Chi Wang

Opinion | How US and China are fuelling tensions by failing to foster better mutual understanding

There seems little hope the US-China relationship will improve significantly as the two drift further apart despite their long history of cooperation

If this continues, the next generation of US and China policymakers will have even less nuanced understanding and experience in dealing with their counterparts

Reading Time:4 minutes

Why you can trust SCMP

Chi Wang

Published: 1:30am, 31 Dec 2021Updated: 1:56am, 31 Dec 2021

Within the past 12 months, the leaders of the United States and China have not met in person and only spoken to each other three times. Yet, the US-China relationship has been far from uneventful.

Advisers to the American and Chinese leaders engaged in a bitter back-and-forth in Alaska in March. And a minor controversy erupted following US President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping’s virtual meeting in November concerning whether the two considered each other friends.

This year is ending with the US and China seemingly further apart than ever, at least since relations were normalised in 1979, with the US announcing a diplomatic boycott of the upcoming 2022 Beijing Olympics.

The year began with the Capitol riot on January 6. This underscored how difficult a task the incoming Biden administration faced in not only mending the fractured political divide at home but convincing other countries that American democracy remained steady and US power resolute.

The withdrawal from Afghanistan in August, the ongoing pandemic and stalled domestic legislation have left Biden with poor approval ratings at home and have hardly helped to restore the image of American prestige abroad.

02:25

Xi Jinping and Joe Biden call for mutual respect and peaceful China-US coexistence

Xi had to feel pleased with his standing as the year began. The unpredictable and increasingly anti-China Donald Trump was on his way out of Washington, and the Capitol riot reinforced Xi’s position that the Western liberal order was failing and China’s system was superior.