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Regional Maneuvering Precedes Obama-Xi Meeting at APEC Summit
By Richard Weitz
As we approach this month’s 22nd
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Beijing, relations
between China and the United States stand at a tipping point. On the one
hand, Beijing and Washington still cooperate on certain issues related
to renewable energy, Islamist terrorism, global economic development and
nonproliferation. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry recently praised
China for cooperating with the United States on North Korea and other
regional security issues. On the other hand, Beijing and Washington
continue to spar over China’s promotion of regional institutions that exclude the United States, such as Beijing’s new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank,
and U.S. regional security policies that many in China describe
as a form of containment. For example, recent Chinese media commentary,
perhaps designed to prepare the intellectual battlefield for the
summit, fault the United States for providing weapons and diplomatic
support to mobilize China’s neighbors into taking a harder line against
Beijing, The summit will likely see a clash over the issue of whether
these policies conflict with China’s vision of the “new type”
relationship it wants with the United States. China evidently wants
Washington to show more deference to Beijing’s desire for a sphere of
influence in East Asia, which neither the United States nor its regional
allies and friends will
accept.
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