The Biden White House has been looking for openings toward maintaining ways to cooperate productively with China, particularly on key issues such as climate change, despite ongoing tensions in the South China Sea and over the simmering Taiwan issue.
But these efforts appear to be in peril, Politico has reported, as the Chinese side is said to be stonewalling preparations for a crucial upcoming face-to-face meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali set for mid-November.
“Beijing won’t engage with U.S. officials trying to draft an agenda for the meeting, according to a person familiar with the planning — a move that could prevent it from happening at all,” Politico wrote in the recent report.
The latest US statements and actions regarding trade, on China’s human rights record, as well as Taiwan – including continuing preparations for major weapons packages – has reportedly frustrated and outraged Beijing officials to the point that China might back out of the G20 Xi-Biden meeting altogether.
The latest salvo from early last month was an announced $1.1 billion arms sale package for Taiwan approved by the Biden administration, marking no less than the sixth major defense package under Biden. The New York Times soon after the massive new arms package was announced observed that the US is seeking to turn Taiwan into a “giant weapons depot”.
While neither China’s foreign ministry nor its embassy in Washington has given official comment, one diplomat privy to the behind-the-scene signaling explained the following:
“Normally, when you have a presidential bilat you start working out the agenda quite a while in advance, but Chinese diplomats are saying, ‘You guys whack us every other day — if that is the environment, how can we expect a positive outcome from a Xi-Biden meeting?‘” a person briefed by Chinese officials on the planning told POLITICO.
“If they can’t have a positive outcome, their view is ‘should we even have the meeting?‘” the person said. The individual was granted anonymity to prevent possible reprisals for speaking publicly about the bilateral spat.
However, the US side did respond to growing rumors and reports that Beijing is stonewalling…
“This story is 100 percent false,” a National Security Council’s top spokesperson, was quoted by Politico as saying. “We’ve already said the two presidents tasked out their teams to look into a meeting. I won’t get beyond that though in terms of timing and location as of now.” And yet at least one diplomat involved in the planning admitted under anonymity that a G20 meeting between Biden and Xi is “still not confirmed”.
Related to diplomatic uncertainty at the G20 is also Russia and the plans of Vladimir Putin. His attendance is still entirely unclear despite positive signals from months ago that he’s set on going. But Moscow’s growing isolation on the world stage due to its unpopular war in Ukraine means Putin is unlikely to want to face potentially embarrassing situations such as being shunned by other world leaders, or the likelihood that he’d be continually put on the spot by the international press corps during the summit.
