WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥 Monday was supposed to be a day of modest hope in the U.S.-China relationship. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was going to be in Beijing, meeting with President Xi Jinping in a high-stakes bid to ease ever-rising tensions between the world鈥檚 two largest economies.
Instead, Blinken was spending the day in Washington after last week as the about a suspected Chinese spy balloon the U.S. shot down. As fraught as the US-China relationship had been ahead of Blinken鈥檚 planned trip, it鈥檚 even worse now and there鈥檚 little hope for it improving anytime soon.
Even as both sides maintain they will manage the situation in a calm manner, the mutual recriminations, particularly since the shoot-down of the balloon on Saturday that drew a stern Chinese protest, do not bode well for rapprochement.
The setback comes at a time when both sides were looking for a way to potentially extricate themselves from a low point in ties that has had the world on edge.
White House 春色直播 Security Spokesman John Kirby noted Monday that Blinken's trip was delayed, not canceled. But prospects for rescheduling remain uncertain.
鈥淚 would put this at a six鈥 on a scale of 10, said Danny Russel, a China expert and former assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs in the Obama administration, on the damage to current diplomatic efforts between the two countries.
鈥淭he signals I see suggest that there has to be a pause and a line drawn under the incident but once the drama has gone through its final act, there seems to be every intention to re-engineer a trip by the secretary of state," said Russel, who is now vice president for international security and diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute.
The administration will be 鈥渟tarting at a serious deficit,鈥 Russel said. 鈥淭his is a setback but it鈥檚 not impossible to see a return. Absent mismanagement, this is recoverable.鈥
Blinken and senior Chinese officials do plan to attend at least two international gatherings -- the Munich Security Conference in mid-February and a meeting of the Group of 20 foreign ministers in India in early March 鈥 that could provide venues for renewed engagement.
But the lost opportunity caused by the balloon incident may be difficult to recreate.
It鈥檚 not that the U.S. and China don鈥檛 talk. It鈥檚 that they talk from extremely divergent points of view with very little leeway for either to step back from entrenched positions that are often directly related to political conditions at home.
Military-to-military channels are used, but they have been hindered by increasing Chinese incursions into Taiwanese air defense zones and aggressive actions in the South China Sea. The result is the U.S. has stepped up reconnaissance flights and warship voyages through the Taiwan Strait.
Diplomatic channels remain open, but for several years they have been dominated by disagreements rather than grounds for potential cooperation and they are now crowded by complaints from both sides over the balloon.
President Joe Biden and Xi agreed to Blinken鈥檚 visit during a meeting in November in Indonesia. Biden may have been hoping that his top diplomat would return from China with a measure of progress on issues ranging from trade, Indo-Pacific security and climate change to human rights and the status of Taiwan. Instead, he now faces a domestic political maelstrom just ahead of his State of the Union speech to Congress on Tuesday.
Republican lawmakers have been harshly critical of what they say was Biden鈥檚 weak response to the presence of the balloon over U.S. airspace. New GOP House speaker Kevin McCarthy鈥檚 expected trip to Taiwan this year is likely to be accompanied by new complaints about the administration's approach.
Meanwhile in Beijing, after initially taking a relatively conciliatory response to the balloon, Chinese leaders have adopted a much tougher position likely in response to nationalistic public reaction. After apologizing for the balloon, which it said was a weather craft that mistakenly strayed into U.S. airspace, China now condemns the downing as an unacceptable violation of international law and standards that has set back the potential for dialogue.
鈥淏linken鈥檚 visit to China had offered a way to stabilize the U.S.鈥揅hina relationship,鈥 said Da Wei, director of the Center for International Security and Strategy at Beijing鈥檚 prestigious Tsinghua University. The postponement has now 鈥済reatly reduced" the window for that, he said.
Quite apart from the political implications for both, the developments have laid bare the extremely fragile nature of what many had hoped could be a manageable economic, political and
Tensions between the U.S. and China, notably over Taiwan, have been a source of deep concern for Washington and many of its allies. They worry that overt conflict will crater the global economy and their concerns were exacerbated last year with Russia鈥檚 invasion of Ukraine, on which China has largely sided with the Russians.
At the same time, China and the United States have been on a collision course on other matters, including China鈥檚 increasing aggressiveness in the South and East China Seas, which have put U.S. allies like Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Thailand on edge, not to mention Australia and New Zealand.
China鈥檚 continued clampdown on pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong, its human rights record in the mainly Muslim western region of Xinjiang, harassment and imprisonment of Christians and other religious minorities elsewhere, and ongoing campaign against Tibetan leaders have all become significant irritants in ties.
Over the last five years, China-U.S. relations have entered a new and worsening phase of confrontation, conflict and competition, said Da, calling the current period a 鈥渘ew kind of Cold War.鈥
鈥淚t鈥檚 very different from the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, but if we define cold war as the two biggest countries in the world being locked in fierce confrontations and conflicts in a way that doesn鈥檛 involve military and wars ... we are rapidly moving in that direction,鈥 Da said.
___ AP news assistant Caroline Chen in Beijing contributed.
