Global Disorder; or is it Global Order - The Contrasting Views from Beijing and Washington

There is growing confusion over the current and future shape of the Global Order. At the heart of the debate over the Order is the nature and behavior of the relationship between China and the United States. US-China relations were in sharp relief with Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s recent visit to China and the followup.

The Global Summitry Project (GSP) has set as a key agenda focus, US-China and more broadly China-West relations with our project - the China-West Dialogue (CWD). 

Mark Leonard, the Director of the European Council on Foreign Relations well describes the confusion among the powers in a recent piece in Foreign Affairs: “Chinese strategists increasingly define their goal as survival in a world without order. … Instead of seeking to save the system, Beijing is preparing for its failure.” Meanwhile in Washington, according to Leonard: “ … the return of great-power competition is thought

to require revamping the alliances and institutions at the heart of

the post–World War II order that helped the United States win the

Cold War against the Soviet Union  and currently … leaving China and several of its most important partners … isolated on the outside.” A world of disorder, or a revitalized ‘Cold War Order’ - quite contrasting visions but both demanding a degree of stability in the US-China relationship. 

According to various analysts and Washington officials what is required is “getting back to Bali” — reviving the high-level dialogue established between President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 Summit in Bali last November.  But ‘getting back to Bali’ may not be in the cards. After a seemingly positive, if not a ‘breakthrough’ effort by Blinken, the Chinese responded publicly with outrage just a day or so later to a statement by President Biden expressed at a fundraising event where Biden described President Xi as a ‘dictator’.  

But even without such grist, there are loud, persistent and consequential voices from Washington publicly objecting to these current efforts by the US Administration. One of the loudest is Congressman Mike Gallagher, Republican of Wisconsin who is chairman of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party. In a Washington Post piece Gallagher voiced his distaste for BIden efforts: “President Biden foresees a “thaw” in relations with Beijing. The State Department wants to “move beyond” what Mr. Biden now calls the “silly balloon” and get “back to Bali,... For more than 30 years, Washington has pursued economic engagement with communist China on the theory that economic growth would lead to political liberalization. We now know that prosperity has served only to embolden Mr. Xi’s worst authoritarian instincts. … This is the trap of zombie engagement. … We give up the farm simply to get to the negotiating table.”

A ‘toned down’ professional relationship is what is required. It may not be possible in either Beijing or Washington.