The Biden administration set out to make a foreign policy priority out of countering Beijing's rise, but the urgency through which Washington has turned to its top competitor in an attempt to prevent and now help defuse the crisis in Europe speaks to a dire need to improve ties for the sake of geopolitical stability.
And as the United States tries to draw China away from its "comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for the new era" with Russia and even renounce its official neutrality to take action against Moscow, Beijing is approaching the overture with deep skepticism given Biden's long-term goals.
"The notion that China has resisted calls from the U.S. to align with the West on the war in Ukraine due to America's relatively more hostile posture towards it over the last several years certainly plays an influential role in President Xi's calculations on how to proceed," Matthew Geraci, research associate and program officer at the Institute for China-America Studies in Washington, told Newsweek.
