Recent visits to China by officials from the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden have featured attempts to broaden out the U.S.-China relationship beyond the tensions on display between the two governments. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen made Chinese cuisine a central part of her last two trips to Beijing, hosting a lunch with an all-female lineup of Chinese economists on one occasion and dining on famous Yunnan mushroom dishes on another. On his visit last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken took in some basketball and bought albums at a local Beijing record store.
Both trips sought to humanize the bilateral relationship and perhaps signal to the Chinese people that Americans have a fondness for all sorts of things about China, even if that doesn’t extend to its government. As with the U.S. Congress’ Select Committee on Competition with the Chinese Communist Party, these are attempts to distinguish the CCP from the Chinese people. With limited access to uncensored information in China and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries at very low levels, this is harder than perhaps ever before.
