China expected to focus on stabilizing relations with US

Greater communication, collaboration can ease tensions, experts say

China is expected to place "significant importance" on stabilizing its relationship with the United States during this year's two sessions, a foreign policy expert in the US said, as other analysts called for improved dialogue between the two nations.

The National People's Congress, China's top legislature, will hold its annual meeting on Sunday, while the meeting of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the country's top political advisory body, will take place on Saturday. Both meetings will be held in Beijing. The annual two sessions will unveil China's policies in areas including the economy, military, trade, diplomacy and the environment.

China is expected to seek more constructive ties with the US, said Sourabh Gupta, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Institute for China-America Studies.

"The first step toward making a constructive relationship is to stabilize that relationship," Gupta told China Daily.

He said the administration of US President Joe Biden seems to be competing "very strongly and maybe unfairly" in the trade and technology fields, however, "in the broader US-China relationship, they want to add stability to it, and I should think China welcomes it".

"I think the Chinese side values the fact that the White House is interested in not adding to the tensions but in trying to ameliorate those tensions and have a more stabilized relationship," he said.

US-China relations had "derailed a little bit because of the balloon incident", Gupta said.

On Feb 4, the US shot down an unmanned Chinese civilian airship, despite China's repeated explanations that its entry into US airspace was an unintended and isolated incident caused by force majeure.

Gupta said he saw the incident as a passing phenomenon and a temporary setback to the relationship.

"So, coming out of the two sessions, I foresee China placing, not overriding importance to the US relationship, but significant importance in stabilizing the US relationship. And I think that will be a good thing."

Jack Midgley, principal of global consultancy Midgley & Co and an adjunct associate professor of security studies at Georgetown University, told China Daily that there had been insufficient communication between the US and China in addressing the balloon incident and the fallout from it.

An opportunity was missed to solve the problem quietly and calmly together, and matters were made worse, Midgley said.

"Conversation is what colleagues do. It's what partners do. And conversation is more important when there are differences, when there are problems," he said. "That's the time to talk. It's not the time to retreat."

Midgley stressed there was a real opportunity for the US to work with its most important global partner not only in economic areas, but also on security.

Rorry Daniels, managing director of the Asia Society Policy Institute, said the balloon incident showed the US-China relationship is in a relatively fragile state.

She said the decision by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone rather than cancel a planned trip to China because of the incident was a positive sign.

"Perhaps this incident can serve as a learning example for both sides to improve coordination and communication in the future," Daniels told China Daily. "We need to build sustainable relationships between people, officials and experts from both sides in order to better understand the opportunities for collaboration and to manage risk and competition."

Douglas Paal, a former US diplomat and scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told China Daily that "there are many smaller things that can be done or not done that might lower the temperature" between the US and China.

His suggestions include improving issuance of visas, reopening closed consulates, improving cooperation on international economic issues, such as least developed countries' debt, choosing not to berate each other, and supporting a strengthening of international institutions such as the World Trade Organization.

On trade, Gupta said he did not foresee the US deficit with China coming down, noting the US trade deficit with China in 2022 was the second largest on record, at $382.9 billion.

Meanwhile, US-China trade volume hit a record high last year, according to the latest official data.

"In spite of the many tariffs and many controls, and border barriers that the US has erected against China, I think the US will still run a very large trade deficit with China," Gupta said.

The goal for China, regardless of what the US does or doesn't do, is to keep becoming a more prominent player in international trade, both in terms of imports and exports, he added.

"Part of that also is deepening its engagement with other partners by way of comprehensive trade agreements such as the CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) or getting the Europeans to pass the comprehensive agreement on investment," he said.