China and the Anglosphere mend a few fences at G20
Softer words were exchanged between Xi Jinping and the leaders of Australia and the U.S., Britain’s leader may ease up on China, and the world seems like a slightly less dangerous place.
Australian Prime Minister Albanese talked up his meeting with Chinese President Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 today in Bali on the sidelines of the Group of 20 (G20) summit, and both sides issued positive statements (see readout from Canberra, Beijing): “This was another important step toward the stabilization of the Australia-China relationship,” Albanese said of the 32-minute meeting.
The meeting was the first sunny signal from either side in several years: The bilateral relationship has been in rapid decline since 2017, and in a deep freeze since April 2020, when senior Australian officials suggested there should be an investigation into the origins of COVID-19 in China. Though profound difficulties remain, the talks were “very constructive,” Albanese added.
- “In the past few years, however, this relationship has encountered difficulties, which is the last thing we want to see,” Xi told Albanese.
- The meeting — the first between an Australian prime minister and a Chinese president since 2016 — included talks about human rights and the bitter, yearslong trade dispute between Canberra and Beijing.
- “It was a positive discussion, we put forward our position. It was not anticipated…that you [would] get immediate declarations,” Albanese said about the trade embargoes.
Sunak softens?
Speaking to journalists traveling with him to the G20 summit, Britain’s new prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has suggested that he has ditched plans to classify China as a “threat” to national security — a plan that was pushed forth by his predecessor Liz Truss — but has not ruled out any potential arms sales to Taiwan.
The plans would have been an escalation of a strategy document published last year, which labels China only as a “systemic competitor,” as part of an ongoing major review on the U.K.’s foreign policy.
- Though China is “undoubtedly the biggest state-based threat to our economic security,” the need for a working relationship is also “an indisputable fact of the global economy,” Sunak said at a meeting of world leaders at the G20 summit.
- Meanwhile, Sunak also told reporters, per Bloomberg, that Britain “stands ready to support Taiwan, as we do in standing up to Chinese aggression.” When asked if sending arms is the correct approach, Sunak replied, “We’re considering all these things.”
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Xi-Biden afterglow
The meeting between Xi and U.S. President Joe Biden yesterday (readouts from Washington, Beijing) sparked cautious optimism for an improvement in U.S.-China ties. As Biden noted per Bloomberg, “I’m not suggesting this is kumbaya…[but] I absolutely believe there need not be a new Cold War” — a message also reiterated by Xi.
Over the course of about three hours, the two world leaders agreed to unfreeze cooperation on issues like climate change and food security, while opposing any nuclear threats over Russia’s war on Ukraine.
- Both sides also agreed to manage cooperation and maintain open lines of communication.
- U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has made tentative plans to visit China early next year to follow up on bilateral discussions.
The meeting also graced the headlines of the Party newspaper, the People’s Daily, and state-run news agency Xinhua, which published a detailed English readout saying that “the United States respects China’s system, and does not seek to change it.” It further credited Biden by saying:
The United States does not seek a new Cold War, does not seek to revitalize alliances against China, does not support “Taiwan independence,” does not support “two Chinas” or “one China, one Taiwan,” and has no intention to have a conflict with China.
…The U.S. side has no intention to seek “decoupling” from China, to halt China’s economic development, or to contain China.
Meanwhile, the air of cooperative diplomacy seems to have exerted enough pressure on Russia: Moscow reaffirmed that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought” in a meeting between Chinese Foreign Minister Wáng Yì 王毅 and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday, according to Xinhua.
