Therefore, the meeting between the leaders is absolutely crucial

 

Columnists  

 

WOLFGANG HANSSON: Wants to avoid war  

 

Xi Jinping  

 

Therefore, the meeting between Xi and Biden is crucial for the world 

 

Wolfgang Hansson 

 

This is a commenting text. Analysis and positions are the writer's.  

 

Published 18.35  

 

When the world's two most powerful men meet in San Francisco, no one expects any major progress. 

 

In today's unstable world, the fact that the two meet at all is enough for it to be seen as a success in trying to avoid another war.  

 

Relations between China and the US have not been this bad since Richard Nixon opened the door to China in the 70s. The two great powers lack almost completely functioning contact routes. This in a situation where large parts of the world are on fire and the risk of expansion of the wars in Gaza and Ukraine is still imminent.  

 

The world urgently needs China and the US to at least talk to each other to avoid misunderstandings and the escalation of mistakes, for example about Taiwan.  

When Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping meet at the Asia Pacific Economic Corporation (APEC) summit on Wednesday, everyone is hoping the result will be an improvement in frozen relations, although no one is expecting any big deeds.  

 

Biden hopes that China will agree to resume contacts between the country's militaries. These were broken by China when former Speaker of the US Congress Nancy Pelosi made a personal visit to Taiwan, a self-governing democracy that China considers part of the Chinese mainland. 

 

Lines of contact are crucial to avoid the accidental initiation of hostilities in a region where China is aggressively trying to assert its territorial claims in the South China Sea not only against the United States but above all against its less powerful neighbors.  

 

This at the same time as the US is carrying out its "freedom of navigation" operations in the same sea to maintain important international trade routes that China is trying to take control of. 

 

Joe Biden and Xi Jinping shake hands. Photo: Alex Brandon/AP 

Made peace  

 

Several serious incidents have recently occurred both between Chinese and American warplanes and with Philippine ships.  

 

But there are even more pressing crises to discuss for Biden and Xi. 

 

Biden wants China to put pressure on Iran not to intervene more directly in the war in Gaza. Not by themselves but also not through their ally Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. 

 

China has not condemned the massacre by Hamas in Israel on October 7 but would like to see itself as a mediator in the Middle East. Xi Jinping is guaranteed to be pleased that the US has been drawn into yet another war, but apart from that, has no interest in a major regional war in the Middle East. After all, it was China that brokered some sort of peace agreement between arch-rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia.  

 

China and the US are also on opposite sides in the war in Ukraine. But US threats of sanctions seem to have so far deterred China from sending military support to Putin.  

 

In the past three years, Xi and Biden have only met three times. Most recently at the G-20 meeting in Bali a year ago where the first steps were taken towards improving the relationship. But when the United States shot down Chinese spy balloons over the United States a few months later, that thaw came to an abrupt end. Now they try again.  

 

Xi Jinping and Joe Biden met on October 14. Photo: Alex Brandon/AP  

 

Power struggle 

 

In a way, it is ironic that the relationship is so bad because Joe Biden and Xi Jinping personally seem to have a very good relationship since the time when they were both vice presidents and met quite often without having the spotlight on them.  

 

At the bottom of the lousy relations lies a power struggle and the USA's and the West's fear that China is on its way to becoming a superpower that could eventually take over the role that the USA had. But instead create an authoritarian world order. 

 

It is very clear how the US is trying to hold back China's advance by preventing the country from getting access to the most modern technology. The day after the two meet, new restrictions come into force which means that the US bans all exports of the most advanced microchips to China.  

 

Xi Jinping, who has promised that China will be the world's most prominent country in all fields by 2049, naturally does not like the US trying to prevent China's development into a superpower. While Biden thinks China is using unfair methods to get there.  

 

For the moment, however, both seem to realize that a war between China and the United States would be extremely unfortunate for the world and that both have an enormous amount to lose from it. 

 

Most important question  

 

Therefore, the hope is that, at least for the time being, they will bury the most aggressive parts of the hatchet and try to reach a normal state where they can socialize and cooperate on the world stage.  

 

The world is in a power vacuum where we are heading towards a multipolar world with regional superpowers that the US can no longer dominate as before. In the chaos that has arisen, a stable relationship between the US and China is needed.  

 

Not least to solve what is perhaps the most important issue of all for humanity, stopping climate change. A prerequisite for it to succeed is that the world's two biggest emitters, the US and China, cooperate.