China’s ties with America are warming, a bit - The Economist   

In New York politics, plain speaking is an asset. Fearless public candour is less useful when climbing to the top ranks of the Chinese Communist Party. Despite this daunting culture gap, Chuck Schumer—the acerbic, Brooklyn-born majority leader of America’s Senate and co-chairman of the first congressional delegation to China since before the pandemic—held businesslike meetings with Xi Jinping and other party bosses on October 9th and 10th.

The encounters began with less-than-promising displays of party doublespeak. Earlier this year, Mr Xi accused America and allies of trying to contain and suppress his country on all fronts. Yet when the supreme leader welcomed the six senators to the Great Hall of the People, he dismissed bilateral tensions as mere “wind and rain”. Deploring the very notion of a great-power contest, Mr Xi declared that “competition and confrontation are not in line with the trend of the times.” For his part, the foreign minister, Wang Yi, suggested that ignorance explains Americans’ growing wariness of China. With luck, Mr Wang averred, the senators’ visit would give them a more “accurate” understanding of his country.

Mr Schumer was having none of it. It is “natural” that the world’s two greatest powers are competitors in trade, technology, diplomacy and more, he told his hosts, adding: “We welcome this competition. We do not seek conflict.” In his meeting with the foreign minister, the senator said he was “very disappointed” by China’s initial response to terror attacks by Hamas, which “showed no sympathy” for Israelis murdered in their hundreds. Mr Schumer was correct. As with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s diplomats claimed to be neutral after Hamas attacked Israel. They called on both sides to lay down their arms. China’s official media have played down mass killings and hostage-taking of civilians by Hamas, emphasised Israeli air strikes on Gaza and presented America as a warmonger fuelling the conflict for selfish ends. Mr Schumer asked for a clear condemnation of Hamas. Several senators asked China to use its influence and urge Iran to avoid escalating the war. For good measure Mr Schumer complained about unfair Chinese trade practices and China-based chemical factories that feed the deadly trade in fentanyl. He urged China not to support “Russia’s immoral war against Ukraine”.

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