China still weighs climate summit RSVP a week after Joe Biden’s invitation

Collaboration on environmental issues might help the China-US relationship but larger unrelated issues could hamper their ability to work together, say analysts

Beijing has declared it is willing to act, but the international community is watching to see how committed it is to achieving carbon neutrality by 2060

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China and the United States have declared they are willing to take bold action on climate change, but China has not said if it will attend a leaders’ summit this month. Photo: AP

Published: 11:00pm, 1 Apr 2021Updated: 11:30am, 2 Apr 2021

A week after getting an invitation from the United States to attend a global leaders’ climate summit, Beijing said it was still considering whether to take part, highlighting the challenges it faces in dealing with Washington.

Analysts said the response from China on Thursday underscored a political dilemma for Beijing, which had pinned its hopes on resetting deeply troubled bilateral ties through climate cooperation.

In its first official response to the invitation issued by US President Joe Biden on March 26, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Thursday that Beijing was yet to decide whether it would attend the gathering of leaders from more than 40 countries.

“[We] have received the invitation and are carefully studying it,” she said. “The Chinese side will make our contribution to the global fight against climate change and is willing to strengthen cooperation with the international community with our input.”

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Her remarks, according to observers, show the difficulty Beijing faces both in delivering on the ambitious climate commitment it made last year and, more importantly, in finding the right balance between cooperation and rivalry with the Biden administration.

Analysts in Beijing said Xi would “almost definitely” accept the invitation, despite the rancour between the rival powers in recent weeks over their ideological divide and China’s alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.