Even the elder Henry Kissinger could not bring China and the US closer together

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Meanwhile, climate envoy John Kerry was in China, hoping to speed up climate talks between the two countries. China suspended it after Nancy Pelosi’s controversial visit to Taiwan in August 2022. He achieved only limited success. There are no concrete agreements on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and no joint final report.

Kerry said talks would continue. That is the biggest plus. “We believe this will be the beginning of a new definition of cooperation,” he told top foreign minister Wang Yi in Beijing on Tuesday.

Security over the economy

It’s gradually becoming a pattern: China and the US are once again talking to each other at a high level, and that takes the chill out of the air for a while. But they are not obviously close to each other.

Even when US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken finally arrived in Beijing in June, the visit was postponed after the US shot down a Chinese spy balloon. Ditto after US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s visit earlier this month.

But why can’t the two superpowers find each other? Moving Kissinger—as the US State Department emphasized, As an individual Gone to China – to come, and above all: What made China so majestic when Kerry had fewer gods?

This has a lot to do with a major change in the way both countries see each other. It has shifted from economic issues to issues surrounding the national security of both countries. In both the US and China, national security may now come at the expense of economic interests.

American policy needs diplomatic wisdom like Kissinger and political courage like Nixon

Wang Yi China’s top diplomat

But while you can measure and measure economic relationships, national security is about assessing an adversary’s intentions, trust, and mistrust.

And it is very difficult to calculate accurately. For example, China is convinced that the US wants to stop China’s rise anyway. For example, many Chinese analysts sincerely believe that the war in Ukraine was instigated behind the scenes by the United States, and that if Russian President Vladimir Putin falls, NATO will be pushed back to China as an American tool. That theory is highly unlikely to many in the West.

Instead, the United States firmly believes that China wants to dethrone the United States and bend the entire international system to Beijing’s will. In the US, there is also the perception that China will soon invade Taiwan militarily.

That idea is seen as ridiculous in China. Some here believe that Xi Jinping will soon take that step himself, as it would greatly weaken China and be costly anyway – look at Russia.

Third World War

That’s where Kissinger comes in. He compares the current situation with the previous era Economists with those just before the outbreak of the World War. This is the situation where “no political concessions are left by either side and any imbalances can have disastrous consequences”.

Kissinger wants to avoid such a Third World War, and he finds willing ears for it in China. American policy needs Kissinger-style diplomatic wisdom and Nixon-style political courage. Wang Yi saidA top State Department official after a meeting with Kissinger.