Alaska meet is chance for US-China ties renewal: Expert

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ANKARA (AA) - A meeting between Washington and Beijing to be held on Thursday in the US state of Alaska is set to be the first opportunity for the two sides to size each other up and present their bottom lines, expectations and proposals to renew bilateral ties, according to one Chinese security policy expert.

China will likely be more actively trying to assess its interlocutor, said Jingdon Yuan, an associate senior fellow at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), as the administration of the recently elected US President Joe Biden "has by-and-large kept the general parameter" of the policy on Beijing of his predecessor Donald Trump, during whose term a trade war erupted between the countries, along with tit-for-tat sanctions.

In the first top-level exchange, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan will meet on Thursday in Alaska with the People's Republic of China's (PRC) Director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi and State Councilor Wang Yi. Wang also acts as China's foreign minister.

It will be the first instance under Biden of such a high-level exchange after the bilateral relations between the two countries nose-dived under the Trump administration.

The SIPRI scholar said Biden has two key exceptions from his predecessor.

"Biden is not loud-mouthed, but his principles seem clear and unyielding. Second, Biden is open to dialogue and cooperation where both sides share common interests," said Yuan, who is an Associate Professor of International Security at the University of Sydney, Australia.

- 'Frank, open discussions'

The SIPRI scholar said the Biden administration would be open with China on climate change while still being "firm on trade, technology, and regional security."

"You can expect 'open and frank discussions' with the Chinese, reiterating many old principles while the US side will be more specific, targeted, unyielding, but not picking fights where they are not necessary," he explained.

The best outcome for the Alaska meeting, said Yuan, is that both sides agree on more talks, "perhaps cooperation on some specific issues, and even better," exploring the possibility of a Xi Jinping-Joe Biden meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation or G20 summits.

He said the trade deal reached between the former Trump administration and Beijing in January 2020 would "stay in place until an overall assessment of the US-China economic relations is undertaken by the Biden administration."

"Trade imbalance may become less important than preserving the lead in technology and innovation, protection of intellectual property, market access, fairness, among others," he said.

- China critical for US on North Korea policy, climate change

The academic also underlined the need for action by both China and the US in "critical" issues such as climate change and North Korean nuclear proliferation.

Asked whether Washington will slow down its rhetoric on Hong Kong and Taiwan, Yuan said China's "participation and cooperation" would place these issues on the back burner, or at least make the US "not as vocal" on them.

Ahead of the Alaska meeting, Washington imposed fresh sanctions on Tuesday night on 24 Chinese officials linked to the latest overhaul of the election system in Hong Kong. The new system will allow "only patriots" to run for public office in the semi-autonomous region.

"Taiwan is quite different from Hong Kong. For the latter, the Biden administration may be resigned to its fate [...] But it will demonstrate more resolve while remaining strategically ambiguous with regard to what it can do regarding Taiwan's security. However, Beijing is equally and perhaps even more resolved on this issue, so this could be the most dangerous spot/issue over which potential US-China military conflict could take place," he said.

China claims Taiwan as its "breakaway province" but Taipei has been insisting on independence since 1949, having bilateral relations with at least 16 nations.

- 'Quad can ill afford to dismiss their enormous economic interactions with China'

The Alaska meeting is the third big event in Washington's foreign policy engagement.

Biden also held the first meeting of the Quad -- a loose grouping led by Washington that includes Japan, Australia and India. Besides, the president also dispatched Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on their first foreign tour of Japan and South Korea.

Beijing has pushed back on these initiatives, calling for regional stability and peace in the Asia-Pacific, where most of its interests lie.

The SIPRI scholar said the Quad countries could all agree that the rise of China was a "major security challenge to their interests, but they may entertain different approaches given their divergent interests, priorities, and capabilities."

"It is hard to imagine that Japan or Australia, or even the US, would intervene directly, and with military forces, should there be a military conflict between China and India," he argued.

Besides, said Yuan, "all the Quad members can ill afford or just dismiss the realities that they all have enormous economic interactions with China, and this fact alone will demand policymakers to clearly think through the various trade-offs, implications, and consequences, especially when there are already two bilateral alliances."

"The bottom-line: What objective is the Quad turned alliance to achieve?" he asked.

The US and China, the world's top two economies with a bilateral trade volume of over $560 billion, are the engines of the global economy. All but two economies -- China and Turkey -- registered negative growth during the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, Yuan said that for the Quad, this event would be "extraordinary" since it would be the first meeting with such high-level participation between the two countries since the Biden administration took office in January.

"Signal is clear: the four powers are serious about the China challenge and are ever more interested in developing common strategies and engaging in closer coordination, largely on post-COVID responses, greater economic cooperation especially in enhancing trade and investment, and securing reliable supply chains, and signaling their common security interests and preserving rules-based order," said Yuan.

He added that the Quad was more about regional security cooperation among the four powers, "and less about China's expanding presence in other parts of the world, where other policy options may be in the offing, initially by the US."