Although the mutual relationship between the US and China may have cooled slightly after US President Joe Biden’s dictatorial comments, former correspondent in China and the US Oscar Karskagen doesn’t think the windows have been firmly smashed.

And the two superpowers are ‘used to each other’, he says. Nevertheless, it can be concluded that US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s visit to China was not very fruitful. ‘The whole way we got G Blinken was not very amicable,’ says Karshagan. “In previous weeks, Elon Musk and Bill Gates, among others, were very warmly received.”

For example, Blinken had to sit to the right of Xi, while the Chinese president sat at the head of the table. According to Garschagen, there was a formal structure, ‘divided into a row of lotus flowers’. “But it was,” he says. The visit was also very short. Especially if you don’t count the translation, you’ll be there in fifteen minutes.’

Open the conversation again

Earlier, Xi and Biden met at the G20 summit in Bali, where they agreed that the deterioration in relations cannot continue. “They thought it was too dangerous and wanted to talk again,” Karshagan continues. “Their margins on both sides are certainly very limited, and this is to emulate that.”

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Although the visit was postponed due to the crisis surrounding the Chinese spy balloon, anticipating the outcome, one might conclude that, according to Karskagen, it came up short. “Blinken’s efforts to revive the military hotline, which had been suspended following a visit by then-Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, failed,” he says. “It’s because Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu is on the sanctions list.”

Political game

Washington refuses to remove Li, a former general and confidant of Xi Jinping, from the sanctions list. So it’s a matter of status and loss of face, thinks Karshagan. ‘All those atmospheric features naturally play a role.’