Biden, Xi Poised To Resume Military Comms After Disastrous Trump Era

Thank God for adults in the room. I’m sure you remember the incident in Donald Trump’s last year in office where General Mark Milley had to get on the phone with his opposite number in China and reassure that general that the United States was not doing anything underhanded on a military level. The adults took charge then and now two other adults, to wit, Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, have resolved to restore diplomatic relations to some kind of pre-Trump normalcy. Axios:

What they are saying: “The Chinese are signaling that they will resume military-to-military communications, which is significant,” said Bonnie Glaser, the managing director of the Indo-Pacific Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “It’s a key priority for the Pentagon.”

• “But it remains to be seen whether they are willing to take meaningful steps to reduce the risk of accidents or discuss ways to preserve strategic stability,” she said.
• The military communications channels canceled last year by China include the Defense Policy Coordination Talks and the Maritime Military Communications Agreement, which the U.S. and China signed in 1998 to enable ship and aircraft operators from both sides to communicate regularly.

The intrigue: China has not officially confirmed the Xi-Biden summit, which has been months in the making, or even Xi’s attendance at the APEC summit in San Francisco.

• Still, there are signs that China wants the meeting to be a success, with China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng scheduled to arrive later this week to meet with Treasury Secretary Yellen and participate in APEC.

Zoom in: In some ways, the White House hopes to pick up where Biden and Xi left off after the November 2022 G-20 summit in Indonesia, when the two leaders pledged closer communication after largely talking past each other in Biden’s first two years.

• But planned trips by Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Yellen were postponed after China flew a spy balloon across America earlier this year.
• Following the shooting-down of the balloon, Chinese defense officials didn’t answer a phone call from Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

And a lot of things happened during the Trump years, and the early days of the Biden administration. The Chinese are long-game players, just on a cultural level. They always have been. Things don’t change overnight with them, never have, never will.

Between the lines: China has demanded that the U.S. lift sanctions against Gen. Li Shangfu — who served as China’s defense minister but was reportedly detained in September and then officially dismissed in October, as a precondition for restoring restoring high-level communication between the two militaries.

• Li’s departure removes an awkward obstacle to the resumption of talks. The U.S. is no longer actively seek to engage with a defense minister who is also under sanctions.
• China hasn’t announced Li’s successor.

Zoom out: Ahead of most high-level summits, diplomats have already discussed many of the potential deliverables that might emerge from the face-to-face talks between the leaders.

• For the Biden-Xi summit, the goal is to give the leaders the opportunity to finalize agreements on a range of issues, from fentanyl, arms control, artificial intelligence and climate change.

I’m sure that Xi will appreciate being able to talk about real world issues with somebody who lives in the real world and not the reality TV baby, when he’s between tantrums over his personal problems. It’s nice to know that America’s profile in the world is on the rise, once again.