President Joe Biden is sending a high-level delegation to China in a bid to “reduce the risk of … potential conflict” with the communist regime, according to senior United States officials.
“This is a really critical series of engagements … that we again hope will, at a minimum, reduce the risk of miscalculation so that we do not veer into potential conflict,” Assistant Secretary Daniel Kritenbrink, who leads the State Department’s East Asian and Pacific Affairs Bureau, told reporters Wednesday. “I think it’s incredibly serious.”
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Biden’s team has made a series of public overtures to improve direct communications with China, galvanized by a series of “dangerous incidents” involving Chinese military harassment of U.S. ships and planes in the Indo-Pacific. China, which scuttled such communications processes following then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last year, adopted a confrontational posture in a pre-trip conversation with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
“Since the beginning of the year, Sino-U.S. relations have encountered new difficulties and challenges, and the responsibility is clear,” Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang told Blinken, according to a Chinese summary of their conversation. “Stop interfering in China’s internal affairs, and stop harming China’s sovereignty, security, and development interests in the name of competition.”
The trip was unveiled just days after the revelation that Chinese officials have established an intelligence outpost in Cuba.
“As the competition continues, the PRC will take provocative steps — from the Taiwan Strait to Cuba — and we will push back,” said Kurt Campbell, the White House National Security Council’s coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs. “But intense competition requires intense diplomacy if we’re going to manage tensions. That is the only way to clear up misperceptions, to signal, to communicate, and to work together where and when our interests align.”
China has cut communications with the United States while increasing the number of close encounters between the two militaries as a way of telling the United States “to get out of the Western Pacific, and to abandon our alliances and partnerships, and leave,” as a top Pentagon official said during a recent congressional hearing. Pentagon officials, for their part, have put a spotlight on the risky Chinese military behavior in an apparent effort to persuade Indo-Pacific countries that Beijing is stoking the risk of conflict.
“We won’t be deterred by dangerous operational behavior at sea or in international airspace,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said during a June 2 appearance at the Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore. “So we will support our allies and partners as they defend themselves against coercion and bullying. To be clear, we do not seek conflict or confrontation. But we will not flinch in the face of bullying or coercion.”
Just days before the conference, Austin’s team published a video of a Chinese fighter jet making an “an unnecessarily aggressive maneuver” to pass in front of an American reconnaissance plane over the South China Sea. Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu refused to meet with Austin on the sidelines of the Singapore conference.
“For responsible defense leaders, the right time to talk is anytime,” Austin said. “The right time to talk is every time. And the right time to talk is now. Dialogue is not a reward. It is a necessity.”
Kritenbrink suggested that Chinese officials have sent a quiet signal of agreement — Shangfu’s spurning of Austin notwithstanding — in “substantive, productive, and candid exchanges” with their U.S. counterparts.
“And in the course of those discussions, both sides have indicated a shared interest in making sure that we have communication channels open and that we do everything possible to reduce the risk of miscalculation,” Kritenbrink said. “Chinese counterparts have used the words ‘to stop the downward spiral in the relationship,’ and we have often noted — again, I’ll reiterate our interest in reducing the risk of miscalculation.”
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Kritenbrink allowed that Blinken “is committed to exploring potential cooperation on transnational challenges,” but held out scant hope of “deliverables” — diplomatic jargon for showcase practical outcomes.
“I do think we need to be realistic,” he said. “We’re not going to Beijing with the intent of having some sort of breakthrough or transformation in the way that we deal with one another. We’re coming to Beijing with a realistic, confident approach and a sincere desire to manage our competition in the most responsible way possible.”
