As The Diplomat reported earlier this week, Chinese President Xi Jinping will make his first official state visit (Sunnylands 2013 doesn’t count here) to the United States sometime this year. What should interested observers of U.S.-China relations keep an eye on leading up to this visit and what should we expect out of the visit itself? Well, gather around dear readers, as I attempt to peer into The Diplomat‘s crystal ball and try my hand at the perilous task of predicting the future of U.S.-China ties.
First things first: when will the visit occur? Most prognosticators currently predict September as a likely date for this state visit given that Xi will already be in New York then for the 70th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations. What’s interesting about that timing is that it will allow plenty of time for other major bilateral visits to occur — as my China-focused colleague Shannon points out, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet Xi, Xi will meet Russia’s Vladimir Putin and possibly even Kim Jong-un, and Obama will meet Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Additionally, a fall state visit would allow U.S. and Chinese diplomats to iron out the details of ongoing bilateral initiatives including the Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT), a likely subject on the agenda of any impending U.S.-China state visit.
The agenda will likely focus on positive areas of mutual benefit and sideline points of contention. In general, the United States and China prefer to address positive areas for mutual benefit in grand state visits. When Hu Jintao visited the United States, bilateral joint statements focused mostly on economic cooperation, building “strategic trust,” expanding military-to-military ties, and addressing fairly uncontroversial “global challenges.” When the two sides do address areas of disagreement, they tend to evade issues affecting China’s core national interests. For example, last November, U.S. President Barack Obama managed to leave Beijing with a guarantee that China would cut greenhouse gas emissions and increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption – a development that was heralded as a diplomatic coup for the United States. However, the issue of climate change wasn’t a sensitive issue in the same way that cybersecurity and South China Sea issues are today. If Obama and Xi do discuss the United States government’s indictment of five PLA officers for cyber espionage last year or China’s most recent legal position paper on the South China Sea, expect it to be done entirely out of the public eye. In a best-case scenario, we could see both sides acknowledging a divergence of opinion on these matters in a joint statement (similar to how previous statements have handled the issue of human rights). Remember, it’s legacy-building time for Obama — meaning his administration will seek to use this visit to showcase the progress they have made on U.S.-China relations.
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