US and Chinese Presidents Meet During APEC Summit, Restoring Military Communication Channels to Manage Differences

The leaders of the United States and China met on November 15, 2023, in San Francisco on the sidelines of the APEC summit. A key outcome of the meeting was the agreement to resume high-level military-to-military communication channels and enhance cooperation on issues such as combating fentanyl. The meeting was widely seen as stabilizing the relationship on a diplomatic level after the "spy balloon" crisis. While both sides reiterated their differing positions on core issues like Taiwan and human rights, they emphasized the importance of responsibly managing competition and preventing conflict.

This summit sent a positive signal that the U.S.-China relationship was seeking to "stabilize and stop the decline," offering a measure of optimism to the international community. From a conservative perspective, the restoration of military communication channels was viewed as crucial for reducing the risk of "miscalculation" in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, but the dynamic was essentially crisis management rather than trust-building. It provided the global business community with a period of "predictability," while simultaneously confirming that competition remains the defining characteristic of the relationship, with any easing based on not compromising core strategic interests.