XI JINPING'S OWN GAME

The first official visit to the USA by the President of the People's Republic of China, Xi Jinping, has become one of the most important current events in world politics. There is a mixed relationship between the two countries - they cannot be described as friendly, but nor are they exactly enemies. In the opinion of most experts, American-Chinese relations will play a decisive role in shaping the world order of the 21st century. In welcoming his guest, US President Barack Obama repeated these well-known remarks, making it clear what is meant by a dialogue with a great Asian civilization on the one hand and the whole essence and strength of the western world concentrated on the American continent on the other.

Xi Jinping spoke in the same vein, but more cautiously: "If China and the USA cooperate well they can become a bedrock of world stability", but should Beijing and Washington "enter into confrontation or conflict, this will lead to a catastrophe for both countries and for the world at large". Xi Jinping urged the US and China to develop a better understanding of each other's strategic intentions and to create a new model of inter-state relations, with less mutual suspicion.

There have always been enough problems and suspicions in a bilateral American-Chinese dialogue, but, at the same time, the countries have a number of common interests and are compelled to work together. Since the middle of this year, Beijing and Washington have again started making attempts at a serious rapprochement. Preparations for the Chinese leader's visit were thorough and made well in advance. Susan Rice, the US president's national security advisor, visited Beijing. Then, a representative delegation headed by China's Minister of Public Security and head of the Political-Legal Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, Meng Jianzhu, set off for Washington, where he was met by Rice and John Kerry.

So will Xi Jinping's current visit be a turning point and was this its original objective?

The visit got off to a promising start. The Chinese leader began his acquaintance with the American people in Seattle where a meeting was organized with the top managers of such leading American corporations as Boeing, Amazon, DuPont, IBM and Microsoft. China brought with them the Alibaba Group, Tencent, Lenovo and the leading banks ICBC and Bank of China. The summit in Washington State's main city was inspiring. Like the agreements signed afterwards, this suggested a development of a dialogue between the pillars of IT on both sides of the Pacific. The Boeing aircraft-construction concern signed a number of contracts with Chinese firms on the supply of 300 aircraft at a total sum of 38bn dollars. In addition, Boeing will build its own assembly plant in China. The American Cisco has created a joint enterprise with a major Chinese server manufacturer - the Inspur company, which distributes network hardware and cloud computing products in China. Earlier, Dell announced that it was ready to invest up to 125bn dollars of its business in China over the next few years. So, American technological corporations are investing more actively in China, and China is gaining access to western technology.

But the most important thing was that Obama and Xi Jinping agreed to adopt new mutual measures to counter cyber espionage. The US and China pledged not to conduct or support any activities aimed at the theft of intellectual property via the Internet.  This pact of electronic non-aggression was very timely and it will most likely eliminate or defer American threats to impose sanctions against Chinese private individuals and corporate bodies involved in cyber attacks on the servers of American corporations. A number of high-ranking US politicians, officials and officers are confident that it was "hackers, working in China" who broke into the computer system of the government's Office of Personnel Mana-gement, containing confidential information (from the names of relatives to histories of illness and predilections) about millions of former and present American federal employees. The scale of the leak was shocking and Americans even began to worry about the possibility of their own agents being exposed in China. The US is also alarmed that the Chinese hackers are engaged in industrial espionage for state companies. James Clapper, Director of US National Intelligence, described Beijing as the chief suspect. The Americans admit they are not without sin, either, but the theft of commercial secrets is a violation of the unwritten rules of world espionage. China refutes the charges and speaks about the work of "arbitrary hacker groups", pointing to the law on the war against such crimes. However, everyone knows that Beijing tightly controls the Internet space and "free hackers" with great opportunities are hardly likely to emerge there. The situation was heating up and urgent measures were needed to cool things down. "The Chinese government will not participate in any form of theft of commercial data or encourage and support any such attempts," the Chinese leader said in Seattle. The sides gave the appearance of trusting one another.

Another important point that reduced the degree of tension in relations between the two countries was the fact that the American and Chinese military agreed on the rules of behaviour for combat aircraft of the two countries during air-to-air encounters. A mechanism for high-level negotiations, especially during crisis situations, was agreed. On 15 September, a Chinese jet carried out a dangerous manoeuvre in front of an American RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft. A statement about the incident was made on the day the Chinese leader Xi Jinping landed in Seattle.

Whereas the situation around Taiwan is currently in a calm phase, the situation in the South China Sea is a constant source of headache for the American administration. Apart from China, Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan, Philippines and Malaysia are quarrelling over small chunks of land. However, Beijing is calmly reclaiming islands, even increasing its territory, building runways, military and rescue bases. Although Washington officially expresses its concern over "the militarization of regions, whose ownership is disputed by several states", the Americans' anger over China's actions is in fact explained by the fact that the waters of the South China Sea are strategic for world trade, and Washington, as we know, publicly and secretly controls many of the world's most important waterways. "The US continues to sail, fly and operate wherever international law permits," Obama said. However, China time and again replies that China's construction work on the islands "is not aimed against any country" and that "China has no intention of militarizing" these regions. Since this affects the fundamental interests of both countries, all that remains is to reduce the degree of tension and to continue to demonstrate military might. 

The Americans did not arrive for the Chinese parade on 3 September to mark the 70th anniversary of the victory over Japan, but the American nuclear aircraft-carrier Ronald Reagan is set to take part in a naval parade on 18 October in the waters off Busan in the south-east of South Korea to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the South Korean Navy.  The American media are saying that, according to the Stockholm Peace Research Institute, Chinese defence spending is now the highest in the world after the US.  China's people's liberation army has been considerably modernized in the past 20 years and has turned from an army of peasants into one of the most modern in the world. Serious and direct military clashes are unlikely in the Asia-Pacific Region, but the activities and policies of the countries in the region are always being adjusted taking into account who has the stronger muscles. The Americans are consoling themselves with the fact that although the technological gap between the two armies is rapidly being reduced, the American army is a decentralized, flexible organizational structure, which encourages initiative, risk and ad-hoc decisions, whereas the Chinese army is subordinate to an authoritarian leadership that traditionally fears an army that has the power to operate independent of the centre. How the military of the two systems would behave in real combat conditions is an open question, and one hopes it will stay that way. And it would seem that the Americans themselves hope so above all others.

Meanwhile, questions of an economic nature are much more relevant, and it would appear that they concern Washington and Beijing much more, bearing in mind their high inter-dependence in this sphere, and also the fact that the volume of trade between the two countries is almost 600bn dollars a year, although the trade balance is clearly in China's favour. According to forecasts, by 2020 Chinese investments in the US will reach 200bn dollars and the Americans are expecting another 4 million new jobs to be created in the US. This also explains the peace-loving tone of the American-Chinese dialogue. The Chinese leader, speaking in Seattle, promised to deter the yuan from falling further and assured his audience that China will continue its reforms based on supremacy of the law and market principles, and promised to react promptly to the concerns of American business. China will not discriminate against foreign businesses, will accelerate the opening of the market and make efforts to improve the human rights situation. In Xi Jinping's opinion, the current slowing down of the economy is down to temporary difficulties because even a large ship can suffer from a storm in the open sea. 

Although the list of the Americans' claims against the Celestial Empire is much longer than those mentioned by Xi Jinping (from China's economic model based on export and investments to the fears of American companies about the lack of legal and statutory transparency), all this, of course, is music to American ears.  To such an extent that observers have even started speaking about the US signing up to Chinese projects, including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and the fact that China could become a part of the US' Trans-Pacific Partnership project. 

Xi Jinping's current visit is undoubtedly important if only in response to proposals that China is plotting something unpleasant against the American dollar and has secret plans intended to "re-set the world financial and economic model". By its contracts with China the US has once again conclusively put the record straight. But, as far as one can judge from the current visit, the question remains open in relation to the long-term prospects for American-Chinese relations.  Xi Jinping is now under pressure because of his wavering economy, and Obama is more and more frequently being called a "lame duck". There will be a new administration in the White House fairly soon, and Beijing is well aware of this.  So one gets the impression that the Americans and the Chinese have been confining themselves today to important, but not key issues, as well as questions which basically do not draw particular objections (the struggle against terrorism, climate change, and so on), and, of course, they have sweetened everything with major business contracts.

The US and China cannot allow themselves to quarrel seriously, but the whole logic of their development and their ambitions also does not allow them to be friends. The US has been forced to come to terms with China's growing military and economic might, but is striving to maintain the appearance of a leading world power. The Chinese are aware to what extent they are tied to America, how much benefit they can draw from peace rather than confrontation, and so they are offering concessions, smiling respectfully, but at the same time quietly and systematically continuing to suit their interests. As The National Interest [American international affairs magazine] acknowledges, Xi Jinping is being welcomed in America with all the honours, including a 21-gun salute on the White House lawn and an official banquet, not because China is an ally of the US or the Americans respect and accept China's political system, but because China is a world power. But China as a world power does not act in quite the same way as the US does. China is engaged in quiet and methodical economic expansion, concentrating above all on its own region, offers a polite rebuff to everyone and is ready to be an ally with everyone, but never stretches itself in this question. The Chinese have always had their own game and the Americans have been forced more and more frequently to play by their rules.