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Kristine Kwok

It has been touted as the most important relationship in the world right now. But managing – or the lack thereof – the intricate ties between China and the United States has been a hit-and-miss process as the world’s two biggest powers struggle to carve out the right approach to engage with each other.
US President Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia” and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping’s “new type of great power relationship” have so far failed to meet expectations.
With the two leaders planning to meet again for a US summit in September, the love-hate bilateral ties will be back in the spotlight.
Experts said a lack of high-level interest in China in the current Obama administration and poor coordination among the government bureaucracies handling the ever expanding bilateral ties were to blame.
To further complicate things, the more opaque than ever decision-making process under Xi has made direct communications even more of a challenge.

Three years into his signature policy of reengaging with Asia in response to a rising China, Obama’s administration now faces a dearth of China experts in his second term, while crises crop up elsewhere in the world.
In his first term, Obama had a treasury secretary who learned Chinese in Beijing as a university student, two ambassadors, Jon Huntsman and Gary Locke, who could relate to China – either through their proficiency in Chinese or family roots – and a secretary of state and national security adviser that put more emphasis on engaging with Asia and China.
However, these people have gone – replaced by candidates with less interest in China and Asia as a whole. Budget whiz Jack Lew replaced Timothy Geithner to manage the tension-ridden bilateral trade and economic ties. Max Baucus, the current US ambassador to China, has publicly acknowledged that he is “no real expert on China”.
Secretary of state John Kerry is known to have spent more time and energy on the crisis in the Middle East, while his predecessor, Hillary Clinton helped crafted the “Asia pivot” strategy. National security adviser Susan Rice has visited China only once since taking over from Tom Donilon in July 2013.
Experts said the leading figures taking care of Obama’s China and Asia portfolio included Daniel Russel, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, and Evan Medeiros, the National Security Council’s (NSC) senior director for Asian affairs.
Russel is Medeiros’ predecessor at the NSC and helped formulate the “pivot”. Before joining the NSC in 2009, Russel was a career diplomat and has served diplomatic positions in both Japan and South Korea.
Medeiros, a fluent Chinese speaker, was a political scientist at the private think tank, Rand Corp, before joining the NSC in 2009 as an aid to Jeffery Bader, then senior director for Asian affairs.
In his book, Obama and China’s Rise, Bader praised Medeiros as a “rising star in the China field” and said he “will provide wisdom for decades as we adjust to the world featuring a rising China”.
At the NSC’s China desk, Medeiros was assisted by Ryan Hass, a former political officer at the US embassy in Beijing, said a person familiar with the arrangement.
However, the real issue, said Bonnie Glaser, a senior adviser for Asia at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, in the US, was a lack of high-level officials that were willing to engage with China.
“What you need is a national security adviser who is willing to make time to engage with China and Asia, and to travel to the region,” she said.
“I think Tom [Donilon, Rice’s predecessor] did a good job. He wasn’t a China hand, but he stepped up and travelled to the region. That was assuring to countries in the region. They want somebody at the high level, who has access to the president, and who they know is paying attention to Asia.”
A bigger question, Glaser said, was a lack of coordination among the government departments that are directly dealing with China on matters ranging from diplomacy, defence, and energy to trade.
“Everybody has a hand in China policy,” she said. “It has become much more challenging to coordinate and to organise a whole of government strategy towards China.”

Yet China also has its share of factors that are further complicating bilateral ties.
Unlike his predecessors, Xi had relied more on his own ideas and less on the institutionalised system to conduct foreign policies, many Chinese scholars have said.
A few officials that are thought to have influence on Xi’s foreign policy are considered only as providers of information and analysis and none appears to have significant sway on the president’s decision-making process.
These officials included Wang Huning, head of the Communist party’s Central Policy Research office and Yang Jiechi, a state councillor overseeing foreign policy.
“Xi now has tremendous power,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University.
“Any adviser now plays a much smaller role with Xi than with the previous presidents, such as Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao.”
Glaser said as Xi’s own ideas now featured more prominently in China’s foreign policy than those of his predecessors, it had caused both a positive and negative impact on relations between China and US.
The improvement in confidence building between the two militaries, for example, was largely due to Xi’s initiatives, she said. But at other times it had resulted in greater unpredictability.
As much of the decision-making power now lay more than ever in the hands of small leading groups, Glaser said the US government now lacked institutional connections with the Chinese authorities, while the only communications were between implementers, rather than decision-makers.
“It’s a mismatch of the system,” she said.


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Xi Jinping

Efforts to improve China’s love-hate relationship with US yet to meet great expectations

Xi and Obama walk together at the Zhongnanhai leaders compound in Beijing before a private dinner in November. Photo: AP 

With the President Xi Jinping planning to hold a summit with US President Barack Obama in September, the love-hate bilateral ties will be back in the spotlight. Photo: AP

US President Barack Obama (left) and President Xi Jinping, pictured in Beijing last November, are making efforts to engage with one another. Photo: EPA

News

China

As the nations await September's summit, the Obama administration's lack of high-level interest in China and Xi's more opaque than ever decision-making process will pose more challenges.


It has been touted as the most important relationship in the world right now, but managing the intricate ties between China and the United States has been a hit-and-miss process.


Barack Obama

Analysis | Efforts to improve China’s love-hate relationship with US yet to meet great expectations

As the nations await September's summit, the Obama administration's lack of high-level interest in China and Xi's more opaque than ever decision-making process will pose more challenges.