Pen Portrait of a President-- Xi Jinping of China

         In a few days time the Chinese President Xi Jinping will be in India attending the BRICS summit at Goa. It would be his second visit to India and it goes without saying that he would be having comprehensive talks with PM Modi; where it is expected that issues that have bedeviled Sino-Indian relations in the recent past would form the prime agenda. Not many in India are familiar with his persona, nor indeed what have been his achievements; since he took over as the Chinese leader from President Hu Jintao in 2012.
     President Xi born in Beijing in 1953 is the third of the four children of Xi Zhongxun, a hallowed revolutionary leader who was with Mao Zedung during the revolutionary period. After the People's Republic was formed in 1949, the elder Xi served in various capacities, including as a Minister for Propaganda and as a Vice- Premier in the Chinese government. He was purged during the Cultural Revolution and had a harrowing time along with his family members. Xi Jinping too did not escape the horrors of the time; having to spend time in a rural community doing manual labor and sleeping on a kang; a traditional Chinese bed made of clay and bricks.With his revolutionary pedigree intact, Xi is often referred to in China as belonging to a group identified as the "Red Princelings" [Children of past revolutionary leaders who are in power today].
     President Xi Jinping is tall for a Chinese leader, nearly 6 feet with his dark black hair neatly pomaded; thereby indicating that he is a northerner. When I met him in Beijing, Xi speaks with a rich baritone and has a confident heft. Xi was married twice. His first wife was Ke Xiaoming, the daughter of the then Chinese Ambassador to UK. They divorced. Xi is now married to the well known soprano singer, Peng Liyuan with whom he has a daughter, Xi Mingze and who has graduated from Harvard University in the US. Peng is considered as a person of considerable elegance, having featured on Vanity Fair's Best Dressed List. Unlike in the past, Xi and Peng often appear together and are considered China's first couple.
     Although China is ruled by the 7 Standing Committee Members of the Politburo, clearly Xi is way above them all. He is not only the President of China ,but holds ten different titles. Almost all important Committee's are headed by him. It is said that after Mao, he is the most powerful Chinese leader to emerge. Xi's great ambition is the rejuvenation of China into a strong economic and military power. It is said that he often emphasizes that 'never again will China be bullied' and that the century of humiliation is over. It is not that he is unaware of the dangers that lurk, for as he told the Politburo members "the tasks that our party faces in reform, development and stability are more onerous than ever before and the conflicts, dangers and challenges are more numerous than ever before".
    Above all else, Xi prizes stability in China. It is for this reason that there has been a crackdown on corruption, environmental pollution, unrest in Xinjiang and pressures imposed by a slowing economy. Xi has strengthened internal security, muzzled the press, re-organized the PLA to fight modern informational wars to win and accepted that economic reforms are necessary. His advocacy of the 'One Road, One Belt' [OBOR] concept and the birth of AIIB and BRICS Banks are all designed to promote China economic and strategic interests. Xi knows how to leverage Chinese economic power in the pursuit of its interests.
    Xi knows that there is only one country that impacts China as none other does--the US. Therefore his foreign policy initiatives are designed to seek accommodation with the US, if possible, through the concept of 'new great power' relationships. Nevertheless, in line with its new policy of promoting nationalism, China will not give an inch where it comes to its 'core interests'. A case in point is the  South China Sea [SCS] dispute, where slowly but surely, China under Xi has proceeded to change the ground realities to its advantage.
    Popularly known in China as "Big Uncle Xi" [Xi Dada], he is known to be direct in his dealings and to say what he thinks. He is not afraid of criticism, but as he himself admitted 'I am not going to lose my appetite over it." On a recent visit to China, I asked one of his staff members what did the President do for relaxation? I was told that the President liked to watch soccer games, but that he hardly had any free time. His great ambition was to see the Chinese football team win the World Cup! Have you noticed in recent times how much effort is being put into making Chinese football teams playing in the home league system world class?     
       

The People's Republic of China at 67--What is it like?

       

      The People’s Republic of China celebrates the 67^th anniversary of its founding today. Who can forget Mao Zedung’s stirring words delivered on 1^st October 1949, that "today the Chinese people have stood up"! Mao’s words have enthused millions of Chinese throughout this period. But doubts still linger about its survival. It is a matter of historical record that the Soviet Union lasted for 74 years and on its demise the Soviet Communist Party crashed into oblivion. The People’s Republic of China has been in existence for nearly 67 years and therefore if we were to follow the Soviet analogy; the People’s Republic should survive for at least another 7 years, if not more. The Chinese leadership is not only conscious of the analogy, but more importantly also aware of the significance of the dates. It is common knowledge; that nothing concentrates the Chinese leadership’s mind more than to ensure that there is no repeat of the Gorbachov fiasco in China. It is said that the Chinese have commissioned a vast number of studies to determine what actually went wrong in the ex-Soviet Union and what led to its collapse. The Chinese leadership is determined not to commit the same mistakes. 

      The question therefore is: what is China like today? What is the nature of the Chinese state? After so many years of following Deng Xiaoping’s reformist economic policies; it is certainly not any more a Marxist-Leninist State in the pure classical sense of the term, having largely abandoned Marxist-Leninist tenants. It is also not Confucian in nature, nor is it a functional democracy with free elections, free speech as is commonly understood. The present Chinese leaders themselves like to describe China as a ‘Socialist state with Chinese characteristics.’

     A common definition of socialism would indicate that it is a political doctrine under which the means of production should be in public [state] rather in private hands and that it would usher in a classless society, where inequality would be minimized, if not totally eliminated. But that is hardly true of Chinese society today, for under decisions taken at the 3^rd Plenum of the Chinese Communist Party [CCP], not only is private ownership of the means of production emphasized, but even the pricing policy would have to be ‘market driven.’ At best it can be surmised that China today has a mixed economy, with a large number of state owned enterprises [SOEs], but that which function and are largely capitalist in orientation and practice.

    The other pillar of socialism is that it is supposed to promote a classless society with inequality reduced to a bare minimum. In the China of today, to the contrary, there is increasing evidence of growing inequality. The gini co-efficient for China, the internationally accepted measure of inequality within a country, was between 0.46 and 0.49 in 2007; the highest for any Asian country^[i]  and could be approaching 0.61. ^[ii] According to the UN, if the gini co-efficient touches 0.44, danger signals on internal stability should start flashing. This inequality is further highlighted by the fact that the richest 10 percent in China own 45 percent of the country’s wealth; whereas the poorest 10 percent own only 1.4 percent! ^[iii] At the same time large income disparities exist between urban and rural residents, between regions and in minority areas. In addition there are about 200 million internal migrant workers that are treated as second class citizens as they are denied health care facilities, on par with local residents, and their children often end up in sub-standard schools. The Chinese National People‘s Congress [NPC] has 83 billionaires as its members, as opposed to none in the present US Senate and House of Representatives. In recent times, both the New York Times and Bloomberg were denied visas for their Beijing staff as they had published articles that highlighted the wealth of family members of former PM Wen Jiabao estimated at US$2.7billion and of other leading personalities of the regime.

      Clearly therefore the China of today is not a socialist country, even though some sections of the leadership may encourage the singing of Maoist songs, glorification of Mao’s memory and the waving of the red flag. But what are the ‘Chinese characteristics’ of socialism that Deng first emphasized way back in 1978? The present governing group too underlines this aspect.

      China is governed by 7 members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo as also 25 members who constitute the larger full Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]. They are unelected, for they ‘nominate’ themselves from the larger full Central Committee. From the apex level downwards there are thousands of officials, party members who control all the levers of power. They are all members of the CCP, the membership of which is increasingly seen as a vehicle for personal advancement, for pelf and for family gain. Determined not to commit the same mistakes as Gorbachov did in the ex-Soviet Union, the Chinese leaders have further tightened their grip on the levers of power, rather than to go in for even a limited version of liberalism or democracy. The power of local party officials has also not been touched. The People’s Armed Police is increasingly deployed to quell any disturbance or arrest any suspected trouble-makers. The judiciary, subservient to the state, too plays its part in ensuring domestic ‘weiwen’ or the maintenance of stability. It is not surprising therefore that the annual budget of the People’s Police [US $ 124billion] is larger than the budget for the PLA [US $ 119billion].

        In the present Chinese system the armed forces [PLA] are key instruments of the Party and firmly under its control through the mechanism of the Central Military Commission [CMC]. All decisions, pertaining to the PLA, must have the imprimatur of the CMC. And in the past, the PLA has not hesitated to open fire on its own people as we witnessed in the Tienanmen massacre of 1989. It was the PLA that rescued the Party from going the Soviet way. Should the necessity ever arise again in the future therefore, the CCP can rely on the armed might of the PLA to control the situation.
       The CCP also sees itself as a vehicle for the promotion of Chinese nationalism. Since Socialist ideology all but died at Tienanmen, the Party  has latched on to nationalism as its core belief in the hope of retaining the support of the Chinese people. This in turn has led to the adoption of hardline foreign policy postures, as witnessed in the position taken by the Chinese government in the South China Sea issue. This in turn means that China cannot afford to make territorial compromises which impinge on its image of a strong and a powerful country.

        The Chinese leadership also maintains a tight grip on the means of communications. Despite vast technological advances in the field of information technology, the Chinese leadership have instituted what is known as a ‘Chinese firewall’ to prevent the dissemination of information. Information security has been elevated to become one of China’s core security concerns. According to Amnesty International, China probably has the largest number of journalists and cyber journalists in the world that are incarcerated. Although the number of internet users in China in 2015 was expected to reach 750 million or about 52 percent of the population, yet the internet content is vigorously censured. As the Vice-Minister from the State Internet Information Office, Ren Xianliang explained the aim is to have ‘cyberspace with Chinese characteristics.’ In addition all Chinese journalists are required to pass an ‘ideology’ exam before receiving accreditation.  

       However the Chinese state allows its citizens to travel and study abroad. Unlike the Soviet Union there are about 120 million Chinese tourists that travelled abroad in 2015; mainly to Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, South Korea and Singapore and spent about US $215 billion. Similarly, again unlike the Soviet Union, there are about 1.4 million Chinese students studying abroad, of whom about 304,040 are in the US alone. This large turn-over is on an annual basis. Almost all of China’s neighbors that Chinese tourists prefer visiting are practicing democracies. China is the only major state in Asia [Vietnam apart] that is not a functioning democracy.  Similarly while in the US, Chinese students would undoubtedly imbibe the spirit of democratic functioning and witness at first hand the respect for individual freedom and rights. A fairly large number of students do return home and they could become, in the future, the agents for change.

       Till China’s economy gallops along developing at 7 per cent annually, there is little chance that domestic dissidence will get out of hand. The dream of China emerging as a strong and one of the most powerful states in the world, has strong and a very wide resonance amongst the Chinese people. It is a proud moment for them. But China’s Gorbachov moment will arrive, if either the economy starts to slow down irretrievably and begins to show signs of faltering or if China suffers a major foreign policy and military fiasco as the Soviet Union did in Afghanistan.

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[i] Asian Development Bank Report, 2007.

[ii] The Economist, 15 December 2012.

[iii] The China Daily, 19 June 2005.

                                           

President Xi Jinping's Anti-Corruption Drive

      As we near the 4th anniversary of President Xi Jinping's anti corruption drive, the question that is increasingly being asked is how is this drive faring and is there an end in sight? In the past many Chinese leaders have instituted similar such anti-corruption drives, but most have spluttered out after a few months. Not many Chinese leaders before President Xi Jinping have dared to touch high ranking Chinese Communist Party [CCP] leaders, popularly referred to as "tigers," on corruption charges; although none before him have had any compunction in throwing out inconvenient rivals on trumped up charges of being "anti-party". If the past is any guide, then Xi Jinping's drive should have faded away by now. But on the contrary, it is still very much in evidence.
     If we look at the figures, the CCP's Disciplinary Inspection Commission has investigated upwards  of 500,000 lower level officials, popularly known as "flies", of whom about 120,000 have received sentences and reprimands. In each of the years from 2012 to 2014, the percentage of those caught committing economic crimes and official corruption have steadily gone up by an average of ten percent. As of September 2016, about 127 civilian "tigers"[Vice Minister and above] and 86 military "tigers" [Maj-Gen and above] have been incarcerated. Of the high level "tigers", the most prominent were the former member of the Politburo Standing Committee Zhou Yongkang, Politburo members Bo Xilai, Gen. Xu Caihou, Gen. Guo Boxiong and the former Director of the CCP Central General Office, Ling Jihua.
    It would have been unthinkable in the past for such high level officials to be incarcerated. Some have attributed Xi's drive to his desire to attain absolute power in China, some think that this has been a neat way to get rid of his political rivals; as also to gain popularity with the Chinese people. It comes as no surprise therefore that some foreigners think the after Chairman Mao, Xi Jinping is the most powerful Chinese leader to emerge. Be that as it may, Xi's anti corruption drive ably piloted by his closest Politburo colleague, Wang Qishan shows no sign of abating. It is now said that this is now the new "normal" in China.
   But Xi Jinping's anti corruption drive has unwittingly had its deleterious effects on the administration of China. Few officials are prepared to take any major initiatives for fear of being labeled as corrupt. In such an atmosphere of "fear"; decision making has considerably slowed down, although it would be uncharitable to assert that some kind of an administrative "paralysis" has set in. In such circumstances, what should the leadership do? Four administrative measures are emphasized.
  Firstly, while tightening decision making and maintaining tighter administrative control; the scope for discretion with Chinese cadres should be sharply reduced. Secondly, the time has come to reduce the "gap" between the salaries of cadres and those of the private sector employees. Thirdly, as the new emerging elites in Chinese political and economic firmament often have close links and blood ties with past CCP elites, it is necessary to proceed cautiously lest the entire administrative structure comes under severe strain. And lastly, Xi Jinping needs to have some kind of an "amnesty" scheme, whereby those charged with lesser misdemeanors are able to atone for their crimes.
    All these measure suggested are neither novel, nor unique. Most Asian States face similar problems. It remains to be seen that as China approaches the 19th Party Congress of the CCP, whether there will be any let-up in Xi Jinping's anti corruption drive. After all, he would need the support of his CCP colleagues to "elect" cadres of his choice in the governance of China.       
      

What Do the Chinese and Indian Peoples Think of Each Other?

        A recent poll conducted in India by the PEW Research Centre [Spring 2016] and published recently indicates that only about 31% of the respondents polled had a favorable impression of China. Earlier a similar poll conducted by PEW in China in July 2014, indicated that of the respondents polled only about 30% had a favorable opinion of India. In other words, ordinary people in both countries do not have a very high opinion of each other. What are the reasons for this? Is it because of a lack of contact and ignorance of each other? Let us examine two important parameters that indicate how close the contacts are between the two peoples. These are tourism and the number of students studying in each other's country. These two parameters would give us the empirical evidence that we need to form an opinion.
   

       There are approximately 120m Chinese tourists travelling abroad every year and according to the World Travel and Tourism Council [WTTC], they spend nearly US$215 billion during their travels abroad. It is estimated that this figure may go up to US$ 420 b by 2020. And yet how many of these Chinese tourists come to India? The figure for 2015 was about 200,000; certainly up from the abysmally low figure of 21,152 in 2003. This total represents just about 2.5% of the total number of tourists, about 7 million that come to India; although it must be admitted that even Maldives receives more Chinese tourists than India does. China Travel Service [CTS] has about 122 offices throughout China and out of the 125 tour packaged offered, only two include India and even these are accompanied by severe deterrent warnings of what to expect in India.

    There is no doubt that much of the work has to be done on the Indian side. A Tourist Office has been opened in Beijing and Ministry of Tourism web-site is now accessible in Mandarin. Many of the existing misconceptions in the minds of the Chinese tourists about India need to be dispelled. But the low priority given to operationalizing the Buddhist circuit in India, has considerably hampered rapid development. New hotels and better travel connections are needed for the Buddhist circuit. Similarly, the air line connections between the two countries are very few, as compared with the air connections that other Asian countries have with China. Through traffic to third countries is also hampered due to the absence of long range aircraft. China Air Lines has been offering connections to the US and Canada through Beijing and Shanghai, but the scope is still limited. Travelers from China to India continue to have complaints about the inordinate delay in granting visas, but with the PM’s intervention, the introduction of e-visas had considerably shortened the time taken.
    Another reason why contacts are limited can be seen in the number of students studying in each other’s country. Last year there were only 13,578 Indian students in China, as compared to only 578 about a decade ago. Almost 80% of the Indian students in China are taking undergrad courses in clinical medicine in various institutes in China. Indians are going in greater numbers as the university accommodation is good, tuition fee is low and classes are taught in English. But here again the problem remains that there is still no mutual recognition of academic degrees and this in turn limits the openings for future employment.
    From the Chinese side, the number of students studying in India is again very low. Only about 2000 Chinese students are in India, as compared to the 304,040 Chinese students studying in the US! Most Chinese students  in India are undergoing language training courses. Also Indian Universities do not figure in the top 100 Universities in the world, whereas there are 3 Chinese Universities in the top one hundred. Naturally Chinese students would prefer to go where they consider they can receive the best education and thereby enhance their employment prospects. The main complaint here also is that there are inordinate delays in granting visas on subjects for study. On the Indian side, a much more robust approach would have to be undertaken to attract Chinese students. What we need to remember is that friendships made at the student level are likely to last a life time.
    There is no doubt that India and China are two rising powers of Asia, but as is obvious from the above both remain quite oblivious of each other. In the vacuum thus created, past impressions tend to remain, with no new narrative in position. Much work needs to be done, on both sides, to correct the rather poor impression that seems to be prevalent.

Aung San Suu Kyi's Visit to the US-- Was it a Resounding Sucess?

    After having paid a highly successful visit to China a few months ago, where she was received with unprecedented courtesy, Aung San Suu Kyi [ASSK] headed to Washington to complete the second leg of her important foreign policy initiatives. The importance of the visit lies in the fact that her unstated strategic objective was to try and "balance" China's over-reaching influence with that of the US and others such as Japan. How far was she successful in achieving her aims?
   There is no doubt that President Obama considers the opening to Myanmar as one of his key foreign policy successes during his term of office. In the last few waning months of his Administration the President, it therefore follows, would do all in his power to make ASSK's visit a resounding success. Fortunately, Myanmar is not an issue in the ongoing debate between the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. President Obama not only received her personally in the Oval Office, but more importantly announced that the remaining sanctions against Myanmar would be lifted soon. However for all the bon homie witnessed, the harsh reality of the presence of Chinese power just across the northern Myanmar borders could not be over looked.
  Whilst the "carrot" was being shown to ASSK by the Chinese leadership during her visit to Beijing, the "stick" was never far behind. And the "stick" is the powerful United Wa State Army [UWSA], Myanmar's ethnic armed force that controls a large slice of real estate along the Sino-Myanmar border areas. UWSA is an off spring of the old Burma Communist Party and which was supported by the Chinese till 1978. The Chinese have reportedly supplied UWSA with considerable lethal weaponry, that includes Chinese FN-6 portable air defence systems that have been used by Syrian rebels so effectively. It is this that makes the Myanmar army reluctant to take on the Wa army.
   ASSK's initiative to hold peace talks with Myanmar's ethnic rebels has not proceeded well so far. Although  China sent its special envoy for Asia, Sun Guoxiang to attend the peace talks; yet rumors abound that the UWSA delegation walked out of the peace talks largely at China's behest since they had been designated as "observers". Perhaps the Chinese wished to demonstrate that while ASSK may bask in the diplomatic success of her visit to Washington; China remains the most important player in Myanmar. The Chinese leadership is aware of its past high handed attitude that lead to the cancellation of the Myitsone dam project by the previous military led government of Myanmar. It has moved swiftly to correct this unfavorable image.
    The harsh reality is that the US may "pivot" to Asia, but China is there just across the Sino-Myanmar border and that ground realities cannot change. The West and particularly the US would have to do much more, in case they wish to wean away Myanmar from the close embrace of China. Meanwhile, all eyes remain pivoted on what the new US administration does, once it assumes office in January 2017.  

Mao of China--A Portrait.

     Yesterday the 9th September 2016 was the 40th anniversary of Mao Zedung's death. Strangely even after a lapse of 40 years, Mao remains a very controversial figure both inside as well as outside China. Was he the 'revolutionary hero' who founded the People's Republic on 1st October 1949 with the famous, stirring words that "the Chinese people have stood up" that reverberate throughout China even today; or was he a mass murderer who presided over the great famine during which reportedly 45 million lives were lost?  Mao unleashed the so-called Cultural Revolution in 1966, where nearly 2 million people lost their lives and several, including the father of the present Chinese leader Xi Jinping, were severely incarcerated. Many leading Chinese political families were devastated and destroyed. How do the present, modern generation of Chinese people evaluate Mao today?
     During my time in China [1972-74], I never had the fortune of meeting Mao personally, but his presence was everywhere. Large portraits of Mao dotted nearly every building, parks, railway stations and most Chinese pinned a picture of Mao on their collar lapels. Most air journeys on Chinese planes would begin with a revolutionary song sung in praise of Mao by the airhostess. Similar songs would blare out on loud speakers on railway trains, leaving or entering railway stations. It was compulsory for our Chinese staff members to take every Friday afternoon off from work to go to their assigned park and sing revolutionary songs in praise of Mao; as also to recite his "thoughts" from the little red book that almost every Chinese citizen seemed to carry. No one was allowed to be absent from such sessions. Even personal Chinese staff were not exempt. Mao seemed to be everywhere.
     According to Chinese press reports there is a spike in the number of Mao sympathizers who visited his mausoleum yesterday, where he lies buried at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Global Times [GT] reports that about 2.5 million people have taken part in an on-line flower campaign to pay tribute to Mao and that the social network app "we chat" is largely filled with praise for the late Chinese Chairman. However, not all Chinese are obsessed with what Mao achieved. After Mao's death even the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] was constrained to point out that Mao's rule "inflicted grave disorder, damage and retrogression". This assessment maybe partly due to the fact that it were the leading personnel of the CCP, that suffered the greatest under Mao's Cultural Revolution. Very few Chinese leaders of the pre-Cultural Revolution era, including Deng Xiaoping, survived from his attention!
   Frank Dikotter, a noted Dutch historian, has written a trilogy of books outlining the horrors of Mao's rule. Dikotter has described Mao as one of the greatest "criminals" of the 20th Century--a description that would certainly be contested by others.
   Todays China is very different from Mao's China. It is alleged that the present Chinese leader Xi Jinping, in order to consolidate his power, has adopted many of the same methods that Mao followed. The crack down on the press, the campaign against corruption, removal of opponents, consolidation of power in one office--all have the hallmark of Mao. And yet despite all this, the number of visitors to Mao's birth place at Shaoshan continue to increase every year. It seems that the nostalgia for Mao and his contribution to making China one of the great powers of today remains as strong as ever, despite the alleged horrors of his rule!    

Did the Chinese snub President Obama at Hangzhou G-20 Summit?

       When President Obama landed at Hangzhou airport for the G-20 Summit there was a snafu at the airport which led many in the US press to speculate that the Chinese authorities had deliberately snubbed him. But the President himself was quick of the mark by remarking that "I wouldn't over crank the significance of it". Quite so; for one has only to look at the whole range of the relationship to understand the depth, the extent and how closely the two countries are intertwined. Neither the US and certainly not the Chinese can afford a rupture over so petty a matter.
   This being the last visit by President Obama to China before he retires from office in January 2017, it would be useful to take a careful look at where Sino-US relations stand at present.
    Both the US and China are permanent members of the UN Security Council. Both are also members of several multi-lateral organizations. Therefore meetings at the apex level between the two leaders, besides frequent bilateral visits, are no longer a rare sight. In the first term of his presidency, Obama met his then-counterpart, Chinese President Hu Jintao about 12 times. A similar cycle and frequency of visits is maintained with the present Chinese President Xi Jinping. There is no doubt that the greater frequency of top level meetings is related in large part to the expanded opportunities that are available on the sidelines of multilateral meetings. These days it is clear that the frequency of meetings is also directly proportional to the importance of the relationship.

      Besides these meetings at the apex level there is annual high level Strategic and Economic Dialogue [S&ED] that is normally conducted at the Secretary of State/State Councilor level. Seven such meetings have been held so far. In 2011 the two countries inaugurated a Strategic Security Dialogue [SSD] under the S&ED format that was to be co-chaired by the US Deputy Secretary of State and the Chinese Vice- Foreign Minister, and including the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and a Deputy Chief of the People’s Liberation Army General Staff. A first ever ‘informal round’ of the SSD was held in 2013. Other high-profile dialogues include the US-China Consultation on People-to-People Exchange [CPE], established in 2010, and three dialogues established before President Obama took office: the Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade [JCCT], the Ten-Year Framework on Energy and Environment Cooperation, and the Joint Committee on Environmental Cooperation. In 2011 the two countries set up the US-China Governor’s Forum that was intended to ‘deepen’ relations at the provincial level. A further initiative was to set up a Mayor’s Forum to examine the ‘best practices’ at the City Mayor/Party Secretary Level.^[ii]  Similar arrangements have been constituted at Cabinet level and there are 91 bilateral mechanisms where almost every issue affecting the two countries is discussed, besides international issues of mutual interest. There is even a group that even discusses South Asian issues pertaining to India and Pakistan.

     In 1979 the total Sino-US trade was only a paltry US$2 billion but by the year 2015, the total Sino-US trade had reached the astronomical figure of nearly US$600 billion. China has presently overtaken  Canada to become the largest trading partner of the US. The trade deficit is huge; with the US amounting to US$ 386.5billion in favor of China. In recent years, nevertheless China has become one of the fastest-growing US export markets and the importance of this market is expected to grow even further, given the pace of China’s economic growth. As Chinese living standards continue to improve and a sizable middle class emerges, so will US-China trade grow exponentially. China is also the largest foreign state holding US Treasury Securities, estimated at US$3.1trillion.
    In 2015 the number of Chinese students in the US reached a figure of 304,040, constituting 31.1% of the total number of foreign students in the US. In 2015 the number of Chinese tourists to the US reached a figure of 2.56million and was expected to go up to 2.97 million in 2016. Conversely the number of US tourists to China in 2015 reached a figure of 2.1million. The total number in 2016 both ways is expected to cross 5 million.[China Daily, 17 March 2016] 
    The Obama-Xi meeting touched upon co-operation in Afghanistan, cyber security, military relations, coast guard agreement, counter terrorism and a host of other global development issues. The US needs Chinese help in thwarting North Korean belligerence as well as over the Iran nuclear issue. But the key of how to handle the SCS dispute issue remains a thorn, with both sides trying to fathom each others future intentions. There is no doubt that with so much at stake, both sides would be anxious to find a modus vivendi. Both realize that confrontation is not the preferred option.
    Thus as President Obama leaves office in a few months time the Sino-US relationship remains central and the most important one presently in the world. Future US Presidents cannot but take cognizance of this most essential fact in determining future policy. It would be wise for other Asian states also to take due note.      

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[i] CRS Report No. R 41108, dated 1 August 2013. ‘US-China Relations: An Overview of Policy Issues’ by Susan Lawrence [www.crs.gov]

[ii] Op. Cit.