The Chinese and US foreign ministers will hold talks on the sidelines of the G20 Ministers' Meeting in Indonesia this week. The US State Department's Asia-Pacific Assistant Secretary Kang Da said that the talks will set up guardrails for China and the United States to ensure smoo

Chinese and US foreign ministers will hold talks on the sidelines of the G20 Ministers' Meeting in Indonesia this week. U.S. State Department's Asia-Pacific Assistant Secretary Kang Da said that the talks will set up guardrails for China and the United States to ensure smooth communication channels and avoid miscalculation. The US side will also express its expectations for China in the Russian-Ukrainian war. (Data photo/Xinhua News Agency )

htmlOn July 10, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and US Secretary of State Blinken Travel meeting with the help of the "Group of 20" (G20) Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Bali, Indonesia, held a five-hour closed-door talks. The complete content of the talks was not announced to the public, but it was obvious that both sides did not expect too much about the results, but just hoped to maintain smooth communication channels and establish "guardrails" to avoid misjudgment.

Over the past three months, high-level leaders of China and the United States have had intensive dialogues. It seems that both sides want to ease the tense relationship. I think the main reason is that the leaders of both countries are now facing a critical moment in their political careers. Misjudgment may lead to the "competition escalation into conflict" between the two sides and turn diplomatic issues into internal affairs.

Biden If you want to be re-elected, you must first pass the test of public opinion. According to a recent survey result of the US polling company "Civiqs", Biden's approval rating has fallen below the 30% mark, approaching the lowest record of the US president's approval rating in decades, and the impact is the US midterm election. In the worst case, the Democrats would hand over the majority of seats in both the Senate and the House of Representatives to Republican after the re-election. If this is true, wouldn’t Biden “misleading himself and others” become the target of public criticism within the party?

During the talks, Wang Yi and Blinken inevitably touched the Russian-Ukrainian war issue that everyone was concerned about. According to foreign telegrams, the two sides confronted each other with no intersection at all; but Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic strategist at the United States, said, "Most Americans' sentiment will not depend too much on Ukraine, but more on whether the economy is really recovering." Therefore, Biden's top priority is not diplomacy, but on trying to "stop the decline and rebound."

The US Department of Commerce announced that the annual rate of GDP for the first quarter of this year fell by 1.4%, which is the first negative growth since the recession caused by the epidemic two years ago. Economists predict that the probability of a recession in the next 12 months is even higher than that during the 2008 financial tsunami. In addition, the inflation rate in the United States has risen to a 40-year high, which puts pressure on economic growth, and the continued soaring prices is the most "feeling" that the American people.

If Biden wants to solve the economic problems, he will not be able to completely decouple from China, which ranks second largest economy in the world. When U.S. Treasury Secretary Yellen admitted when he was interviewed by ABC (ABC), he admitted that some of the tariff policies to China that have been used in the Trump era have become "strategic". To alleviate the high inflation crisis currently facing the United States, Yellen claimed that the Biden administration is re-examining the policy.

So far, Biden is still uncertain about whether to reduce tariffs on Chinese goods; but outside analysis should have a clear statement before the Chinese and US leaders have another dialogue. It is worth noting that some former U.S. administration officials and big names in the business community have recently come forward together and called on the Biden administration to "rebuild" relations with China. I think it would put considerable pressure on Biden based on vote considerations.

The reason is as Robert G. Kaiser, an expert on Communist issues, said, this is a "political transaction" between rulers and ruled under the Communist system, that is, "the people give up their power to choose leaders and influence policies in exchange for basic security, order and necessities of daily life."

Due to the impact of the epidemic, the global economy has been in a downturn. Although China's economic situation is better than the United States in comparison, China relies on exports and cannot "sweep the snow in front of the door" and ignore changes in the international economic environment. In response to this, Director of the Institute of International Strategy of Peking University, Wang Jisi, recently emphasized that he hopes that China and the United States will continue to develop economic and trade relations and scientific and technological exchanges.

Looking forward to the development of Sino-US relations, Paul Haenle, director of the Tsinghua-Carnegie Global Policy Center, said: "Neither China nor the United States want to be considered too provocative, so the strategy of taking into account both comfort and deterrence will achieve an appropriate balance." I think this is what "fight without breaking" means, because neither China nor the United States has the capital to fight a war. (The author Zhao Chunshan is an honorary professor at the Mainland China Institute of Taiwan Jiang University/Source: Taiwan "China Times")