As President Joe Biden and Chinese language President Xi Jinping meet in San Francisco in the present day, the 2 leaders discover themselves in numerous positions than once they met final 12 months in Bali, Indonesia.

Again then, every was ready of power — Biden popping out of a triumphant midterm election and Xi a well-orchestrated social gathering convention that solidified his rule — and each used that first in-person assembly as an event to appease tensions.

Then got here the Chinese language balloon floating over the US that tore on the already tenuous situation of US-China relations. The incident bolstered hawks in America gunning for a extra assertive US coverage towards China (although, underneath Biden, like Trump, the coverage has already been fairly hawkish). Since then, every nation’s chief has been examined. Biden has confronted troubling ballot numbers and will get flack from Home Republicans who argue that even assembly with Chinese language leaders is a type of capitulation. And now, Israel’s conflict on Gaza threatens American energy globally and presumably Biden’s reelection.

In China, mass protests in opposition to Xi’s zero-Covid insurance policies considerably undermined him and compelled the nation to open up in a considerably haphazard style. His weak point has been uncovered as he’s grappled with an financial slowdown and reshuffled ministers.

Now, simply sitting down collectively is taken into account successful. Wednesday’s assembly on the edges of the Asia Pacific Financial Cooperation summit would be the first time in a 12 months the leaders of the world’s two largest economies have talked. This isn’t a big-picture realignment however a tactical cooling, with the hope that presidential diplomacy can yield extra diplomatic breakthroughs within the distant future and mitigate the chance of outright battle within the nearer one.

So, the achievement prone to come out of this 12 months’s Biden-Xi summit is, merely, the assembly itself. If there are coverage bulletins that emerge from the dialog, consultants instructed me, they’re prone to be minor. “It’s been a tough few years in US-Chinese language relations,” Sharon Burke, a former senior Protection official, instructed me. “So the prospect of doubtless getting again to a extra regular tempo, the place we’re going to stay contentious, however that we will truly meet and discuss, particularly mutual pursuits, is necessary — even when it doesn’t end in headline-grabbing agreements or compromises.”

This builds on a number of months of Biden in search of calm, typically saying that the administration doesn’t desire a new chilly conflict with China at the same time as a few of its insurance policies counsel in any other case. His nationwide safety cupboard has shuttled to Beijing and within the course of constructed confidence that diplomacy stays the most effective path ahead with China. The Biden administration has sought this entente however doesn’t all the time get its calls returned (like throughout the balloon disaster). China, for what it’s value, has cooled its rhetoric towards the US lately, placing out official statements forward of in the present day’s assembly that target stabilizing relations.

Although conflict within the Center East is draining the Biden administration’s overseas coverage consideration, the problem of China endures as essentially the most vital globally. The president’s total overseas coverage is organized round countering China.

“Each side have probed on the backside line of the opposite aspect,” Yun Solar, an analyst on the Stimson Middle, instructed me. “Each side have pushed, have bullied, have screamed, and have supplied enticement. And so mainly, all of the totally different approaches have been tried. Now, individuals are at a way more sober understanding as for what is feasible and what’s viable.”

When Biden and Xi meet in San Francisco

That is possible the final time the 2 leaders will meet for a while. “Traditionally talking, sitting presidents working for reelection don’t see it as advantageous to their reelection campaigns to fulfill with their Chinese language counterparts throughout election years,” Ryan Hass, a researcher on the Brookings Establishment, instructed me.

Biden has stored in place lots of Trump’s insurance policies towards China. Nonetheless, Biden’s emphasis on diplomatic engagement is a distinction to Republicans who’ve flaunted a militaristic strategy to China, as seen at latest presidential debates. Trump, for his half, mentioned good issues about Xi lately (“He’s like Central Casting”), however a second Trump time period would nearly actually pressure US-China relations additional.

So what is going to the Chinese language hope to get out of this summit? “They’re searching for a possibility to indicate the Chinese language folks that President Xi was handled with dignity and respect on the world stage, that he was seen as a world chief of stature and significance,” Hass, who served within the Obama White Home, defined. “And I feel that they’re in all probability going to attempt to use the assembly to set down markers round their expectations round Taiwan, on condition that Taiwan has an election upcoming in January of subsequent 12 months.”

Analysts may even be watching whether or not there will probably be some resumption of military-to-military relations between the 2 international locations. The Chinese language balloon additional examined the prospect of communication, which China had largely suspended after then-Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s go to to Taiwan in August 2022. The 2 sides are engaged on that, Solar defined, however every nation has totally different expectations. The US needs to renew each high-level and working-level contacts, whereas the Chinese language are taking an incremental strategy and are utilizing this all as a level of leverage.

There may be some motion on local weather change. Biden’s envoy John Kerry mentioned “some agreements” are within the works. “We can not make progress on the planet on local weather change with out the US and China,” Burke, who’s now president of the advisory agency Ecospherics, instructed me.

The US and China don’t at present have a lot by the use of arms management agreements, so information that the 2 international locations have even began speaking arms management, as my colleague Jen Kirby lately reported, is main. So are feelers the US has put out a couple of new dialogue on limitations round AI and autonomy on the subject of nuclear weapons.

The small stuff could show necessary, like a rise within the variety of flights between the US and China, which plummeted for the reason that pandemic. The 2 leaders may even talk about the best way to clamp down on the export of fentanyl.

The 2 international locations additionally share an curiosity in a extra secure state of affairs within the Center East. The US has leverage over Israel, and China over Iran, from which it buys a lot oil and with which it maintains diplomatic relations, in contrast to the US.

It might be tough to think about Biden and Xi placing out a Center East peace plan. However any overlap between the pursuits of those two superpowers at this second could show essential. “The Gaza disaster is seen as a possible space for collaboration or cooperation between the US and China,” Solar instructed me. And although that isn’t a lot, it’s a significant departure from the extraordinarily tense Alaska talks in March 2021.

Collectively, it represents one thing that has been largely absent within the first three years of the Biden administration: cooperation with China. It’s much less in regards to the substance popping out of in the present day’s assembly and extra about whether or not a construction will probably be in place the following time there’s a shock (just like the balloon) or a high-level US delegation in Taiwan.

For Jake Sullivan, Biden’s nationwide safety adviser, the assembly is about the “continued significance of strengthening open traces of communication and managing competitors responsibly in order that it doesn’t veer into battle.”

The forward-looking, over-the-horizon query: Can the connection proceed on this route with out spiraling into battle? “Each side have an innate need to handle the competitors,” Solar, who had simply returned from Beijing, instructed me. “Xi Jinping wants a extra secure exterior atmosphere in order that he can deal with his home issues. I think Biden is pondering the identical means.”

A quiet assembly between Biden and Xi is an efficient begin.