Wei Wei

Opinion | Amid stormy US-China ties, friendship between people remains a beacon of hope

From the comradeship of the World War II ‘Flying Tiger’ volunteer pilots to the ‘ping-pong diplomacy’ of the 1970s, people-to-people friendship is the true foundation of the US-China relationship

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Wei Wei

Published: 5:30am, 21 Nov 2023

In an op-ed in June, I expressed my doubts over how sincere the US is about improving relations with China. Five months on, those doubts still linger, but there is a silver lining.

There have been signs of better bilateral ties. The US, for the first time, set up an official pavilion at the recent sixth China International Import Expo, and sent senior officials and a delegation from the agriculture and food industries. And since June this year, high-level visits had been paving the way for the much anticipated meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Joe Biden on the sidelines of the Apec summit in San Francisco.

Their meeting lasted four hours with simultaneous interpretation. According to China’s statement, they had “candid and in-depth” exchanges over the strategic issues “critical to the direction of China-US relations” and “world peace and development”.

The Taiwan question, Xi stressed, “remains the most important and most sensitive issue”, according to the statement. “The US side should take real actions to honour its commitment of not supporting ‘Taiwan independence’, stop arming Taiwan and support China’s peaceful reunification. China will realize reunification, and this is unstoppable.”

And on his part, according to the Chinese statement, Biden reaffirmed that the US adheres to the one-China policy, does not support Taiwan independence, and has no intention of having a conflict with China.

So all seems well. Yet again, optimism may be a bit naive; after all, we should watch what they do, not what they say.