Onward to a meaningful US-China summit

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to Washington appears to have laid the groundwork for a summit meeting in San Francisco in November between US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, when both travel to the Pacific-facing metropolis for the annual meeting of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation members. Mr Wang spent several hours with his US counterpart, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, as well as National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, both of whom were present when he called on Mr Biden subsequently – a gesture of reciprocity accorded by the American leader for Mr Xi seeing Mr Blinken in June, in Beijing.

US-China relations have been on a downslope since ties peaked at the height of the global financial crisis in 2008, when Beijing helped steady global growth by introducing a truly massive financial stimulus package. Ties started to worsen following the trade war initiated by then President Donald Trump. They then suffered a huge drop when then US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi travelled to Taiwan in August 2022 and dipped further this February when the US Air Force shot down a stray Chinese balloon that American officials claimed was carrying intelligence-gathering equipment. Tensions are currently running high in the Taiwan Strait, in the seas off Japan and in the South China Sea, where the United States has accused China’s military of unsafe behaviour in air and at sea.