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American President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping announced the few tangible results of their meeting separately. Beforehand, her staff had spent months negotiating every detail of the meeting, from the appropriate meeting room in San Francisco to the floral decorations.
The fact that the meeting took place at all can be seen as a success. The USA and the People’s Republic of China, whose rivalry threatens to drag the entire world into the abyss, are back in conversation:
- Biden and Xi want to speak to each other personally in the event of a crisis in the future, and the armed forces of the two states want to reactivate their communication channels.
- China wants to help the USA in the fight against the drug fentanyl, for whose production Chinese laboratories are said to be partly responsible.
- Experts from both countries will jointly discuss the risks of artificial intelligence.
“We must ensure that competition does not lead to conflict,” Biden warned his Chinese counterpart. In other words: You won’t become friends – but at least you want to exercise caution when cultivating enmity and thus counteract escalation.
The ice is thin – there is plenty of potential for conflict
There is plenty of potential for escalation. Especially since China’s declared goal is to have replaced the USA as the most powerful country in the world by 2049 at the latest.
The two major powers have been waging an economic war against each other for years, imposing punitive tariffs and restricting exports and investments.
The wars in Ukraine and Gaza also contribute to US-Chinese hostility. The US sides with Ukraine and Israel and accuses China of at least indirectly supporting Russia and Hamas. China rejects this.
What is clear, however, is that the two wars are playing into the hands of the People’s Republic of China. Simply because they keep the USA on its toes. And because China can present itself as the leading power of the so-called global south, including countries in the Muslim world that are hostile to the USA.
Taiwan: a hot potato
The conflict over the island of Taiwan, which calls itself the “Republic of China”, is really dangerous. Xi Jinping’s People’s Republic claims the island for itself and wants to integrate it into its own national territory, if necessary by force. Since Taiwan is the main production site for computer chips, the global economic consequences of a war would be much more devastating than those of the Ukraine and Middle East wars.
The US’s Taiwan policy is contradictory. They do recognize that there should only be one China, namely the People’s Republic. At the same time, they are warning China not to interfere in Taiwan’s parliamentary and presidential elections in two months.
Biden has even emphasized several times in the past that he would support Taiwan with his own troops if it were to defend itself against a Chinese attempt at conquest. So there would be a war between the two nuclear powers USA and China.
For this reason alone, it is to be welcomed that Biden and Xi want to speak to each other personally on the phone in future in the event of a crisis. To prevent a mere misunderstanding or misjudgment by the two heads of state from leading to a war over Taiwan – and thus possibly to a third world war.