Reading the Xi leaves: Biden meeting good for everyone

If the two leaders meet during the APEC summit, the region will be reassured that the rivalry between the two superpowers is being checked.

Will Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, attend the APEC summit in San Francisco from November 11 to 17 in person?

Current indications are likely he will attend though American officials say nothing is yet definite including him meeting US President Joe Biden. And there is always the possibility of a Xi no-show at the last minute.

If Xi skips the meeting as he did the G20 summit in September and nothing substantial comes out of APEC, ASEAN will probably pivot even more to the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

If this happens, then the US-backed Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity  (IPEF) will lose its influence among member countries, especially those in the ASEAN grouping.

China plays the anchor role in the RCEP and any increase in its importance will be at the political expense of the US. Many Indo-Pacific countries remember when CPTTP, originally the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), was suddenly abandoned by former US President Donald Trump.

Key US allies such as Japan think the US should engage the region via the CPTTP rather than start another grouping such as the IPEF. After all, the US was driving the TPP before it was abandoned by the Trump administration.

The Americans, meanwhile, continue to create alliances with individual countries like India and groupings like ASEAN to counter China’s influence.

Southeast Asia will be closely watching the upcoming summit. Six of the 10 ASEAN countries are members of APEC and how trade and political rivalry between China and the US play out will impact the region broadly.

The 21 APEC member economies account for nearly 40 percent of the global population and nearly 50 percent of global trade.

Xi will step on US soil only if he can get something out of it. He is not going to fly across the Pacific for a photo-op with Biden.

China’s economy, especially its real estate sector, is in deep trouble. Unemployment among Chinese youth is also on the way up.

A congressional delegation led by US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other senior lawmakers was in Beijing two weeks ago. It may be that Schumer carried a personal message from Biden on why Xi should attend.

There is a lot of uneasiness in Washington over China’s ‘no limits’ ties with Russia and its influence over North Korea and its nuclear missiles. China is stymieing the Western camp with its strict policy of not taking sides.

The truth is, China is playing a superb diplomatic game. This strategic ambiguity of not taking sides allows it to maximise its options and maintain close ties with Russia and North Korea.

Supporting both economies means indirectly tying down the US. America is well aware that China will never give up its pretence of neutrality when it comes to Russia and North Korea.

A face-to-face meeting between Xi and Biden will remind the Russians and North Koreans that the US can present its views on China’s ‘neutrality’ directly to Xi.

An APEC summit sidelines meeting between Xi and Biden will also send a powerful message to the rest of the world that a cold war between China and the US will not escalate. One cannot say the same for US-Russia or US-North Korea relations since the leaders do not speak to each other directly.

But if Xi is a no-show ASEAN will be worried as this may impact indirectly on the continuing conflict between China and the US over the South China Sea.

US Navy ships have had close encounters with Chinese ships in recent years, as the US and her allies have sailed into waters claimed by China under its ‘nine-dash line’.

But Cold War warriors will say that Xi’s absence is a larger pattern of strategic competition between the US and China. The US under Biden has made containing China its number one priority and the Chinese leader will ‘lose face’ meeting the person who is trying to achieve this.

Conventional analysts will argue Xi’s absence is simply to send a message to the rest of the world that China is putting efforts into building an alternative international architecture, minus the US.

This has been China’s consistent message since Xi’s much-hyped ‘China Dream’ and influence peddling via the infamous Belt and Road Initiative in the past decade.

For the past few years, the central Chinese bank has been pushing for direct currency swaps rather than using the greenback when it comes to trade. It is no accident that the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which facilitates this, is headquartered in Beijing.

China is trying to build a new international architecture because most of the current ones, especially key international institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF, were essentially created by the US after the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement.

They have outlived their usefulness in the new century where China is the rising power. China feels it is only rational for it to want to create a new set of international institutions to reflect its growing power in the international arena.

China believes that the era of American dominance is gone and that the Pacific Century, under the benign rule of China, has arrived. The barriers put up by the West, can at best, slow the rise of China but not stop it.

James Chin is Professor of Asian Studies at the University of Tasmania and Senior Fellow at Sunway University’s Jeffrey Cheah Institute, Malaysia.

Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™

Editors Note: ASEAN/SEA