, Columnist
To Talk or Not to Talk to China
To avoid conflict and even war, Washington and Beijing must maintain dialogue — especially when they’re not on speaking terms.
Something to build on.
Photographer: CNS/AFP via Getty Images
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The scariest thing about the Chinese balloon that floated over the US earlier this year wasn’t that it was probably spying on the ground below. It was the lack of communication — apparently deliberate on one side — between Beijing and Washington before the Americans shot down the balloon.
The governments of Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart, Joe Biden, do have a dedicated crisis hotline for these situations. But when the Americans “dialed” it — I’m assuming the verb is metaphorical nowadays — the Chinese apparently didn’t pick up.