In recent weeks, a mini-Cold War has threatened to break out, with the American officials of all types becoming increasingly critical of authoritarian actions by both China and Russia. “This is a battle between the utility of democracies in the 21st century and autocracies. We’ve got to prove that democracy works,” President Biden starkly declared at his first Presidential press conference recently, just the latest in a series of tough statements the Administration has directed at Beijing and Moscow.
And yet, just hours after Biden’s press conference, the White House quietly tendered invitations to Chinese President Xi and Russian President Putin to attend Biden’s Earth Day climate change summit on April 22. The reason is simple: The world needs China, by far the largest climate emitter, and Russia, the fourth largest, to reduce their emissions to prevent climate catastrophe.
When asked how America expects to gain climate concessions from China amid trade and other conflicts, Climate Envoy John Kerry suggested that climate could be “compartmentalized” from human rights and trade disputes. As unlikely as this may seem, there is in fact significant precedent for it. For decades, the USSR and U.S. conducted nuclear weapons summits and other negotiations even as they pursued proxy wars around the world, and indeed experts have compared climate change diplomacy to nuclear negotiations. China and the U.S., of course, began their modern day relationship in the shadow of the Vietnam War. This week finds Kerry in Beijing attempting to gain a more serious climate commitment from China ahead of the White House climate change summit on Earth Day, April 22.
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