SEPT. 22, 2015
A dinner and reception honored President Xi Jinping of China in Seattle on Tuesday. Credit Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
WASHINGTON — For the past two years, the critical question confronting the Obama administration about Xi Jinping, the Chinese president who defied American predictions by challenging the United States’ superpower status early and directly, has been how forcefully to respond.
When Mr. Xi, barely a year in office, declared an exclusive “air defense identification zone” over a vast stretch of territory, the Obama administration immediately sent B-52s right through the space, and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. spent seven hours with the new Chinese leader, telling him, as one participant in the discussion recalled, “You will be seeing a lot more of this.”
But on a range of issues since then, from how directly to challenge China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea to creating a cost for cyberespionage, the response has been less certain.
This week’s meeting between President Obama and Mr. Xi is fraught with points of conflict, and its unspoken subtext is whether the president will confront the Chinese directly, deliberately causing friction in the relationship in hopes of drawing some lines around their behavior, or celebrate an unexpected partnership on issues like climate change and Iran, handling contentious issues in private.
The administration has tried both approaches, and has often come away frustrated and dissatisfied, according to senior officials, some of whom have left the government recently and spoke on the condition of anonymity. But Mr. Obama recognizes that what amounts to his third long meeting with Mr. Xi, a formal state visit full of ceremonial displays of respect and cooperation that begins here Thursday, is likely to be his last chance to start what one White House official calls “long-ball diplomacy with the Chinese.”
By the next major meeting between the two men, the official said, “Obama will have only months left in office.”
Musing on his dealings with China before an audience of business leaders last week, Mr. Obama noted that the Chinese were only episodically willing to take on the responsibilities that come with being a global power.
“In other areas,” he said, “they still see themselves as the poor country that shouldn’t have any obligations internationally.”
What is different about this meeting, however, is that Mr. Obama finally has some leverage — the tool that he once railed in a Situation Room meeting has often been missing with Beijing. A China weakened somewhat by economic downturn, and eager to calm the markets by showing it can manage its relationship with its most important trading partner and geopolitical rival, may be eager to avoid any open signs of rift — at least for a while.
The most potent evidence of that came after Susan E. Rice, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, traveled to Beijing in late August to see Mr. Xi and try to plan out the trip. She warned that unless Mr. Xi acted on restraining what Ms. Rice in a speech on Monday called “cyber-enabled espionage that targets personal and corporate information for the economic gain of businesses” in China, Mr. Obama was prepared to impose sanctions, perhaps before Mr. Xi’s arrival.
The Chinese reaction was swift: Mr. Xi dispatched Meng Jianzhu, a close Communist Party adviser to Mr. Xi and head of state security, to make a highly unusual trip to Washington, along with some 50 aides, to work out a deal. On his return, he began speaking for the first time about the need to crack down on the theft of intellectual property — as opposed to espionage for national security, a distinction the Chinese never acknowledged before.
