WASHINGTON/BEIJING -- The top U.S. diplomat and the Chinese foreign minister will not meet one on one alongside the Group of 20 meeting in Italy, a decision that marks a stark contrast to the Sino-Russia relationship that Beijing highlighted Monday.
China's Wang Yi is set to attend the G-20 gathering virtually on Tuesday rather than in person, stymieing what had been seen as an opportunity for the U.S. President Joe Biden's administration to set the stage for Biden's first meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G-20 summit in late October.
Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday officially announced the extension of the two countries' Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation, which turns 20 next month, at a virtual summit.
Avoiding a high-level meeting with Washington while promoting ties with Moscow appears to be a calculated decision by Beijing ahead of the Chinese Communist Party's 100th anniversary Thursday. Beijing is loath to repeat at this crucial moment the sniping between China's diplomatic delegation and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at their March meeting in Alaska.
Xi touted Sino-Russian cooperation in remarks from their virtual meeting released by the Kremlin, in an apparent show of unity against the U.S. The two sides have set "an example in forming a new type of international relations," he said.
Putin said the countries "have managed to elevate Russian-Chinese relations to an unprecedented height and to make them an example of 21st-century interstate cooperation."
Like Wang, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is not slated to attend the G-20 gathering in person.
The summit showcased the two countries' partnership at a diplomatically tricky time. While both China and Russia have fractious relationships with the U.S. and Europe, Beijing worries about the prospect of Moscow extending an olive branch with such moves as this month's meeting between Biden and Putin.
The White House views China as its sole rival and biggest foreign policy challenge. The Biden administration initially focused on mending relationships with allies that had frayed under predecessor Donald Trump and has made progress that it now looks to parlay into a stronger position with regard to Beijing.
"What I've seen, especially these last few weeks, is a convergence with regard to the approach to China," Blinken said in an interview last week with French media, soon adding that "we will have a lot more impact when we approach China together than if we act alone."
Washington sees probing into the origins of the coronavirus as a potent tool to turn up pressure on China. Group of Seven leaders urged China to cooperate with such a study in their joint statement issued after this month's summit.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan addressed this issue in unusually strong terms in a recent Fox News interview. "Either they will allow, in a responsible way, investigators in to do the real work of figuring out where this came from, or they will face isolation in the international community," he warned.
Some observers suggest that Xi's government is avoiding high-level contacts with Washington that could expose it to attacks over tensions surrounding Taiwan and human rights issues in Xinjiang and Hong Kong -- all issues mentioned in the G-7 statement.
The growing chilliness toward China in Europe has been called a failure of Beijing's aggressive "wolf warrior" diplomacy. China may be trying to buy time to find its footing again.