes. China-U.S. relations entered 2023 promisingly following the Bali consensus reached in 2022, but the "balloon" incident in late January resulted in the postponement of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken's planned trip to China in February for follow-up discussions and triggered tensions, demonstrating the vulnerability of bilateral ties.

In November, Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden held a meeting in San Francisco, reaffirming the Bali consensus and further clarifying the roadmap and competition rules for the two countries. Of course, whether or not that will materialize depends on how next year, an American election year, unfolds.

The ups and downs in China-U.S. relations point to various changes that are taking place. The U.S. faces problems including increasingly split interest groups, domestic governance failure, battles between industrial capital and financial capital, and divergence of interests between the energy sector and the financial sector. With divided capital, politics and society, the U.S. has taken China as a scapegoat for its own domestic problems.

Sun Chenghao: The outcomes of the meeting between President Xi Jinping and President Joe Biden in San Francisco were pragmatic and desirable. China and the United States reached more than 20 consensuses in the fields of politics and diplomacy, people-to-people exchanges, global governance and military security, paving the way for further cooperation between the two countries in the future. In particular, the two sides made some concrete and tangible progress in addressing climate change, combating fentanyl, restoring military communication and promoting artificial intelligence cooperation.

These outcomes will help China and the U.S. establish an effective mechanism to manage the risks caused by bilateral competition and military escalation, and contribute to global governance as responsible major countries. These important consensuses show that China and the U.S. share broad common interests and it should not simply define China-U.S. relations by "strategic competition." The international community needs a stable China-U.S. relationship more than ever. China and the U.S. should live up to the expectations of other countries and contribute more to global peace and development.

Sanctions on Chinese enterprises and warnings about China have come from the U.S., while there have also been American voices and actions stressing the necessity of a detente between the two large economies. What do you think of this? Is this kind of contradiction normal in diplomatic relations between China and the U.S.?

Wang: There is a big lesson to be drawn from the roller-coaster fluctuations in China-U.S. relations in 2023: the U.S. will not be able to solve its domestic problems by suppressing China. Among these problems, the biggest is the fact that domestic and diplomatic policies are controlled by private capital which puts its interests first. In addition, the country is struggling to sustain the U.S. dollar hegemony, with its national debt reaching nearly $34 trillion. If annual interest payments exceed the annual military spending of the U.S., the U.S. military and U.S. dollar hegemony will go bankrupt, which will inevitably weaken its position globally.

Paradoxically, however, without global expansion, it would be impossible for the U.S. to achieve capital appreciation, export inflation through wars and crises, or reap gains from the rest of the world by implementing continuous interest rate cuts or hikes that cause the dollar to strengthen or weaken. Then the U.S. would only find itself in a greater predicament. All in all, the U.S. should change its own mechanisms, and it is of no use to blame China or any other country.

Sun: The United States is a relatively diverse country. A bipartisan consensus on China has been formed in recent years as well as a consensus of the ruling and opposition parties, which stressed the need to compete. But there are still differences on how to compete with China. Since the beginning of this year, there have been voices in the United States rethinking its policy toward China, believing that defining relations only by strategic competition will not help realize its own interests. In April this year, Maurice Greenberg, vice chairman of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, issued an open letter to Chinese and U.S. leaders. The letter, signed by 22 former senior U.S. government officials and well-known entrepreneurs, called on the two countries to conduct dialogue, manage differences, and repair and stabilize U.S.-China relations.

Late U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who had made it his lifelong pursuit to promote the development of China-U.S. relations and enhance the friendship between the two peoples, said his expectations for bilateral ties can only be described as cautiously optimistic, but at least the world can see both countries want to avoid conflict and not let the world drift into two divided and opposing camps or systems. As Kissinger said, tensions between China and the United States are already on a cliff, and the trajectory of the relationship must change.

Which aspect of China-U.S. relations in 2023 will have the longest impact, and why?

Wang: In 2023, Chinese tech giant Huawei launched its new Mate 60 smartphone series after experiencing years of extreme sanctions imposed by the U.S. The launch, from the Harmony operating system to the 5nm chip, served as a warning to Washington. It also prompted the U.S. to reflect on these questions carefully: Is it true that only Americans can develop original technologies/systems? Does the world belong to the U.S.? Is the nation still a "Shining City on a Hill"? Are Americans god's chosen ones? Is a country really great if it achieves everything by monopolizing technical standards and rights? For the U.S., changing its mindset and reshaping its national identity will take a long time.

Competition between industries, systems and views will remain the norm between China and the U.S. In the final analysis, the key to the so-called strategic competition between them lies in who can provide higher-quality public goods for the international community, better respond to the common expectations of the international community, and boost international productivity to higher levels.

Sun: I think the most important thing is that China and the United States have "institutionalized" the bilateral relationship by rebuilding dialogue or creating new dialogues in some areas. Besides, after a long period of strategic competition, China and the United States also hope they could implement some of the "reassurances" they gave to each other. 

In this way, resuming dialogue or establishing new dialogues in various fields can help boost confidence in each other. These dialogues are also different from previous strategic and economic dialogues, as they reflect better the pragmatic style of both sides to be "result-oriented" and address issues of mutual concern.