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Opinion
All hope is not lost for US-China relations despite the tensions and tepid virtual summit
- The appearance of progressive, level-headed analysis in an old-guard publication like Foreign Affairs suggests movement in US policy towards China
- Even though the Xi-Biden virtual summit produced little of note, there are still ways to bridge the gap between the two countries
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Tom Plate is a university professor and a veteran columnist focused on Asia and America.
Can it be that fresh air is being permitted to enter US foreign affairs thinking? The other day, a critique of US policy towards China turned up on my computer screen that raised my hopes. It amounted to a reasoned plea for exactly the kind of strategic rethinking America needs to put together soon.
The essay called for junking the moribund approach of confrontation and containment and re-pivoting to Asia with a calibrated appreciation of China’s growing stature in 21st-century geopolitics. It coolly reprimanded both sides for fuelling the growing bilateral arms race, when the race which both sides should be leading is the global marathon against climate change and Covid-19 resurgence.
The extraordinary thing about this article, though, was not just the substance itself but the notable platform of its transmission. It was in Foreign Affairs, the journal of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York.
Foreign Affairs has not always been everyone’s cup of tea. For truly cosmopolitan Americans, perhaps on the West Coast especially, Foreign Affairs and its parent CFR were viewed as an East Coast men’s club where grumpy grandees snoozed away in the library.
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