Opinion | To mend fraying Sino-US relations, nothing can beat face-to-face interaction
- US-China exchanges have fallen off a cliff amid tensions and the pandemic, but American policymakers, academics and business leaders still want to better understand China
- Academic and cultural exchanges must be revived quickly; cooperation is vital to address global crises
Engagement is not just a foreign policy stance. It is also a web of bilateral relationships between both individuals and institutions, including government agencies and a diverse array of civil organisations, universities, think tanks and business groups.
Earlier this month, a delegation from the Centre for China Globalisation (CCG) visited the US for 10 days, hoping to make a small contribution to rebuilding these bilateral ties. The trip was part of an engagement tour that also took us to Berlin, Brussels, Paris, Seoul and Singapore.
In New York and Washington, we met representatives from 30 institutions, including prominent think tanks, business leaders, journalists and officials from the US State Department and the Chinese embassy. To our knowledge, it was the first such visit to the US by a Chinese think tank delegation since the pandemic began.
Having returned to China, three takeaways from the trip stand out.
First, it is clear the “human architecture” of China-US relations has atrophied over the past three years. By this, I mean the stock of knowledge, expertise and interpersonal connections that allow the two countries to understand and communicate with each other.
