A high-level U.S. delegation visited China this week to keep channels of communication open at senior levels between Washington and Beijing. A key aim is to prevent a scenario whereby misunderstandings produce a catastrophic outcome.

Assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, Daniel Kritenbrink, and National Security Council senior director for China and Taiwan, Laura Rosenberger, going to Langfang was related to efforts to "continue responsibly managing the competition between our two countries and to explore potential areas of cooperation," according to the U.S. State Department. Kritenbrink and Rosenberger are also preparing for U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to visit China early next year.

These talks in Langfang, which took place on Dec. 11 and 12, addressed some tensions in U.S.-China relations. The Washington delegation stressed the importance of "managing competition responsibly" and preventing a conflict. Security on the Korean Peninsula and the Russian invasion of Ukraine were two of the international issues brought up during these talks.

This U.S. delegation’s "candid and substantive" meetings with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng built on U.S. President Joe Biden’s three-hour face-to-face meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping last month in Indonesia. Since Biden’s presidency began nearly two years ago, this was the first time the two leaders sat down for talks. Although the meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Bali did not result in any tangible changes in either Washington or Beijing’s policies or any major diplomatic breakthrough, it was beneficial that these two leaders had this opportunity to address some problems in bilateral affairs.

"It’s a great sign for both sides to keep on talking because, needless to say, more connectivity helps foster a better understanding of one another’s positions and reduce any miscalculations when tensions are pretty high," Ngor Luong, a nonresident fellow in the Atlantic Council's Global China Hub, told Daily Sabah.

In a free fall

In recent years, Washington and Beijing’s relationship has been in a free fall. Huawei, espionage, the human rights situation in Xinjiang and U.S. export controls are among the contentious issues that have intensified friction between the U.S. and China during both Donald Trump and Biden’s presidencies. However, the file that has by far the most potential to fuel an armed conflict between the two global powers is Taiwan.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taipei in August caused tensions in the highly militarized Taiwan Strait to reach a level not seen in decades, heightening concerns worldwide about the risks of a military confrontation over the island. In response to Pelosi’s controversial visit to Taiwan, China’s Foreign Ministry accused her of "vicious and provocative actions" that amounted to interference in internal Chinese affairs. Beyond the strong rhetoric, Beijing suspended talks with Washington on climate change and military matters while subjecting Taiwan to some trade sanctions. The Chinese also carried out certain military exercises to send Taipei a message about "how China could cut off Taiwan’s ports, attack its most important military installations, and sever access for foreign forces that may come to Taiwan’s aid."

Although Biden and Xi failed to reach a new understanding on the Taiwan file, they managed to state to the other where Washington and Beijing set their red lines. Both leaders agreed on the need to prevent a "new Cold War" between their countries.

However, some experts doubt that tensions over Taiwan are likely to ease soon. "Biden and Xi do not appear to have made progress on the issue of Taiwan," said Dr. Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in an interview with Daily Sabah.

"They reiterated their past positions, each blaming the other for changing the status quo: Biden claimed that the U.S. had not changed his One China policy at all, whereas Xi said that the U.S. was playing with fire over the Taiwan issue. Notably, Biden did say that he saw no ‘imminent attempt’ by China to invade Taiwan, and although Biden was stating a fact, his statement marks something of a contrast from recent warnings by U.S. officials suggesting that an invasion may happen sometime soon, perhaps in the coming years. Still, neither Biden nor Xi changed their basic approach, so all signs point to continued deterioration of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait," added Wertheim.

Contradictory interests

Looking ahead, there is no reason to expect any fundamental changes to the overall positions and strategies that the U.S. and China have toward Taiwan any time soon. Since the 1940s, Washington has supported the Republic of China authorities in Taipei while remaining determined to keep the island independent from Beijing. The People’s Republic of China continues to view its lack of control over Taiwan as a source of grave humiliation and believes that one day taking control of the island is necessary from the standpoint of the Chinese state’s territorial integrity.

"Strategically, the U.S. and China have already decided on the final goal: the extension of Chinese territorial sovereignty over Taiwan under Nixon. Where they disagree is on how and when to extend this sovereignty," explained Dr. Fatima Z. Er-Rafia, a consultant and lecturer at HEC Montreal (University of Montreal), in an interview with Daily Sabah. "For Washington, Beijing is moving too fast on the Taiwanese question when the world is struggling with various global crises."

"These contradictory interests of Washington and Beijing cannot be easily reconciled," Dr. Ewa Dryjanska, a China and Japan researcher, told Daily Sabah. "The current Chinese leadership will remain very assertive regarding the island as ... Beijing (has since 1949) regarded it as one of the main elements of its national interest. This issue creates a real risk of military conflict in the region which can quickly evolve into a global one."

Nonetheless, it was important that the two leaders communicated that neither of their countries is willing to wage a military conflict over the island, which is reassuring to the international community and can have a stabilizing impact, explained Dr. Yun Sun, senior fellow and co-director of the East Asia Program and director of the China Program at the Stimson Center. "Whether tension will be cooled depends on whether the agreement will transpire into concrete actions by the two countries," she told Daily Sabah. "New understanding of Taiwan might be too much to ask. But if the two sides understand that the other side doesn't want a military conflict, I'd call it a success."

Dr. Jacopo Scita, an al-Sabah doctoral fellow at Durham University, shared a similar assessment in an interview with Daily Sabah. "What has emerged quite clearly from the (Biden-Xi) meeting is that the U.S. and China remain stuck to their respective understandings of the Taiwan questions. Nonetheless, in the current fragile equilibrium, the fact that the two parties have made clear their positions and that Beijing signaled the will to resume cooperation halted after Pelosi’s trip is somehow encouraging."

Indeed, it is healthy that both sides are willing to responsibly engage in ways that can decrease the risks of a potential military confrontation over Taiwan. Ultimately, both Washington and Beijing have countless reasons to pursue diplomacy given how much is at stake and the extent to which America and China’s leaders and citizens want to prevent war over Taiwan. If any such conflict over the island would break out, the dangerous possibility of nuclear exchanges between the U.S. and China could not be ruled out. Such an extreme scenario would constitute the first direct conflict between two nuclear-armed powers.

Next year, Washington and Beijing will hopefully build on last month’s meeting between Biden and Xi as well as the American delegation’s visit to China this week with more talks that can keep communication channels open and spare the world a military confrontation in the Taiwan Strait. Avoiding a shooting war is possible, even if settling all the U.S. and China’s differences vis-a-vis Taiwan is extremely difficult to imagine in the foreseeable future.