9/11, 20 years later: did the tragedy give US-China relations a respite?

Beijing saw the opportunity to reset its relationship with Washington, which needed its support and agreed to label ETIM a terrorist group

More recently, analysts say, the US focus on other theatres has emboldened China’s aggressive moves in the South China Sea and elsewhere

Reading Time:7 minutes

Published: 4:00am, 2 Sep 2021Updated: 4:59pm, 13 Sep 2021

The deadly terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001 prompted an outcry from around the world: “We are all Americans.” But even before the dust had settled around the World Trade Centre, Washington’s policies realigned around fighting terrorism and bilateral relationships strengthened or crumbled depending on where other governments stood. Wars and occupations ensued, ending in a rushed military withdrawal from Afghanistan by US forces last month. In the first in a series about the legacy of 9/11, Mark Magnier explores how the attacks altered the course of the US-China relationship.

On September 11, 2001, Chas Freeman was in Beijing for a meeting with then-president Jiang Zemin when news of the World Trade Centre attack broke. Commercial aircraft were grounded, forcing Freeman, then the co-chair of the US-China Policy Foundation, to remain in the Chinese capital longer than expected.

Two decades later, analysts and former government officials say it is evident the terrorist attack interrupted – if temporarily – a downward trajectory in US-China relations that has now resumed. And 20 years on, bookended by the humiliating US evacuation from Afghanistan, there’s little prospect of relations significantly improving any time soon.

A woman reading the front-page news in the Beijing Youth Daily on September 12, 2001, covering the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in New York. Photo: AFP

“We had a diversion,” said Freeman, the former No 2 in the US embassy in Beijing and ex-China affairs director at the State Department. “It’s like a line on a chart that has a big dip, then the trend is back.”

US-China ties were fraying badly leading up to September 11. The inadvertent US bombing in 1999 of China’s embassy in Belgrade; George W. Bush’s depiction on the 2000 presidential campaign trail of China as a potential enemy and “strategic competitor”; and the April 2001 collision of a US spy plane and a PLA fighter jet near Hainan island all heightened tensions and mistrust.

Almost immediately after the World Trade Centre attack, China’s leadership saw the opportunity to change the channel and pivoted deftly. The US priority was now the war on terror, diverting attention from China. Washington needed Beijing’s support at the United Nations Security Council. And China could redefine challenges to its domestic control as global terrorism.

SCMP Series

The legacy of the 9/11 terror attacks, 20 years on

[ 1 of 7 ]

9/11, 20 years later: did the tragedy give US-China relations a respite?

Beijing saw the opportunity to reset its relationship with Washington, which needed its support and agreed to label ETIM a terrorist group More recently, analysts say, the US focus on other theatres has emboldened China’s aggressive moves in the South China Sea and elsewhere

Beijing saw the opportunity to reset its relationship with Washington, which needed its support and agreed to label ETIM a terrorist group

More recently, analysts say, the US focus on other theatres has emboldened China’s aggressive moves in the South China Sea and elsewhere