Media Tip Sheets

Biden-Xi Meeting: Expert Available for Interviews

Wednesday, November 15, 2023, By Vanessa Marquette
President Joe Biden met Chinese leader Xi Jinping for the first time in a year today. Dimitar Gueorguiev, an associate professor of political science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and director of Chinese studies at Syracuse University, is available for interviews. His comments on the meeting are below. Please contact Vanessa Marquette, media relations specialist, at vrmarque@syr.edu if you’d like to schedule an interview.
Dimitar GueorguievProfessor Gueorguiev writes:
“1. Momentum: the last 4 months have seen a truly remarkable improvement in communications between Washington and Beijing. Much of that was directly tied to this APEC meeting, however, and we should not assume that the positive momentum can or will be sustained. We are still in the middle of US-China relations winter. Though there is reason to celebrate the current thaw, we should be prepared for a cold front to come in soon.
2. Gameplan
  • Xi is widely seen as coming into the meeting with the goal of buying China time by presenting a more friendly and cooperative face in the midst of growing mistrust and anxiety within the USG and the American public over China’s ambitions. One concrete action Xi could take to demonstrate good faith is committing to more thoroughly police chemical precursors coming out of China and feeding fentanyl production. This is something Beijing could easily do but has been holding back on, presumably as leverage. Now might be the time to use it. Xi will also use his opportunity to meet with American business leaders and make the case that China is still an attractive and welcoming market. This will be a hard sell.
  • Biden has an interest in demonstrating that the US and China can sit down and communicate in a responsible and professional manner. He has no interest in offering concessions. If Xi is hoping to get some carve-outs on US tech sanctions and export controls, he is going to be disappointed. What the US will want out of these discussions will be some kind of statement about resuming mil-to-mil communications, a nod to mutual interests in upcoming climate negotiations in Dubai, and an indirect agreement not to let sensitive upcoming events on the political calendar, like Taiwan’s presidential election, become weaponized through escalatory language. Biden also has no interest in having the face-to-face meeting turn into a public spectacle. The choice of the secluded Filoli estate, far away from the APEC action, is part of this thinking.
3. Overall, I think the theme for this meeting is ‘low expectations’ and that seems prudent given the broader climate.”