During the May 2023 G7 summit in Hiroshima, US President Joe Biden observed that ties with Beijing would ‘thaw very shortly’. Four months later, the United States and China have taken important first steps to put the balloon incident behind them and stabilise their rocky relationship.
Lines of communication have been re-opened, assurances exchanged, working groups formed and incremental forward progress recorded. Progress was made even in areas such as export controls where the two sides had previously clashed. The lack of engagement on their reciprocal tariff hikes and on senior-level defence exchanges remain the key areas where dialogue continues to lag. But even on this latter front, a provisional workaround featuring the Pentagon’s top Asia officials and senior Chinese Foreign Ministry officials has been arranged on more than one occasion.
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