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00:00We now have Tony Blinken, the secretary of state, saying he's on his way to Beijing. Also, Janet Yellen supposed to go over there. What do they hope to accomplish? Is there any so-called low hanging fruit that they can get some agreement on? Well, the Blinken visit is going to be very important. And this is the first time our secretary of state will be visiting China, which is a message in and of itself. And so that engagement will be important. I think there is some low hanging fruit where they can make progress, including extending the number of visas and the duration of visas issued to folks from each countries. It's expanding the number of flights between each countries and beginning engage in kind of giving the green light to engagement to senior government officials in all kind of sectors and departments of our government. And if he can do that and accomplish that, I think that's an important step forward. But look, this is a journey. This is where we should not expect any breakthroughs on this visit. Is U.S. China policy working right now? You saw Hank Paulson wrote something in foreign affairs saying it's not working. What's your judgment? Look, there are so many challenges to this relationship and it's so easy to criticize what one side is doing, what the other side is doing. For me, what's the most disturbing is how little engagement there has been between officials and when there's little engagement, then there's little prospects for cooperation in those areas where either we need to cooperate because it's in the public good or it's in our interests to avoid a military conflict or a military incident. So I'm hoping again that these that kind of the spigots are often we can start that engagement and hopefully engagement will lead to better communication, understanding each other's positions and then hopefully some minor progress. But we should not expect, again, breakthroughs. We should not expect that we're going to turn this relationship around and strengthen an improving improve it. It's all about stabilizing the relationship. Wendy is you know so well, it's not just up to the president. It's it's the executive branch. Congress has a say these days in China. From where you sit is the position of Congress. And I must say, specifically, the House of Representatives, perhaps, is it helping or hurting? It's both. It's both in many ways it could constrain the president from doing certain things to help to stabilize the relationship and force him to take measures that he'd prefer not to. On the other hand, having a strong having strong bipartisan support from your Congress behind you and with you, I think demonstrates to China that we're serious. And there's no you know, there's no divisions among the folks in Washington. Looks pretty inevitable right now that the new speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, is going to do what the old speaker didn't. That is go over to Taiwan. Is that gonna have any real effect at all, do you expect? Already, China has told the administration and told Congress, please don't let him come. I think this could lead to friction in the relationship, but hopefully that could be managed and maybe that's something that will be discussed during the Blinken visit. And finally, what do some of the conditions on the ground, as you understand them, in China? First of all, I did see a reporter of the South China Morning Post saying that, in fact, the inflections from Covid is going down. Is that your best information? Look, I I don't know I know what you're right. You know what you're reading as well. Yes. The reports coming out say Covid is down. Reports say no new variants have been detected. We'll have to see now that the lunar holidays are over whether a call that has spread to different parts of the country that haven't been as impacted as others. And whether China now can come out of Covid and really focus on strengthening its economy and getting consumer demand up. Do we have any early indications of that question specifically, is the economy picking back up? Again, there there are signals, there are signs we're seeing, including that during the lunar holiday, consumers started spending money on entertainment, travel, etc. not to the same levels pre Covid, but clearly things are headed in the right direction. The question is this like is this just going to be a bump? Is this sustainable and can China kind of get back to where it was? And I'm a bit skeptical that it can. I think we're in a period of kind of lower growth, not as low as it was in 2022. But I think in 2023, we're talking about 5 percent growth. In your judgment, does that create anything of an opportunity for the United States and others to rebuild some relations with China if, in fact, President Xi is a bit concerned about that economy as well? Maybe he'd be more inclined to talk with us on some things. I think so because I think Xi Jinping objective is going to be to stabilize this relationship with the United States so he can focus on the economic challenges at home, and they're serious. I mean, there's low consumer demand, there's stressed property sector, they're strain, local finances are high youth unemployment and the demographic news is not good. And so, yes, I think there may be opportunities as she focuses domestically and therefore wants a more stable relationship with the United States, which could lead to some progress here and there. When?

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US, China Talk of Better Ties But Things Keep Getting Worse

The US and China may agree to allow visa holders to stay longer and add to the number of flights between the countries, Wendy Cutler, Asia Society Policy Institute vice president, told Bloomberg Television’s “Balance of Power With David Westin” on Monday. (Source: Bloomberg)