The first face-to-face meeting between officials from the new U.S. administration and China is unlikely to lead to any breakthroughs; rather it is intended to set the strategic tenor of relations from the U.S. side. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan will host Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China Yang Jiechi in Alaska March 18-19 for the first face-to-face talks between the administrations of Joe Biden and Xi Jinping. Expectations are low, at least in regards to any early easing of trade or security frictions. The White House will instead use the meeting to reset Beijing’s expectations while laying out the contours of its evolving policy toward China, which so far appears to be a fairly hard-line stance....
