Beijing is reportedly softening tone on US ahead of Xi’s visit…But is it really?

While state media has struck a positive note on the importance of US-China cooperation, US remains at fault for the worsened ties in Beijing’s recent narrative.

China’s state media has seemingly softened its tone on the US-China relations, emphasizing how cooperation between the world’s top two economies can benefit each other, after Beijing had announced its leader Xi Jinping’s trip to San Francisco, where he will attend the APEC summit and meet with President Joe Biden on Wednesday. But according to Beijing’s recent propaganda, the US is still to be blamed for the worsened ties between the two countries and Washington must prove its commitment to repairing the relations.

In a flurry of editorials released by state-controlled media outlets during the past week, the US is portrayed as a disruptor of global trade order and accused of possessing a cold-war mentality that goes against the will of its own people.

Between November 9 and 13, China’s official news wire and government mouthpiece Xinhua published a five-part commentary series about “pushing China-US relations back on track”. The commentaries say that cooperation between the two countries is what the people want, but the US has not been able to commit to it.

The first commentary article of the series praises Xi and Biden’s talk in Indonesia last year for “clearly pointing out the direction of the troubled China-US relations”. Then the tone changes. Xinhua accuses the US side of violating the promises that Biden had made during the talk on issues such as Taiwan, trade and technology.

“The way of saying one thing but doing another has put the China-US relations on a winding path and made the international community, including China, have doubts about America’s political honesty and diplomatic executions.”

一年前，中美元首在印尼巴厘岛会晤，为陷入严重困境的中美关系指明了前行方向，也在国际上推动形成了中美关系趋稳向好的积极预期。令人遗憾的是，外界所等来的、所看到的，却是美方一系列背离两国元首共识以及背离拜登总统“六不五无意”承诺的言行。这种说一套做一套的做法，使中美关系走了一段曲折历程，也让包括中方在内的国际社会不得不对美方的政治诚信和外交执行力打上一个大大问号。

In the second and third commentaries, Xinhua criticizes what it calls America’s cold-war mentality and the Biden administration’s policies of competing with Beijing in a variety of areas.

“The US has continued to provoke China on issues that touch China’s core interest and rights to develop, while proposing to keep the relations stable and avoid conflicts. The contradiction between logic and reality essentially comes from America’s misjudgment of China, of the world, and of itself.”

回顾过去几年中美关系曲折历程，美方在涉及中国核心利益和发展权益的问题上不断挑衅，同时又提出要保持关系稳定，避免冲突对抗，这种逻辑与现实自相矛盾的症结，从根本上讲，还是美方对中国、对世界、对自己的认知出了偏差。

The final article of the series, published on Monday, one day before Xi took off for California, urges the US to “follow the will of the people and move toward China and use actions to remove obstacles”.

希望美方顺应民意，同中方相向而行，用行动排除障碍。

On the same day, China’s CCTV released a clip online of John L. Thornton, professor at Tsinghua University and chairman of the board of trustees at the Brookings Institution, saying that the “fundamental problem” rooted between the US and China is that “the US’s understanding of China is not very strong”.

The Global Times, in an editorial, proclaims that the US has turned into a “negative element” in upholding the open trade principles “shared by the majority of APEC member countries” since 1993, when the first informal APEC leaders’ meeting was held in Seattle, and created huge uncertainty for the organization’s future.

“相互依存，共同利益，坚持开放性多边贸易体制和减少区域间贸易壁垒”这一宗旨和目标仍然是大多数成员的共识。而从1993年至今，美国已经从这一宗旨目标的支持者维护者，逐渐成为了重要负面因素，甚至成了推动所谓‘脱钩断链’‘去风险’、泛政治化泛安全化凌驾于市场规律的主要源头。美国现在对待APEC的矛盾态度，跟它这一角色的转变是高度一致的，这也成为APEC未来发展最大的不确定性。

State media has also highlighted the positive side of US-China cooperation. The recent visit to China of two former “Flying Tigers”, who helped China’s war effort against Japan during World War II, received high exposure. The Xinhua editorial series have praised the cultural and economic engagement between the people of the two countries. The series also emphasizes how the US can and has benefitted from trading with China.

After Biden’s meeting with Xi last November in Indonesia during the G20 summit, the two countries were expected to begin a thawing phase of their relations, which at the time had touched one of the lowest points in history, until the spy balloon saga derailed that path in February.

But since May, things between Beijing and Washington started warming up again with a slew of US and Chinese officials visiting each other, which gradually paved the way for the upcoming meeting between Xi and Biden in San Francisco.

In September, Xinhua had already published an editorial calling for the easing of the relations between the two countries, saying that as long as Beijing and Washington respect each other’s way of governance, “the path between the two countries can be walked wider”.

For a story published on Voice of America’s Chinese website, I asked Nathaniel Sher, senior analyst at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, how he interprets what seems to be a contradiction between Beijing’s positive framing of the US-China relations and negative depiction of the US.

“I do not think that advocating for US-China cooperation and bashing the US are contradictory in the minds of the Chinese leadership,” he told me in an email. “The Chinese side thinks that incorrect policies by the US are the primary reason that the two sides have been unable to cooperate and, therefore, Beijing continues to criticize US policy.”

“The two strands of China's state narratives are essentially a means of positive and negative reinforcement--or carrots and sticks--that Beijing leverages to gain acquiescence from other global powers,” he added.