The US-China relationship is complicated. So complicated that a white dot in the sky makes the difference between friend and foe. It would be high time to calm the waves.
There were enough reasons to talk. Nevertheless, it has been years since a US Secretary of State has been in China. Accordingly, Anthony Blinken’s arrival in Beijing on Sunday was eagerly awaited. It could have been the much-needed next step on the way to a peaceful future – were it not for a small, white dot appearing high above the vastness of Montana. He threw Blinken’s travel plans over at short notice.
The Pentagon senses brazen espionage, Beijing speaks of a lost weather balloon. The only thing that is certain is that what is floating above the clouds definitely does not belong there. The incident shows very clearly how bad the relationship between the world’s two largest economies is, how narrow the line between diplomatic affront and escalation can be. The timing could hardly have been worse.
Chinese-American relationship: a rollercoaster of emotions
Long gone are the days when the US only smiled mildly towards the Far East. When China advanced from the Middle Kingdom to the middle of the world, it aroused little admiration in Washington, but plenty of fear. Til today. A struggle for global dominance rages between the two nations – militarily, geopolitically, technologically. Live and let live is all too seldom a valid option for action. The leap of faith that the two superpowers are now admitting to each other has reached extremely dangerous proportions, which could culminate in the Taiwan Straits.
Things looked good in November. The meeting between US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Bali should mark a turning point, the beginning of healing in the sore relationship between the two world powers. Back then, everyone smiled widely, shook a lot of hands and fueled a lot of hope. The fact that Qin Gang was soon appointed the new foreign minister by the ambassador to the United States gave reason to hope that Beijing was genuinely willing to mend the damaged relationship. “The future of our two peoples – indeed, the future of the entire planet – depends on a healthy and stable China-US relationship,” Qin wrote at the time in a guest article for the “Washington Post”. Today, a month later, one balloon is enough to further stoke fears of war. Apparently nothing has changed: the two states can neither with nor without each other.
Balloon over the USA: “A small action with a big impact”
The fact that the sighting of a balloon is enough to torpedo a long-planned, urgently needed relationship talk speaks volumes. Whether the white thing floated in there to spy or by accident, it poses no serious threat from an intelligence standpoint, as the Pentagon itself has stated. It’s just about red lines, about the limits of what is reasonable, in short: it’s about symbolic politics – again. “It’s a small action with a big impact,” Rorry Daniels, executive director of the Asia Society Policy Institute, told the New York Times (NYT). That a bogus threat leads to real consequences is nothing new.
Be it China’s backing for Russia, the repeated snarling at Taiwan, the trade war started under Trump or the bitter race in the chip industry: in Washington, contempt for China has long since turned into hatred, especially among conservatives. Republicans corner Biden in dealings with Beijing. Even in the face of his own recent failures, the president has little choice: he feels compelled to show strength. It is only logical that he canceled his foreign minister’s trip shortly before departure. In any case, constructive talks would hardly have been possible as long as the balloon was casting its shadow over the negotiations.
The balloon dilemma is also inconvenient for Beijing, probably far more inconvenient than for the United States. After almost three years of a zero-Covid policy, the party leadership is struggling to get the ailing economy going again – with moderate success so far. China cannot do without the USA. After all, they are still by far the most important trading partner, no matter how reluctantly both admit it. If the balloon is actually a spy plane, few party members are likely to be happy about it, with the exception of the nationalists, who advocate strict decoupling from the USA. As several experts in the US media explain, this indicates either insufficient coordination or even bickering within the government.
President Xi is also dependent on a (reasonably) stable bridge to the West. Even if the 69-year-old has been at the peak of his power since his rule-breaking and groundbreaking third appointment as Secretary General, he is not untouched. For China’s elite, the weakening of the telecommunications giant Huawei, the export restrictions on semiconductor technologies and the supposed military encirclement are all down to Xi. “The very visible postponement of Secretary Blinken’s visit could raise questions internally about Xi’s ability to manage tensions with the United States,” Ryan Hass of the US think tank Brookings Institution told the NYT.
The United States announced on Thursday that it would increase its military presence in the Philippines to assist the island state of Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. Earlier, US General Michael Minihan’s dire prediction made headlines. “My gut tells me we’re going to fight in 2025,” he wrote in a memo to his officers, as the broadcaster “NBC News” reported.
How many balloons are needed?
Beijing’s reactions to the espionage allegations also give hope. After all, “old” China would certainly not have responded in such a level-headed manner, let alone even recognized the balloon as its own. Until now, remorse has not been part of the foreign policy repertoire.
After the recent incident, however, it is unlikely that the two powers will find each other again in the short term. Kevin McCarthy, the new Republican speaker in the US House of Representatives, has already announced plans to visit Taiwan, which China considers its sovereign territory. When his Democratic predecessor Nancy Pelosi did this in August 2022, Beijing took it as an overt provocation and called for major military maneuvers.
The fact that the presidential elections are gradually appearing on the political horizon is also unlikely to help. Traditionally, candidates in the race for the White House outbid each other in China-bashing, as CNN notes. “If relations under the administration of US President Joe Biden cannot be normalized by the Democratic Party, then this will not happen in the future,” it said in an April 2022 publication Opinion piece in the Hong Kong daily newspaper “South China Morning Post”. Jia Qingguo, Professor of International Relations at Beijing University, takes a similar view. The hope that Biden and Xi can jointly establish new guard rails for the disastrous relationship has been disappointed. “US-China relations today are closer to historic collapse than ever before,” Jia writes in one Contribution to international East Asia Forum.
It is unlikely that the alleged espionage balloon will finally break the camel’s back. The only question is how many balloons the tense relationship can still tolerate before it is launched.
Sources: “New York Times“; “Washington Post“; CNN