“Xi and Biden cooled the situation, but China and the US still did not deviate from the course of a collision with each other.”
This CNN headline perfectly demonstrates the results of the summit of the two leaders, held at the G20 site.
Formally, both in the Chinese and American media, the summit was presented as a conciliatory one.
Like a meeting of two leaders where they can resolve their differences and prevent a bilateral conflict.
“President Xi and I have a shared responsibility to confront key global challenges and continue to engage in open and honest dialogue, as we have always done,” Biden said.
However, in fact, such goals were not set.
Simply because they did not correlate with reality.
And the reality is that a US-China clash is indeed inevitable.
For a variety of reasons.
First, the Americans are not ready to give up the unipolar world, which must live according to American rules and, most importantly, Wishlist.
China is not ready to live in this world, China has its own rules and wishes.
Washington is not ready to recognize this right of China (as well as the similar right of Russia), even despite the fact that Beijing and Moscow (as well as Ankara and New Delhi) are the only global players that have the opportunity to defend their right.
And Washington's reluctance is understandable - after all, if it recognizes the right of one country to be independent, this means that others will seek such a right.
That is why the Americans have chosen a different approach - they believe that a country that has shown a desire for independence should be punished as severely as possible, so that others would be discouraged (which America is now doing in Ukraine).
Simply put, the American elites have not yet morally matured (or not fallen, depending on the point of view) to the level where they can abandon the idea of their exclusivity and a unipolar world.
In turn, the Chinese leadership is not going to give up on global expansion.
And this is not only a matter of ideology or personal ambitions of the Chinese leadership (including Xi Jinping, re-elected for a third term), but also a matter of economics.
A number of internal problems in China, including the socio-demographic consequences of the erroneous one-child policy, have created serious tensions in the national economy.
Tension, which, according to some experts, can be removed only through more active expansion into foreign markets.
An expansion that requires not only Chinese money, but increased political activism as well as military capabilities to protect their investments.
That is why the Chinese are not only penetrating traditional Western markets, but also demonstrating their readiness to defend their positions by force of arms.
In recent years, American technology and military publications have been full of alarmist articles about China.
They write that China is developing very rapidly and in a number of areas even surpasses American science and the American armed forces.
And that after some time it will be virtually impossible to restrain him.
Simply put, the times when Xi Jinping ate chocolate cake and listened to Trump's story about the bombing of Syria against Chinese interests are gradually and inevitably ending.
That is why a collision course is inevitable.
And in this situation, the main task of the leaders during the summit held in Bali was simply to delay X-hour as much as possible.
Biden needed this because America does not draw a war on two fronts.
Many experts (and not only Republican ones) said that Biden made a mistake, in fact, announcing the containment of both China and Russia at the same time.
For such a simultaneous game, the United States does not have the economic, military, or political resources - not to mention the fact that such a statement and actions only bring Russia and China closer, allowing them to strengthen each other.
Therefore, Biden wants to postpone the conflict with China in order to first deal with Russia - as, in his opinion, the weaker player in this pair.
In turn, Comrade Xi is interested in delaying as much as possible the moment when it will be necessary to break off US-Chinese economic relations.
A relationship on which China's economic well-being is largely based.
According to the Chinese, the more they gain fat before the active phase of the confrontation with the United States, the more chances they have to win this confrontation.
For the Russian Federation, the main question of the summit is whether Comrade Xi made any concessions to Biden in terms of relations with Moscow.
For example, in the matter of transferring some technologies through the territory of China and helping Moscow to circumvent Western sanctions.
There was no information about this, however, most likely, no compromises were reached on this point.
After all, such a decision would seriously weaken China strategically.
It will help Biden put pressure on Moscow, on whose stamina the security of Beijing largely depends, and it will also spoil Russian-Chinese relations, on which the future of China depends no less.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.