Walking around in lush greenery - the image of the leaders lies

Columnists 

Xi Jinping  

 

The idyllic image is deceiving  

 

Wolfgang Hansson  

 

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

 

Published 20.56  

 

One moment the relationship is totally frozen. 

 

The next moment, the two men are strolling peacefully side by side in lush greenery.  

 

But the idyllic image is deceiving. A war over Taiwan pitting China and the US against each other is still a very real risk.  

 

You are used  to the fact that world politics can swing dramatically. Who doesn't remember the meeting between Biden and Putin in a luxury villa on Lake Geneva in the summer of 2021. Just over six months later, Putin invaded Ukraine and thereby shook the entire European security order. 

 

Xi Jinpings and Joe Biden's display in San Francisco also feels like an unusually large patchwork.  

 

Until yesterday, they didn't talk to each other at all. China had even cut off military contacts. When the US defense secretary called to discuss the downing of a Chinese spy balloon earlier this year, no one on the other end picked up the phone. That can end very badly.  

 

But China wanted to emphatically show how upset it was that former Speaker of the US Congress Nancy Pelosi visited Chaina-claimed Taiwan.  

 

Now Xi Jinping played without hesitation in Joe Biden's performance, which included a walk on a leafy estate outside San Francisco.  

 

Pictures of the two elderly men in a relaxed conversation in idyllic surroundings are meant to underline to the world the fact that China and the US have buried the hatchet.  

 

Xi Jinping and Joe Biden side by side during a walk in Woodside. Photo: Doug Mills/AP  

But the swing from frosty ice cold to total idyll is a little too good to be true.  

 

Admittedly, Biden and Xi agreed to resume contact between the two countries' militaries at the highest level, and Biden claimed that in the future he only needs to pick up the phone to talk to Xi. 

 

Xi also agreed to reduce exports of the chemicals sold to Mexico where the drug Fentanyl is manufactured and then smuggled across the border into the United States. Xi is extra accommodating now that the Chinese economy is in crisis and crying out for American investment.  

 

Biden promised that the United States has no intention of "disengaging" from China, and Xi stressed that China is not driven by any desire to dethrone the United States as the world's superpower. 

 

- The planet Earth is big enough for both of us, the Chinese president stated.  

 

But apart from the few concrete successes and polite phrases, almost all the foci of conflict between the US and China remain.  

 

The US will continue to ban exports of the most advanced microchips to China. This is to hinder China's progress in artificial intelligence and weapons production. 

 

Xi Jinping does not intend to abandon his plans to greatly expand the Chinese nuclear arsenal. By 2030, China may have a thousand nuclear weapons.

 

Putin and Biden's meeting in the luxury villa in Geneva in the summer of 2021. Photo: Patrick Semansky / AP

 

Xi Jinping carefully emphasized that he considers the self-governing democracy of Taiwan to be part of China and that reunification is "inevitable". China's goal is for it to happen peacefully, but if that doesn't work, Xi made it clear that China does not rule out military means.  

 

The US will continue to send arms to Taiwan despite Xi's demands that US arms shipments end.  

 

Despite the idyllic walk, Biden felt he still had to answer yes to the question of whether he still considers Xi a dictator. Honest but maybe not so smart. 

 

For the world at large, it is of course good for thawing weather between China and the United States, the two most powerful countries in the world today. If the two can't even talk to each other, the risk of fatal mistakes increases. 

 

But one should also not exaggerate what a four-hour long personal meeting between Xi and Biden can achieve. The image that the two, and especially Biden, try to give that most things are now peace and joy does not match reality.  

 

The US and China are on completely different sides in the conflict in the Middle East. Iran, one of China's allies, keeps threatening to turn Israel's war in Gaza into a major regional war.  

 

In January there are elections in Taiwan. There are many indications that the ruling party's candidate will win. William Lai is known as a strong advocate of declaring Taiwan independent. He probably won't even if he wins because that would almost certainly mean war with China.  

 

But it is enough for him to win the election for China to intensify its harassment of Taiwan again. It takes place both through economic warfare and threats in the form of military exercises in the Taiwan Strait and overflights by Chinese warplanes into Taiwan's no-fly zone.  

 

However, Xi noted that there is no deadline for when Taiwan will be incorporated into China. But he has turned 70 and wants to achieve the reunion before he leaves power.  

 

So the pasted-on idyll can quickly turn into brutal reality.