How Diplomatic Snubs Highlight Frayed China-U.S. Ties

(Bloomberg) -- Forget about a summit between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping: The U.S. and China can’t even agree on the protocol for a meeting between senior diplomats. A spat over who on the Chinese side was an equivalent rank to U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman for her visit to Asia in July became the latest sign of how far relations have plummeted. The dispute betrays deeper concerns and mistrust as well as the murkiness of who’s really important in Beijing.

1. What happened with the visit?

Sherman halted her travel plans after being offered a meeting with Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng, whom the U.S. didn’t consider her counterpart, the Financial Times reported on July 16. The wrangle came two months after China’s state-backed Global Times criticized U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for snubbing an offer to speak with the defense minister. The newspaper cited a source that accused the U.S. of disregarding diplomatic protocol and committing an “unprofessional and unfriendly act” by instead seeking talks with the vice chairman of China’s Central Military Commission.

2. How are counterparts determined?

There isn’t a perfect way, given differences in the two systems of government. The U.S. secretary of state (currently Antony Blinken) is one of the highest-ranking officials in the American government and fourth in the line of succession to the president. Out of deference to that standing -- and the overall importance of Beijing’s relationship with Washington -- China has traditionally granted visiting secretaries of state audiences with the Communist Party’s top diplomatic official and even the president himself. Nations use changes to such precedent as one way to express their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the state of ties. The latest spat suggests both sides are seeking to recalibrate.

3. Who is each side’s top diplomat?

Blinken, whose agency oversees American embassies around the world and is primarily responsible for foreign policy, is unquestionably the U.S.’s most senior diplomat. Things aren’t so clear in China, where positions in the Communist Party often hold more power than those in government. So while Wang Yi is the foreign minister, Yang Jiechi is the director of the party’s Central Commission for Foreign Affairs and also sits on the party’s 25-member Politburo, making him a higher-ranking official and thus the country’s “top diplomat.”

4. What are both sides saying about the spat?

Though China has not officially commented on a potential visit by Sherman, the Global Times shared an online commentary that accused the Americans of manipulating public opinion. The commentary said the U.S. leaked information to the media that portrayed the U.S. as “open and proactive” and China as “closed and arrogant.” Sherman told reporters the U.S. will engage with China “when it is in our interests, and will do so in a practical, substantive and direct manner.”

5. What’s the wider impact?

Some in the White House have expressed concern about a lack of access to key Chinese decision-makers. Kurt Campbell, the top official for Asia in the Biden administration, has said that even top diplomats are “nowhere near, within a hundred miles” of Xi’s inner circle. The dispute shows how much the relationship has changed in recent years, with China keen to assert its position and the U.S. wary of conversations that don’t produce results.

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