JRL NEWSWATCH: “Biden Doesn’t Need to Keep Pushing Xi and Putin Closer; A path away from great power conflict” – The Nation/ Jake Werner

File Photo of Beijing Temple, adapted from image at lbl.gov

“The U.S.-China-Russia strategic triangle has returned as a fulcrum of global geopolitics. As Chinese president Xi Jinping … visit[s] … Moscow to meet with … Putin, … Biden has been busy coordinating Atlantic and Pacific military alliances to box in both powers. The Biden administration often frames this division between the powers as … an abstract contest between democracy and autocracy. Far from inevitable, however, the China-Russia alignment against the United States crystallized just one year ago and is far more tenuous than most media commentary allows. … Asia MapRather than pressing Russia and China closer to each other, it is time for the United States to seek new possibilities within the strategic triangle. A more promising approach would recognize … salient differences between Russia and China and use that recognition not to split them but to establish a U.S.-China modus vivendi. In addition to ending the current rush toward serious conflict with China — which Biden says he wants to avoid — comity with China would also expand diplomatic possibilities for bringing Russia to the negotiating table. Today, the United States and China both view their differences as making them incompatible, but those same differences just as often create a potential for complementarity. Whether the issue is a global climate transition, a framework for developing country debt restructuring, or leveraging diplomatic influence over both sides to end Russia’s war against Ukraine, making space for China in the global system is a far better strategy for pursuing U.S. goals than is a destructive attempt to isolate and exclude it.”

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