APEC United States 2023 U.S.-China Summit and the International Order

Hyun-ik Hong

Senior Research Fellow

hyunik@sejong.org

The strategic competition has intensified again due to the Chinese spy balloons incident in February this year, the U.S. shooting down of balloons, and the cancellation of Blinken's visit to China. Two countries held a separate bilateral face-to-face summit in a year on the occasion of the APEC United States 2023 on November 15.

The Biden administration has taken a practical strategy to revive the domestic economy by emphasizing democracy and human rights to minimize domestic spending, rallying allies, and checking China's rise. However, upon closer inspection, the recent difficulties that the Chinese economy faces appeared to be not temporary but structural fundamental problems such as population problems and limitations of the authoritarian system. Therefore, the U.S. saw it is now necessary to restore the confidence that it would not be easily overtaken by China and promote risk management such as a hard landing in the Chinese economy. In this context, the US-China summit was actively pursued.

President Xi also needed to properly compromise with the United States to make a breakthrough in overcoming multi-faceted crises including complex economic crises and social unrest, a sharp decline in foreign investment, along with the real estate crisis, and a surge in youth unemployment. As a result, for a variety of reasons, the leadership of the two countries desperately needed a summit with their G2 counterparts.

At the summit, the two leaders agreed to establish various communication channels to manage the stability of the two countries' relationship at a certain level and to call a truce for a certain period of time, but it is far from the fundamental solution of the problem and is expected to continue strategic confrontation between two countries to stabilize hegemony and secure the right to development.

It is also difficult to guarantee stable U.S.-China relations even within the domestic circumstances of the two countries. Other factors such as the direction of China's economy and the stability of Xi Jinping's regime, Taiwan-China relations, and competition among presidential candidates against China in the U.S. will intensify amid the widespread anti-China atmosphere in the country as the voting day approaches.

The government should wisely pursue practical diplomacy aimed at maximizing Korea's national interest by understanding the policy objectives pursued by the U.S. and China in a cool-headed assessment of the situation, understanding the policies of the two countries and the mid-to-long-term structure of bilateral relations, and promptly and clearly managing the aftermath of strategic confrontation. The government should pursue self-defense in the field of defense and high-tech competitiveness, promote its national identity by maintaining its orientation toward democracy, human rights, and norms in its cause, while building an all-round international solidarity with developing the Korea-U.S. alliance as the main pillar of its foreign strategy, manage risks from the U.S.-China strategic confrontation, and hold friendly relations as mutually respectful strategic partners with China.