US President Joe Biden met China’s President Xi Jinping on 16 November in Lima, Peru, for the third US-Chinese Summit since his election in 2021. The Lima Summit will be the last for Biden before President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th president of the United States on 20 January.

Since his first day in the Oval Office, Biden and other senior officials in his administration have stressed on many occasions how strategically important US-Chinese relations are. However, they have also framed these relations in the context of strategic competition between the two major powers. Terms like “de-risking” and “not de-coupling” have frequently cropped up in official US statements on their future.

This position is best understood in the context of the Asia-Pacific strategy of the Biden administration as well as its strategy in the Indo-Pacific region. Needless to say, Washington’s basic strategic objective has been to contain the emergence of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), not only in the Asia-Pacific but also on the world stage.

The first summit between the two leaders took place in November 2022 in Bali, Indonesia, on the margins of the G-20 Summit. It occurred against the backdrop of an official visit by former speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (Democrat - California) to Taipei, Taiwan.

The visit led to heightened tension between Beijing and Washington, with serious warnings being issued by China against any change to the status quo in Taiwan. The Chinese government hinted that Pelosi’s visit amounted to a violation of the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, which adopted the One China Policy on the part of the United States.

The Biden administration reiterated its commitment to this policy and rejected the Chinese accusation that the visit violated this commitment.

The Chinese made clear through naval manoeuvres and military flights in the Aerial Identification Zone of Taiwan that the Chinese military was ready to use force against any move towards Taiwanese independence. The Chinese then decided to end all military communications with the US military, including direct contacts between the Chinese defence minister and the US secretary of defence.

Relations then deteriorated further with the Americans shooting down a Chinese spy balloon that had flown over US airspace. Beijing said that the balloon had veered off-course.

The Biden administration and its allies in NATO later inserted China into the Final Declaration of the Madrid Summit in June 2022. It was the first time since its establishment in April 1949 that the missions of NATO were extended beyond Europe, with experts now speaking of an “Asian NATO.”

However, from the US point of view the most dangerous development has been the indirect support that China has lent to Russia in the war in Ukraine, even as Beijing has always maintained its neutrality in this war.

Notwithstanding the growing tensions in their bilateral relations, the two countries have demonstrated an interest in preventing them from developing into open conflict.

The US and Chinese Presidents met for their second in-person meeting in Woodside in San Francisco (California) in November 2023 on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum. This contributed to easing the tensions of the previous 12 months and led the Chinese government to agree to the resumption of direct military contacts between the two countries.

At the Lima Summit on 16 November, held on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Partnership Forum, there was one person missing who must have been present at the back of the mind of President Xi. This was US President-elect Donald Trump, with whom the Chinese president will deal over the next four years.

The two men are not strangers. In April 2017, Trump hosted the Chinese president and his wife at his luxurious mansion in Florida during his first term in office. As has been customary with Trump, while he praised China and its president on this occasion, that did not prevent him from imposing high tariffs on Chinese imports to the US to a value of almost half a trillion dollars.

It should be noted in passing that the Biden administration has since maintained those tariffs. Trump threatened during his campaign for a second term as US president this year to impose 60 per cent tariffs on Chinese and foreign imports into the US.

This probably explains the insistence of President Xi in his talks with Biden in Lima that “China is ready to work with the new US administration to maintain communication, expand cooperation, and manage differences for the benefit of the two peoples.” Biden reaffirmed the position of his administration that “our two countries cannot let any of this competition veer into conflict… Over the past four years I think we’ve proven it’s possible.”

In an implicit message to Trump, Xi emphasised that “major country competition should not be the underlying logic of the times.” He also pushed back against decoupling and US decisions to deny China access to advanced semiconductor-related technologies, which is referred to as the “small yard, high fence” policy.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said after the conclusion of the Lima Summit that the US export controls were “narrowly targeted at high-end technologies related to US national security concerns.”

He added that the two leaders had a “candid exchange” about cooperation, including on counter-narcotics, and said that their talks had covered areas of significant divergence, among them China’s support for Russia’s industrial defence base, a matter of great concern for the Biden administration. Biden also raised concerns associated with the deployment of North Korean troops in Russia to support the Russian war effort in Ukraine.

The most significant result of the US-Chinese Summit in Lima from a strategic point of view is probably the agreement on the need to maintain human control over any decisions to use nuclear weapons as a protection against leaving such decisions to artificial intelligence (AI). It is the first time that China has become a party to such agreements.

The Chinese president, in a veiled warning to the incoming Trump administration, said that a “new Cold War” cannot be fought and cannot be won. Any containment of China is “unwise, undesirable, and will not succeed,” he added.

I could not agree more.

In a clear and unmistakable message to the US, President Xi said that if Washington wants to maintain peace in the Asia-Pacific region, it must oppose “Taiwan’s independence.” He would not allow “war and chaos” to break out in the Korean Peninsula, he added.

The foreign policy and national security team of President-elect Trump has thus been forewarned, especially those members of it who have adopted anti-China positions, such as Senator Mark Rubio, nominated for the post of secretary of state, and former Congressman Mike Waltz, nominated for the post of national security adviser in the second Trump administration.

Waltz wrote an essay with Mathew Kroenig of Georgetown University that was published by the UK magazine the Economist last month arguing that a second Trump administration should quickly wind up the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East to free up military assets to “confront and deter” China.

It would be premature to predict the course of US-Chinese relations during the second and last term in office of President Trump. However, we should not rule out a more pragmatic approach to foreign policy, national security,  economic, and commercial teams in managing these areas.

The writer is former assistant foreign minister.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 21 November, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly