Editor’s note for July 10, 2023

Dear reader:

“The world is big enough for both of our countries to thrive,” said U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen as she wrapped her four-day visit to China yesterday. She claimed that she and U.S. President Joe Biden “do not see the relationship between the U.S. and China through the frame of great power conflict.”

Yellen made her comments after 10 hours of meetings with senior officials.

There are always those unhappy with talking to the frenemy. A group of Chinese female economists who had a meal with Janet Yellen were called radical feminist traitors by Chinese internet nationalists. In the U.S. some complained that Biden is showing weakness by sending three senior officials to Beijing — Yellen followed Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and will be followed by climate envoy John Kerry — while there have not been any reciprocal visits from Chinese officials to Washington.

But the mainstream view, from both Chinese and American sides, seems to be that although nothing substantial was achieved, jaw-jaw is always better than the alternatives: silence or war-war.

But we are still a long way from understanding what kind of world will be “big enough” for both the U.S. and China to coexist happily. Yellen’s phrasing recalls a statement Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 made a number of times after meeting with former U.S. President Obama: “The broad Pacific Ocean is vast enough to embrace both China and the United States.”

It sounds peaceful, but one can’t help feeling that Xi’s real meaning was not to suggest that the Pacific Ocean is big enough for the U.S. to stay on its own side, and get out of China’s neighborhood. Which is not something anyone with any power in Washington, D.C., is even thinking about.

Nor is anyone with any power in D.C. thinking about softening their attitude to China. Yellen brought sweet words for her Chinese counterparts, but no relief from semiconductor curbs or sanctions. And as far as Beijing is concerned, there’s the rub.

The China Agenda is our top story today: It’s a draft version of a newsletter we may launch that would go out every Sunday evening and give you a preview of the most important political, business, and financial events of the coming week.

Please let me know what you think of the China Agenda idea, and its execution below, by replying to this email or writing to editors@thechinaproject.com to reach our whole editorial team.

Our Word of the Day is:

The broad Pacific Ocean is vast enough to embrace both China and the United States

宽广的太平洋两岸有足够空间容纳中美两个大国

guǎngkuò de tàipíngyáng zúgòu guǎngkuò, zúyǐ bāoróng zhōngguó hé měiguó