US-China Relations: Engagements increase but trust lacking, observes analyst

• More engagement between the US and China doesn't mean they trust each other more, an analyst says.
• Eurasia Group's Ian Bremmer emphasized that Washington and China still disagreed on many issues.

The US and China have been engaging more with each other.But just because they're talking more doesn't mean that they actually trust each other more, an analyst says.

"The trend for this year has been more engagement, more communications, but not more trust," Ian Bremmer, the president and founder of the political-risk consultancy Eurasia Group, told Bloomberg TV on Wednesday.

In November, US President Joe Biden and China's leader, Xi Jinping, met during the APEC summit in San Francisco, appearing keen to smooth over tensions. Bremmer said that since then, there'd been more stability in the US-China relationship.

Earlier this month, Janet Yellen, the US treasury secretary, visited China seeking cooperation in areas beneficial to both countries. Lloyd Austin, the defense secretary, also spoke with China's defense minister last week. Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, is due in China on Wednesday.

The rash of high-level meetings signals a thaw in US-China relations — even if the two don't agree with each other over many issues.

"That means you still have plenty of areas that the countries are unhappy with each other, but when there is conflict, the conflict does not escalate out of control — rather, the escalations are targeted and calibrated," Bremmer told Bloomberg TV.

It's a matter of seeing the glass as being half full or half empty.

"So we can say that the relationship is getting worse, it's true, but it's getting worse quite slowly, and there's more stability to the relationship," said Bremmer.

US-China communication has stabilized tensions over Taiwan

The big upside to increased communications between the US and China is that the world's top two global powers are less likely to have a direct clash.

This is the reason Washington and Beijing's tensions over Taiwan — which Beijing claims as its own territory — have been relatively stable.

Bremmer said that "the US and China know each other's red lines" and the challenges in their relationship after decades of communication, making "extremely nuanced calibrations" an easier task.

He said this understanding between the US and China was why there was no "strong and sudden escalation that brought the two sides to crisis" after Taiwanese Vice President William Lai — whom Beijing views as a separatist — won Taiwan's presidential election in January.

"It's always better to have more engagement, more conversations," Bremmer said, "especially when you don't trust each other."

Correction: April 24, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misspelled the first name of the US secretary of state. His name is Antony Blinken, not Anthony Blinken.