Neither the United States nor China is prepared for a serious crisis.

Blog Post by David Sacks

February 6, 2023 12:01 pm (EST), CFR

On Saturday afternoon, a U.S. Air Force F-22 fighter jet fired one missile into a high-altitude Chinese surveillance balloon, sending it plunging into the Atlantic Ocean and capping a stretch where the world’s most important bilateral relationship was dominated by a slowly moving object crossing the United States.

The incident raises questions about the extent to which China has been employing these balloons – and in the process violating U.S. territorial airspace and sovereignty – and why it has been doing so when its satellites could glean this information. Far more important, however, is what this says about the ability, or more accurately inability, of Washington and Beijing to manage a future crisis.

CFR

The meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping did not resolve major disagreements, but it could start the process of building guardrails to prevent competition from turning into conflict.

Blog Post by David Sacks

November 15, 2022 9:17 am (EST)

On the margins of the Group of Twenty (G20) gathering in Bali, Indonesia, U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met for the first time in person as leaders of their respective nations. Their three-and-a-half-hour meeting came against the backdrop of heightened tensions over Taiwan, unprecedented U.S. export controls on advanced technologies levied against China, ramped up North Korean missile tests, and the ongoing war in Ukraine.