Xi’s panda gesture symbolises a stabilisation in US-China relations

Pandas. Giant pandas!

News that the US and China have agreed to resume military-to-military communications to reduce the chances of starting World War III quite rightly made the headlines, but…Pandas!

Following four hours of talks with President Biden, Chinese President Xi Jinping made a speech to almost 400 business leaders, including Apple CEO Tim Cook and Tesla’s Elon Musk. In it he described pandas as “envoys of friendship between the Chinese and American people”. A pair of pandas are now expected to be sent to San Diego Zoo.

You may think this is frippery, but bear with me. Pandas have been a symbol of friendship between the US and China since the first ones were sent to the National Zoo in Washington in 1972 ahead of the normalisation of relations. During the last few years, as the relationship soured, social media in China was awash with unfounded allegations that the animals were being mistreated and people demanded their return. One by one they went home and now only four remain. Reversing this trend is symbolic of signs of stabilisation in the Washington/Beijing relationship. It frames the military communications breakthrough and other agreements which came out of the Biden/Xi meeting.

Reopening military links is the most important. Lines were cut after the then House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in Aug 2022. After a year of near misses in the skies between US and Chinese warplanes, and the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon in American airspace, both sides were reminded of the imperative to have hotlines connecting senior government and military officials.

The White House readout of the talks states, “Both sides are resuming telephone conversations between theatre commanders” and the US defence secretary Lloyd Austin is now expected to meet his Chinese counterpart once he or she is appointed. The offices of the two leaders will set up a direct communication system so that, as Biden put it, “each one of us can pick up the phone call directly and we’ll be heard immediately.”

President Xi also agreed that China will come down hard on Chinese chemical companies which make precursors for the opioid drug fentanyl which is major cause of drug addiction in America. The companies sell the precursors to Mexican drug cartels who then make fentanyl and smuggle it into the US. There were also agreements to cooperate on understanding the potential dangers of AI, and on taking a common approach “toward a successful COP 28”.

It wasn’t all sweetness and light. Last year, in a comment which angered Beijing, Biden called Xi a dictator. After their talks this week, reporters asked him if he stood by the remark to which he replied, “Well, look, he is. I mean, he’s a dictator in the sense that he is a guy who runs a country that is a communist country”. The comment was missing from the state news agency Xinhua’s reporting of the event. However, the tone of the report was that substantial progress had been made.

The red lines of both sides were still on display in what was described as a “candid and constructive discussion”. The American side used the phrase “free and open Indo-Pacific” which in this context meant that the South China Sea and wider region must be maintained as international waters allowing “freedom of navigation” and overflights. The talks regarding Taiwan were “clear-headed” and “not heated”.  Biden reaffirmed an “ironclad commitment to defending our Indo-Pacific allies”, said the US opposes any unilateral changes to the status quo regarding Taiwan, and expected “cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means”. He also warned China not to meddle in Taiwan’s elections which are scheduled for January.

For his part, Xi said there were no plans to invade the island and then moved on to other issues. According to the readout from the Chinese side, Xi insisted that the US must lift economic sanctions and change its policies on export controls for sensitive equipment. The readout says “Stifling China’s technological progress is nothing but a move to contain China’s high-quality development and deprive the Chinese people of their right to development” adding that this development “will not be stopped by external forces.” This was a reference to recent moves by Washington to ensure that various state of the art technologies, notably super semiconductor chips, are kept out of Beijing’s hands. Biden apparently “emphasised that the United States will continue to take necessary actions to prevent advanced US technologies from being used to undermine our own national security”.

At the later business leaders dinner, the Chinese leader appeared to be in a reflective mood, contrasting America’s approach to Beijing of “strategic competition” with his view that “The world is big enough to accommodate both countries”. Xi said he “always had one question on my mind: how to steer the giant ship of China-US relations clear of hidden rocks and shoals, navigate it through storms and waves without getting disoriented, losing speed or even having a collision? In this respect, the number one question for us is: are we adversaries, or partners?”

He may have then got a standing ovation from the business leaders, but the answer to his question about adversaries or partners is – neither. They remain competitors at the highest strategic levels which is why many major American businesses are pulling out of China. Xi’s speech was part intended to persuade them to stay.

Xi said “China has no intention to challenge the United States or to unseat it. Instead, we will be glad to see a confident, open, ever-growing and prosperous United States.” This sits poorly with his frequently stated view that the US is a declining power which will be surpassed by his own country.

Still, there are more positives than negatives to take from Xi’s first visit to the US in six years. He referenced WWII in which he said “our two countries fought side by side for peace and justice”. He spoke about the ping pong diplomacy of the early 1970’s when “a small ball moved the globe” and even allowed himself a rhetorical flourish; “Once started, the cause of China-U.S. friendship cannot be derailed halfway. The tree of our peoples’ friendship has grown tall and strong; and it can surely withstand the assault of any wind or storm.”.

Let’s hope so. Pandas will help.

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