By Christopher Bodeen
BEIJING, China — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is leading a large Cabinet team to Beijing for wide-ranging talks with a Chinese government newly emboldened by its rising diplomatic clout and financial brawn.
Next week’s second annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue will touch on some of the thorniest topics in the bilateral relationship, including what to do about North Korea after South Korea blamed it for the sinking of one of its warships. China is North Korea’s biggest ally and has avoided joining other countries such as the U.S. in condemning the attack.
Winning concessions on other key topics such as exchange rate reform, climate change and new sanctions against Iran also won’t be easy. Alongside their surging confidence, China’s leaders face calls at home for a tough line against Washington over Taiwan, Tibet, and the U.S. naval presence off the Chinese coast. No one is predicting any breakthroughs.
Yet despite low expectations, the two-day dialogue is a powerful demonstration of the depth and complexity of the U.S.-China relationship, and will also be a gauge of the state of those ties after they hit a rocky patch earlier this year.
“I expect the (dialogue) to give us an atmospheric-barometric reading on just how much trust has been lost and just how important the two sides view their continuing strategic co-operation,” UCLA China specialist Richard Baum said.
Clinton’s delegation includes nearly 200 officials from virtually every sector of the U.S. government, as well as the Navy’s Pacific Command. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Trade Representative Ron Kirk will lead the economic discussions, with a focus on broadening access for U.S. exports and efforts to convince China to allow the yuan to strengthen against the dollar.
China’s delegation will be led by Vice Premier Wang Qishan, responsible for economic issues, and State Counselor Dai Bingguo, the country’s top foreign affairs official.
The dialogue that starts Monday at a secluded government guesthouse in western Beijing will have the same hefty agenda as last year’s inaugural event in Washington that marked a fresh attempt at establishing a framework for regular discussions between the two sides.
However, it follows a spike in tensions earlier this year sparked by China’s unusually strong reaction to a $6.4 billion U.S. arms sale to Taiwan and to President Barack Obama’s meeting with Tibet’s exiled Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama.
China claims self-governing Taiwan as its territory, and accuses the Dalai Lama of seeking to overthrow Chinese rule in Tibet. Both are defined by Beijing as “core interests” over which it refuses to compromise.
Ties were further roiled when Google announced it would stop censoring its search results in China. Placed on the defensive over its Internet controls, Beijing accused Washington of milking the controversy to push its “information imperialism.”
Weeks of angry rhetoric and calls to punish the U.S. followed, and balance was only really restored with Chinese President Hu Jintao’s attendance at last month’s nuclear summit in Washington. Earlier this month, the two sides also held a human rights dialogue, although Beijing has yet to restore military-to-military exchanges that it suspended in protest over the arms sale.
Meanwhile, China’s success in weathering the global financial crisis has boosted its confidence in dealing with the stricken West, while its inroads into Southeast Asia, Africa and the Middle East have won it greater influence in world affairs.
In Washington this week, Kurt Campbell, the State Department’s head of east Asian and Pacific affairs, said Clinton would emphasize issues such as regional security, global financial issues and climate change.
Campbell also mentioned the U.S.-led drive for new nuclear sanctions against Iran, instability in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and developments on the Korean peninsula, where a South Korean report released Thursday accused the North of sinking one of its navy ships with the loss of 46 lives.
U.S. officials earlier tried to minimize the distractive impact the sinking is expected to have on the talks. But with the Chinese holding the most leverage over reclusive North Korea, its support for any international response to Pyongyang will be critical to its success.
“A central issue of discussion for Secretary Clinton with her interlocutors … will be on their assessments of developments in North Korea and their reaction to the report,” Campbell said.
Briefing reporters on Thursday, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai acknowledged recent turbulence in relations, but said they were now back on track.
“With efforts from both sides, China-U.S. relations have resumed and continued to improve,” Cui said.
He said the Chinese side was eager to discuss energy co-operation, U.N. peacekeeping operations and counterterrorism efforts.
The dialogue remains a work in progress and the two sides may have to settle for modest gains this year given the enormity of the agenda and domestic political pressures, said business consultant Robert Kapp, who led the U.S.-China Business Council from 1994 through 2004.
Progress may also be impeded by China’s new “economic cockiness” resulting from its weathering of the global crisis, along with remaining tensions over Taiwan and Tibet, Kapp said.
“My thoughts are that the (dialogue) remains full of hopeful potential, but that prospects for significant movement by both sides, acting together, on major issues is very uncertain, to say the least,” Kapp said.
The Beijing dialogue is the centerpiece of Clinton’s swing through Asia, which also includes visits to South Korea, Japan and China’s financial hub of Shanghai.
