Advancing U.S.-China Coordination amid Strategic Competition: An Emerging Playbook

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The Issue
Frictions between the United States and China are intensifying, yet even past geopolitical rivals found ways to collaborate on shared challenges where it squarely served national interests. In November 2022, the CSIS Freeman Chair in China Studies and the Brookings John L. Thornton China Center launched a project to explore safe and effective methods for collaboration among nonstate actors on key challenges facing both nations. The following brief distills takeaways from this work, which included historical case studies of collaboration during the Cold War, workshops with U.S. and PRC experts, and a track 2 dialogue on climate-smart agriculture designed to probe emerging findings.
Part I: Scoping the Challenge
The U.S.-China relationship dates to the nineteenth century, specifically to 1844, when the two countries signed their first diplomatic agreement, the Treaty of Wanghia, following the conclusion of the Opium Wars. In the nearly 200 years since, the bilateral relationship has oscillated between periods of intense engagement and estrangement. There have been times when both countries shared common adversaries and common pursuits, as well as other moments when the relationship was defined by enmity and even direct conflict, such as in the case of the Korean War.
The present period is one of intensifying rivalry, with neither country content with the status quo. Both the United States and China are engaged in a sprawling competition that spans military, economic, technological, diplomatic, and ideational realms, including global governance. Currently, Washington and Beijing do not have any broadly shared purpose that could help the relationship weather shocks and generate resilience.
The intensification of the U.S.-China rivalry is occurring against the backdrop of the eroding efficacy of the post–World War II international order. Wars in Europe and the Middle East, declining support for economic globalization, rising nationalism and populism, and a confluence of food, energy, and environmental shocks are all stressing the current rules-based international order.
Although the United States and China are the world’s two most capable countries, neither is in a mood to pool resources with the other or to galvanize global efforts to address transnational challenges. Instead, the United States increasingly has been strengthening its coordination with fellow advanced democracies, largely, though not exclusively, through the G7 grouping.1 Meanwhile, China has been bolstering its investment into the BRICS+ grouping as a counterweight to the G7, in addition to attempting to burnish its credentials as a leader of the developing world.2 At home, Beijing has been prioritizing a strategy of authoritarian resilience, combining more state direction in the economy with greater political control of society and increased investments in domestic and external security.3 The net effect of both countries’ actions has been a widening of the gap between them in recent years, a trend that is almost certain to continue.
The arc of U.S. disillusionment with China can be seen through the evolution in how China has been described in the national security strategies of the past three U.S. presidential administrations. In the 2015 National Security Strategy, the Obama White House observed, “The scope of our cooperation with China is unprecedented, even as we remain alert to China’s military modernization and reject any role for intimidation in resolving territorial disputes . . . The United States welcomes the rise of a stable, peaceful, and prosperous China.”4 By 2017, the Trump White House cautioned, “China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, [and are] attempting to erode American security and prosperity.”5 In 2022, the Biden White House declared, “The People’s Republic of China harbors the intention and, increasingly, the capacity to reshape the international order in favor of one that tilts the global playing field to its benefit, even as the United States remains committed to managing the competition between our countries responsibly.”6
This sense of disillusionment is shared by the U.S. public, with public perception of China having become increasingly negative over the past eight years. In May 2024, 81 percent of Americans viewed China unfavorably, marking the highest figure since the Tiananmen Square massacre on June 4, 1989.7 This trend of darkening public views of China is matched in a range of other countries around the world.8
As U.S.-China rivalry has sharpened, the United States’ interest in coordinating with China on shared challenges has diminished. Some analysts see pursuing coordination with China as a trap. According to this logic, any such pursuit with China transfers leverage in the relationship to Beijing, given Beijing’s tendency to try to use the United States’ interest in Chinese contributions to get Washington to back off in its competitive posture in other areas. Other U.S. officials and experts worry that greater U.S.-China cooperation on shared challenges could dampen U.S. tolerance for friction with China. In this sense, they worry that U.S.-China cooperation could cause Washington to pull back from competitive actions meant to counter Chinese ambitions that challenge U.S. interests, for example regarding Taiwan or export controls for dual-use technologies.
There appears to be a mirroring dynamic in Beijing. Though generally more reactive than proactive with regard to opportunities for coordination with the United States, Beijing has become even more volatile in recent years. There is little, if any, recent evidence of Beijing proposing any joint U.S.-China initiatives to tackle common challenges.
With neither side placing much trust in the other’s commitments or in their words, support in both capitals for a policy of dialogue by facts is emerging. Thus, much as was the case at the start of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union in the late 1940s, the notion that strength is the only language that either side understands predominates. At best, diplomatic engagement can provide buffering; it cannot ameliorate sources of friction or open space for bilateral coordination.
In addition to the darkening atmosphere of the overall relationship, other practical impediments have emerged in recent years to limit U.S.-China coordination on shared challenges. Nationalist fervors in both countries have contributed to the further politicization of U.S.-China relations, thus shrinking the political space needed to explore cooperative efforts. In such an environment, there is incentive for leaders to demonstrate toughness and resolve and a disincentive for any actions toward the other that could be perceived as weak or soft.
Relatedly, U.S. leaders have become more cautious about bestowing protocol pomp to Chinese leaders and have even been requesting that Chinese leaders commit to substantive actions that align with U.S. interests in exchange for such spectacle. In the current environment, for example, it is hard to imagine a U.S. leader hosting their Chinese counterpart for a state visit. This cautiousness reduces opportunities for U.S. leaders to trade form for substance, as has been done in the past.
In 2020 and again in 2023, President Biden publicly labeled President Xi as a “dictator” and a “thug.”9 Chinese interlocutors responded by arguing that Biden’s comments violated China’s political culture, which expects public respect for China’s top leader.
At points in the past, former officials and experts from both countries have used (unofficial) track 2 dialogues to incubate and test ideas before they are deliberated in official channels. However, even in these unofficial and lower-stakes settings, roadblocks to cooperation have arisen in recent years.
Track 2 participants from both countries are increasingly cautious about traveling to each other’s countries. Many Chinese former officials and experts report being wary of entering the United States for fear of being stopped at the border by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol and being interrogated about their links to the Chinese government. Similarly, many U.S. former officials and experts have grown less enthusiastic about traveling to China out of concern for their physical safety following the extrajudicial detention of two Canadian citizens from 2018 to 2021, as well as cases of U.S. citizens being barred from departing China. This mutual wariness has colored various track 2 interactions and has caused many meetings to be held virtually or in a third country.
Partially due to restrictions on travel during the Covid-19 pandemic as well as the more limited channels for official and unofficial interaction already discussed, there is overall less depth to the personal relationships between U.S. and Chinese counterparts relative to the pre-2017 era. There are exceptions. Former U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators Robert Lighthizer and Liu He spent considerable time together, for example, during negotiations about the “Phase One” trade deal that was signed in January 2020. In some respects, Lighthizer and Liu’s relationship is the exception that proves the rule. Over the past 45 years, every major issue that was negotiated effectively between both sides was conducted by empowered officials who took time to develop personal relations, that is, to understand each other’s backgrounds, motivations, and political constraints. However, as of 2025, there are fewer relationships that meet this criterion at the official or track 2 level than in the past.
U.S. and Chinese track 2 meeting participants also report a diminished demand signal from both governments to explore new ideas for addressing challenges or unlocking cooperation. Particularly in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), without official interest in new thinking on issues in the relationship, individuals face professional risk in generating new ideas that could be perceived as deviating from the Chinese Communist Party’s line.
Chinese experts and former officials report that, partially because of the potential risk, they are refocusing more of their time and attention to track 2 dialogues with counterparts from other countries where Beijing perceives there is more room for progress in advancing relations. As Beijing prioritizes strengthening relations with countries from the Global South and the BRICS+ grouping, many Chinese former officials and experts are shifting their attention to align with government efforts.
To be clear, Beijing remains focused on its relationship with the United States and views the United States as the only country capable of obstructing China in reaching its national ambitions. Although Beijing increasingly approaches the relationship from a defensive and competitive perspective, it does so with lessening expectations that there will be opportunities to advance bilateral relations. This posture is informed partly by Beijing’s analysis that the core source of stress in the U.S.-China relationship is shifting power dynamics, specifically, that the United States seeks to prevent China’s rise and instead aims to preserve the United States’ privileged place as the world’s leading power.
These barriers to cooperation are not new to major power relationships, and many of them will be long-lasting. As such, waiting for the U.S.-China relationship to return to a less fraught moment is not a strategy. If either side aspires to credibly address mounting transnational challenges such as food security, public health, and climate change effectively, they must rethink their approach. Without finding ways to break down barriers to coordination, or at least to combine efforts in discrete areas, the result will be diseases that will not be cured, environmental catastrophes that will worsen, increased stress on food systems, greater migrations of peoples, and, ultimately, a higher likelihood of conflicts around the world.
Without finding ways to break down barriers to coordination . . . the result will be diseases that will not be cured, environmental catastrophes that will worsen, increased stress on food systems, greater migrations of peoples, and, ultimately, a higher likelihood of conflicts around the world.
The rest of this report focuses on practical ideas for unlocking mutually self-interested U.S.-China coordination on shared challenges. The recommendations that follow are not developed in service of smoother bilateral relations. Instead, they are guided by hard-nosed U.S. interests in delivering a world that is more just, safe, prosperous, and healthy for U.S. citizens.
Part II: Key Takeaways from Case Studies and Track 2 Dialogue
In November 2022, CSIS and Brookings launched a joint project to explore the conditions and mechanisms under which U.S.-China collaboration, particularly among nonstate actors, could be made safer and more effective in an era of strategic competition. Our premise was captured by Steve Davis, chair of the project’s advisory council: “game-changing opportunities for social impact across health, climate change, and food security are within reach, but [they] will depend on new mechanisms and narratives that enable collaborations between partners in the United States and China to proceed in smart, informed, and geopolitically sensitive ways.”10
Our work in phase one of the project aimed to identify viable mechanisms for this kind of collaboration. We looked first to the past, commissioning a set of case studies exploring how past geopolitical rivals coordinated on shared challenges. In our first case study, seasoned journalist and U.S. global health policy expert Nellie Bristol explored how the United States and the Soviet Union found the political space to work together on smallpox eradication amid the Cold War.11 Preeminent Cold War historian Mel Leffler examined how Washington and Moscow managed to cooperate in strategic arms control and other areas, including global health, at the height of U.S.-USSR hostilities.12 Jennifer Bouey, Tang Chair for China Policy Studies at the RAND Corporation and associate professor in Global Health at Georgetown University, explored U.S.-China cooperation on HIV/AIDS prevention and mitigation in the early 2000s.13 Finally, Gayle Smith, former CEO of the ONE Campaign and former administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), detailed how Washington and Beijing came together to address the spread of Ebola in West Africa in the mid-2010s.14
Each study laid out the conditions under which either U.S. policymakers or nonstate actors (such as scientists, doctors, and foundations) found the political space to work together on shared challenges amid intense rivalry, as well as the precise mechanisms of their successful cooperation. We then conducted a “live” case study of U.S.-China collaboration in the form of a track 2 dialogue on climate-smart agriculture, which we held in Bellagio, Italy, in March 2024.
Each study laid out the conditions under which either U.S. policymakers or nonstate actors . . . found the political space to work together on shared challenges amid intense rivalry, as well as the precise mechanisms of their successful cooperation.
The choice to focus on climate-smart agriculture followed a simple logic. In recent years, leaders in both the United States and China have publicly expressed interest in bilateral cooperation in this area. That said, cooperation in this space is not straightforward. Chinese investments in U.S. agricultural land have come under increased congressional scrutiny, and Beijing is determined to reduce dependence on agricultural imports from the United States for its own food supply. Climate-smart agriculture cooperation was thus a sufficiently challenging topic to test our emerging conclusions about mechanisms for collaboration amid strategic competition.
Participants in the track 2 discussions included former policymakers from the National Security Council, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Council of Economic Advisors, the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and State, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; former leadership of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition; and researchers from numerous U.S. and Chinese think tanks, universities, and private firms. The dialogue served as a marquee initiative in its own right, driving functional collaboration in an area of global importance. More importantly for our broader project, it allowed us to test emerging hypotheses about how to optimize collaboration during periods of strategic rivalry. Based on the conference, the historical case studies, and additional workshops with experts and practitioners from both the PRC and the United States, we came away with the following observations.
Observation 1: The broader political environment meaningfully shapes the aperture for collaboration among nonstate actors.
Jennifer Bouey’s case study on U.S.-China HIV/AIDS collaboration in the early 2000s details how the then-prevailing U.S. policy of strategic engagement toward China laid the groundwork for coordination on global challenges, including HIV/AIDS, as a way to advance U.S. soft power and to bring China into the international system.15 The engagement of senior officials on both sides, including China’s minister of health and the U.S. health and human services secretary, proved vital in establishing memoranda of understanding that set the tone for cooperation among doctors, research institutions, and nongovernmental organizations. Gayle Smith recalls then-U.S. president Barack Obama directing his staff to enlist tangible support from the entire international community, including China, amid the 2014 outbreak of Ebola in West Africa.16 The president put substantial personal energy into outreach to other heads of state. Mel Leffler, in his overview of U.S.-Soviet relations from the 1950s to the 1980s, likewise argues that leader-level decisions in both Washington and Moscow paved the way for cooperation in discrete areas during the Cold War.17
Observation 2: In times of geopolitical tension, nonstate actors will find collaborative efforts safest and most effective in areas where a compelling national interest case can be made for cooperation in both capitals.
The case studies emphasized that past collaboration between rivals did not emanate from altruistic ideals, but rather from calculations of domestic and geopolitical self-interest. Smallpox eradication, for example, served both Washington’s and Moscow’s interests in eliminating imported smallpox cases—the Soviet Union had been regularly importing cases from neighboring India and Pakistan, while the United States had been spending hefty sums on a vaccine with sometimes severe adverse side effects. Moreover, being a prominent and meaningful player in global smallpox eradication promised tangible geopolitical benefits to each superpower, enabling the United States to counter reputational damages from the Vietnam War and the Soviet Union to showcase its disease control success as evidence of broader scientific and medical prowess.18 Leffler similarly demonstrates that throughout the Cold War, U.S. presidents sought cooperation with the Soviet Union through formal and informal arrangements where it suited the United States’ self-interest. These efforts ranged from avoiding kinetic war and delaying China’s nuclear ambitions to sustaining a divided (and weak) post-war Germany, as well as deterring the wider spread of nuclear weapons in an increasingly multipolar world.19
Earlier examples of U.S.-China coordination also directly serviced national priorities in both Washington and Beijing. The SARS epidemic highlighted glaring gaps in China’s public health system, Bouey shows, making Beijing more open to partnering with U.S. public and private bodies in the realm of biomedical research and public health capacity building. In turn, organizations from the United States and elsewhere invested significant sums toward scientific research on infectious disease responses, leading to a dramatic expansion of treatment coverage within China. This was not without benefits to the United States. Bouey’s research reveals how U.S. doctors and professionals persuaded Chinese officials to reach out to stigmatized communities like LGBTQ people and sex workers to provide services, thus advancing U.S. values, including universal human rights. In addition, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) gained access to large amounts of research data that U.S. researchers otherwise would have struggled to obtain in the United States, propelling U.S. HIV research to new heights. Similarly, Gayle Smith shows that the Obama administration sought to engage China on the global Ebola response in 2014 not as a feature of U.S. China policy, but rather to showcase U.S. global leadership by effectively and quickly bringing the epidemic to an end, recognizing that this goal would require Chinese resources and assistance.20
In each example, U.S. proclivity toward collaboration was grounded in domestic and geopolitical imperatives. This holds lessons for collaborative enterprises today. Nonstate actors seeking to safely and effectively work with their counterparts in the United States and China in a more contentious environment should seek to concretely articulate the national interest case for their efforts to policymakers. During the project’s track 2 dialogue in Bellagio, we challenged the assembled experts to keep the domestic priorities of Washington and Beijing top of mind when exploring potential areas for joint efforts in climate-smart agriculture.
As a result, the convening discussions landed on fields where the national interest case for cooperation could easily be made in both Washington and Beijing, including promoting sustainable agricultural production in water-stressed agricultural regions, a key necessity for both countries; reducing food loss and waste, an area where both the United States and China have recently announced domestic goals; developing mutually agreed-upon standards of measurement for the climate impacts of agriculture, where cooperation between U.S. and Chinese technical experts could result in formalized, evidence-based standards to which both countries agree; and accelerating investments in alternative proteins for animal feed and human consumption.21
Observation 3: New approaches are needed for track 2 convenings in an age of strategic competition.
During our workshops, both Chinese and U.S. experts emphasized the utility of multiday gatherings that allow for more collegial and relaxed interactions. This was backed up by the case studies. Nellie Bristol, for example, highlighted how the World Health Organization (WHO) provided a platform for the day-to-day, informal interactions among an international corps of health professionals that allowed them to build rapport and work toward a common goal relatively uninhibited by macropolitical forces.22 In Bellagio, we put this idea to the test. Our meeting was four days, longer than the typical one-to-two-day track 2 meeting. The agenda included smaller group work and opportunities for walks and exploration of the nearby town, setting a collegial tone that enabled more relaxed conversations about the topics at hand. The inclusion of social activities in the agenda deepened personal connections among the group, as did the fact that it was a multiday event, giving space and time for repeated interactions.
Importantly, many of our participants knew each other from past gatherings and thus were already familiar with one another, pointing to the utility of repeated gatherings when discussing complex issues and topics. Some U.S. and Chinese participants had overlapped during shared postings at the UN Food and Agricultural Organization or other multilateral institutions. Others knew each other from think tank and university exchanges. These personal connections proved valuable in grounding the dialogue in shared experiences and developing a sense of shared motivations.
Flexibility was also key to the convening’s productivity. At multiple turns, we jettisoned the agenda to capitalize on organic momentum—particularly on days three and four—in the conversation between U.S. and Chinese counterparts. For example, although we had pre-identified three areas for discussion prior to the convening—U.S.-China collaboration on food security in third countries, the boundaries of agricultural technology sharing, and coordination to raise international standards on food safety and quality—flexibly encouraging participants to bring in ideas outside of these areas led to a more concrete and compelling set of conversations and recommendations.
We found that location can matter, but in nuanced ways. We held the 2024 convening in Bellagio, Italy, in part to test the notion that “neutral” locations are preferable to gatherings in the United States or China as frictions rise and travel—with its associated fears of personal security—becomes more complicated in both directions. Our findings on this front were somewhat inconclusive. Most of the U.S. and Chinese counterparts with whom we spoke agreed that “neutral” locations such as Singapore and Italy can facilitate more open conversations but come with their own hurdles. Some (such as Singapore) are far closer geographically to one country, while others (such as Italy) require visas for Chinese visitors but not for Americans.
Part III: Concrete Recommendations for Advancing Collaboration in an Era of Strategic Competition
Calls for greater U.S.-China collaboration on shared challenges are commonplace, but few reports have examined the precise mechanisms or best practices by which bilateral coordination might proceed in this new geopolitical reality of sustained great power competition. Waiting for a return of relations to a less competitive era is not a strategy. A new approach for unlocking mutually self-interested coordination on shared challenges is urgently needed.
Waiting for a return of relations to a less competitive era is not a strategy. A new approach for unlocking mutually self-interested coordination on shared challenges is urgently needed.
The cumulative experiences and lessons from the first phase of this project suggest that the following elements could support efforts to secure greater U.S.-China coordination on shared challenges.
Recommendation 1: Normalize the concept of coordination amid competition.
U.S.-China coordination on shared challenges does not preclude either side from taking competitive actions deemed necessary to protect national security or long-term national competitiveness. Such coordination also is not in service of any kumbaya-like efforts to close divisions between both countries on vital interests. Coordination on specific, concrete, shared challenges is simply an act of mutual self-interest meant to improve the security, prosperity, and health of each country’s peoples. It is an effort to leverage the capabilities and resources of the other to lessen the burden on oneself for addressing specific challenges, and, ideally, for accelerating progress toward curing diseases, protecting the environment, and feeding undernourished populations. As global leaders, the United States and China share responsibility to steward solutions to challenges that transcend borders, even as they compete vigorously with each other over philosophical disagreements in some areas and conflicts of interest in others.
Recommendation 2: Set priorities, secure high-level buy-in, and use summits as action-forcing events.
In the current political environment in both countries, U.S.-China coordination on transnational issues is viewed with skepticism, if not outright hostility. However, there is momentum in both countries toward communicating through a dialogue of facts due to the lack of faith both sides place in verbal commitments and understandings from the other side. In such circumstances, bilateral coordination is unlikely to organically develop from the bottom up. More likely, such efforts will require political leaders in both capitals to open space for coordination by instructing their governments to work together to address specific shared challenges.
To do so, both leaders will need to set priorities and be persistent in driving progress on them. These priorities will carry greater weight if they are embraced in the United States on a bipartisan basis so that they can be seen as enduring rather than transitory. A good example of this pattern was the case of U.S.-China coordination to curb the flow of fentanyl precursors from 2023 to 2024. A bipartisan congressional delegation led by Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer appealed directly to President Xi to prioritize curbing the flow of fentanyl precursors during a visit to Beijing in October 2023. The forcefulness of this bipartisan presentation helped lay the groundwork for President Biden and President Xi to agree to enhance U.S.-China law enforcement cooperation one month later during a meeting on the margins of the 2023 APEC Leader’s Summit in San Francisco. When the two leaders met one year later, on the margins of the 2024 APEC Leader’s Summit in Lima, Peru, they jointly reviewed the progress and problems with U.S.-China law enforcement cooperation. Over this period of cooperation, there was a reduction in fentanyl overdose deaths in the United States. While the outcome is far from perfect, this process has saved U.S. lives.
The lesson from this brief case study is that progress is possible when it is prioritized by both leaders and when they both use summit-level engagements as action-forcing events to drive progress within their respective bureaucracies. Leaders measure each other by the credibility of their commitments. No world leader wants to be perceived as failing to deliver on pledges. Both countries should use these dynamics to unlock self-interested coordination on challenges that affect the health, safety, and prosperity of their citizens.
Recommendation 3: Identify venues for coordination.
With some specific bilateral challenges, there is opportunity for bilateral coordination to resolve problems, such as in the case of the flows of fentanyl and its precursor from China via Mexico into the United States. On most other transnational challenges, however, Washington and Beijing will need to be creative in identifying venues for coordination. The reason is simple. Washington generally is reluctant to endorse or support Chinese-led initiatives, just as Beijing is loath to endorse or support U.S.-led transnational initiatives. Both countries want to be captains of their own endeavors, not underwriters or contributors to the other’s programs.
This places a premium on finding mutually acceptable platforms to support and with which to engage. In some instances, this could be through UN-led efforts, such as in the past case of joint contributions to building UN peacekeeping capacity. In other instances, cooperation could take the form of parallel contributions to transnational efforts to address challenges. For example, Washington and Beijing both engaged in blamesmanship over the origins of Covid-19, thereby poisoning any attempts to pool resources to accelerate the discovery of a Covid-19 vaccine. In lieu of pooling capabilities for responding to the Covid-19 pandemic, however, both the United States and China contributed substantially to the Gavi vaccine alliance.23 Neither country was able to work with the other, but both were able to support a neutral third party in solving problems that were plaguing peoples in both countries and around the world. Looking forward, both countries will need to exercise flexibility and adaptability to find mutually acceptable venues to address transnational challenges, such as future pandemics, that require the contributions of the world’s two most capable financial and scientific powers to solve.
Recommendation 4: Use track 2 dialogues to identify opportunities and solutions to obstacles.
U.S.-China government-to-government dialogues inform both countries on the other side’s official positions on issues. They rarely delve deeply into “why” questions around factors informing those policy positions, that is, how each side evaluates risks and opportunities around emerging challenges or how each side judges trends and potential developments on the international landscape. Used effectively, track 2 (unofficial) dialogues between experts, scholars, and former policymakers from both countries can help fill in gaps in understanding. Track 2 dialogues can also provide a valuable supplement to official dialogues. Unofficial exchanges can spot potential risks on the horizon, help set expectations around how each side will respond to issues, and creatively explore ideas for navigating around obstacles to self-interested coordination in ways that officials may feel more constrained from doing given their government roles.
To be used effectively, track 2 dialogues must be connected to discussions taking place in official channels. Both sides need to have confidence that their track 2 dialogue counterparts are privately feeding knowledge gained from the dialogues into policy discussions in both capitals and not just treating such dialogues as salons for admiring problems with counterparts from the other side. Foreknowledge that both sides in a track 2 dialogue are connected to their respective governments gives purpose and focus to these types of unofficial convenings. Discretion also often is a key ingredient in fostering an environment conducive to productive exchanges in track 2 settings.
Additionally, to be effective, both sides in a track 2 dialogue should be engaged collaboratively in agenda design. There should be mutual understanding in advance of the dialogue on key questions, concerns, or issues the dialogue is being used to address. There also should be ample time allotted during the dialogues for informal exchanges among participants, for example over meals, during coffee breaks, or in the form of structured activities such as paired walks or site visits. Breakthroughs at track 2 dialogues often occur in these informal interactions and not necessarily at the table as part of formal exchanges.
Meeting moderation is also crucial to the success of any track 2 convening. If the gathering is intended to focus on public health, for example, then moderators should be alert to cut off any participants who use their allotted speaking time to engage in ad hominin attacks on the other’s leading national figures or to focus on issues unrelated to public health. Ideally, participants will be selected based on their expertise, their personal rapport with experts from the other side, their discretion, and their capability to concentrate their comments on the subject at hand without diverting discussion to unrelated topics that could derail progress.
Moreover, care must be given to interpretation, literally. If the entire dialogue is conducted in either English or Chinese, it can skew the nature of discussion toward one side’s priorities and concerns. When translation is used, it should be simultaneous interpretation or whisper interpretation in order to preserve flow of discussion and avoid chopping dialogue into set-piece interventions and presentations.
The meeting venue is another important consideration in track 2 dialogue design. Until greater mutual confidence that track 2 participants can travel safely and without impediment to each other’s countries for dialogues is established, many track 2 convenings will need to be held in neutral third countries. Issues for consideration when designing U.S.-China track 2 dialogues in third countries include geographic accessibility to both countries, visa requirements for U.S. and Chinese participants, and ease of transportation and communication for participants within third countries.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, there are no silver bullets to dispel deep mutual misgivings between Washington and Beijing. The United States and China are well into an era of strategic competition that is unlikely to end soon, given both sides’ unwillingness to yield to the other on the terms of global and regional leadership in the coming century. Unless bold, creative, new thinking emerges to spur innovation, collaboration, and coordinated actions between the world’s two most capable powers, transnational challenges such as pandemics, food insecurity, and environmental degradation will fester, leaving the world worse off. This report seeks to spur new thinking and debate on how the United States and China can align efforts, not out of amity or high-minded appeals for improvements to relations, but rather out of clear-eyed self-interest. Previous great power rivals found ways to coordinate on shared transnational challenges even amid intense geopolitical rivalry. The United States and China should as well.
Ryan Hass is director of the John L. Thornton China Center and the Chen-Fu and Cecilia Yen Koo Chair in Taiwan Studies at Brookings, where he is also a senior fellow in the Center for Asia Policy Studies. Ryan McElveen is associate director for the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings. Lily McElwee is president and CEO of the Phoenix Committee on Foreign Relations and an adjunct fellow with the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
This brief was made possible by generous support from the Gates Foundation and the Hewlett Foundation.
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