By Dingding Chen
A modest Xi-Obama summit signals troubles ahead. No major breakthrough was achieved during the summit.
Now that Chinese President Xi Jinping has wrapped up his first state visit to the U.S., we can assess how the Xi-Obama summit changed U.S.-China relations and what waits ahead for the most important bilateral relationship in the 21st century.
To be fair, nobody was seriously optimistic before the summit due to a number of sensitive issues that emerged in 2015 and set the bilateral relationship on a downward course. In early 2015, there was a fierce debate within the U.S. regarding the best way to deal with a more assertive and arrogant China. So much so that the renowned China scholar David Lampton called it a “tipping point” in U.S.-China relations. The atmosphere was certainly tense before Xi’s visit; and most analysts had modest expectations for the summit itself.
Within this interesting and complex context, it is thus a small relief that some agreements, however weak, were achieved by the two parties, particularly regarding cyber security and climate change. Both China and the U.S. agreed not to attack each other’s cyber infrastructure or steal trade secrets. Of course, words need to be followed by actions and this is where most analysts expect difficulties.
What is less positive, and indeed troubling, is that there is not much agreement in other important areas such as the South China Sea issue, the bilateral investment treaty (BIT), and military-to-military relations more broadly. While it is true that nobody had high hopes for breakthrough in these areas, no progress at all is worrying for a set of reasons.
Read the full story at The Diplomat