The U.S. and China have moved into a contentious stance as the Biden administration has unfolded, and this week has indicated that relationship has not shifted a great deal.
The week opened with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman holding in China with top officials, including with Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng. Interestingly, while that session was still going on, Chinese state media released a statement from Xie contended the U.S. had created an "imaginary enemy" in China to divert attention from domestic U.S. issues.
"The United States wants to reignite the sense of national purpose" with state media reporting that there would be "serious consequences."
Xie urged the U.S. to lift visa restrictions on Communist Party members, their families, and Chinese students; lift sanctions imposed on Chinese leaders, government officials and agencies; remove restrictions on Confucius Institutes and Chinese companies; cancel rulings determining Chinese media as foreign agents; and dropping its request to extradite Huawei financial chief Meng Wanzhou from Canada.
Sherman's meeting with State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi was labeled "frank and open" relative to "a range of issues, demonstrating the importance of maintaining open lines of communication between our two countries. They discussed ways to set terms for responsible management of the U.S.-China relationship, according to the U.S. State Department.
Sherman "underscored that the United States welcomes the stiff competition between our countries -- and that we intend to continue to strengthen our own competitive hand -- but that we do not seek conflict with the PRC (People's Republic of China)."
While that was unfolding in China, the U.S. and China butted heads at the WTO. The issue is the same one where they recently clashed at the world trade body -- over China's operation of their tariff rate quotas (TRQs) for wheat, rice and corn.
At a meeting of the Dispute Settlement Body, China contested the U.S. request for permission to impose trade retaliation on China over the TRQ issue. That means the matter is now headed to arbitration.
But China also submitted a request for a dispute panel to look at whether it had come into compliance with the WTO ruling on its TRQs which dates back to 2019. The U.S. blocked the request, but will not be able to block a second request. The U.S. believes that the retaliatory actions can move ahead while the two sides are in arbitration, but China said the arbitration should be suspended until the determination is made on whether they have changed their TRQ program and come into compliance with the WTO ruling.
China not only contends that it has come into compliance with the WTO ruling but they are also taking issue with the level of retaliation sought by the U.S.
And China has also made clear that it wants the U.S. tariffs imposed by the Trump administration to be removed. But so far, there has been no sign from the Biden administration that they are ready to take that step either.
So we will see. The level of acrimony continues to rise between the two countries, though no major actions have been taken by either side. Still, the situation should be watched closely in the coming weeks and months, Washington Insider believes.