What we can learn about relationships from Joe Biden and Xi Jinping

It might just be the best model for the relationship between the world’s largest and second-largest economies for the next decade and more, writes Hamish McRae

The midterm elections have given the Biden administration a new self-confidence and, as far as China is concerned, a new authority (AFP/Getty)

It will be a new cool war, not a repeat of the Cold War of the 1945-1990 period. Viewed from here in Washington DC, the workmanlike relationship between President Biden and President Xi – who met in Bali ahead of the G20 summit – is the best model for the relationship between the world’s largest and second-largest economies for the next decade and more.

In areas where it is in their mutual self-interest, such as combatting the climate crisis, they will cooperate. In areas where it is not, they will compete. Both accept that the world economy is splitting into two areas of influence, and that is where the battle for dominance will be. But this battle will stop short of an economic war on the scale of the one now being led by the US against Russia. Each has too much at stake.

For people who bought the notion, popular a few years ago, that national boundaries will fade and the world will be run by political and business elites – extreme globalisation – this is one more nail in the coffin.