Washington has been very successful in convincing China to participate in a flurry of high-level meetings and working group consultations while side-stepping fundamental disagreements on core red lines and world order issues.

This weekend’s hottest media headlines are that American and Chinese top diplomats have agreed, “in principle,” about a summit meeting on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) proceedings in San Francisco on November 11-17, 2023.

If confirmed, that would be a great public relations coup and a precious election photo-op to show that Washington is on top of the most important strategic dialogue in the world.

But, as always, the devil is in the details. The agenda of such a summit meeting is a minefield of bilateral and multilateral questions where Washington and Beijing are worlds apart.

Consider the two key points of that agenda: The wars in the Middle East and in Central Europe.

China wants an immediate ceasefire and a humanitarian action to rescue millions of people in a devastated Gaza Strip of the Palestinian territories. China’s President Xi Jinping also told the Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas in Beijing on June 14, 2023, that “the fundamental solution to the Palestinian issue lies in the establishment of an independent Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.”

Follow the U.S. agenda?

All that is a non-starter -- now and as far as the eye can see. None of that is acceptable to Israel. The U.S. will support a humanitarian action for the Palestinian population in Gaza, but it won’t oppose Israel’s attempt to defeat and dislodge Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), a political and military organization governing the Gaza Strip.

Drawing the line under the Middle East war, the U.S. and China have nothing to discuss. The U.S. will remain Israel’s unconditional ally, with all the military, political and economic help Israel needs to prevail in this war and to maintain steadfast opposition to a Palestinian state.

The U.S. will only ask China to use the influence it has with Iran and Arab states to keep the war from escalating to an all-out Arab Israeli conflagration – and beyond.

China, however, has its own, and a very different, Middle East agenda. It also maintains a naval presence in the region.

The Ukraine war is an even greater U.S.-China conflict because Beijing is refusing to lean against Russia in a fight where Washington and its NATO allies are participating in a proxy war by supplying Ukraine arms, military personnel, operational intelligence and financial support.

In fact, the war in Europe highlights the fundamental strategic and systemic disagreement between the U.S. and China. Beijing could see there how Washington and its allies thought they would do a quick work of defeating Russia, destroying its economy, changing the regime, and killing the Moscow-Beijing challenge to the “rules based international order.”

China now also talks about a replay of the European military theater in East Asia, pointing to the U.S.-Japan-South Korea alliance, a U.S.-U.K.-Australia (AUKUS) security partnership and a few bilateral military and political deals to contain China and prevent its global power projections.

Cooperate on climate change?

Closer to home, Beijing maintains that Washington does not respect a one-China principle. It sells arms to Taiwan and keeps official contacts with the island as an independent state rather than a province of China.

Beijing also complains that Washington interferes in its internal affairs by raising questions about the administration of Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang.

A particularly sensitive issue is the American refusal to accept China’s maritime borders. As a result, U.S. and Chinese naval assets are clashing in the South China Sea because Washington insists that its navy is sailing in international waters while China argues that those are blatant violations of its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

China reports that a similar problem is posed by thousands of American reconnaissance flights and strategic nuclear bombers constantly probing Chinese air defenses.

In the trade area, the U.S. is raising questions about China’s illegal export subsidies, restricted market access, economic coercion and intellectual property violations. China, for its part, bristles about discrimination against its companies and export bans on dual use technologies.

Predictably, the bilateral trade transactions are declining. In the first eight months of this year, China’s exports to the U.S. are down 25%, while American goods sales to China are stagnating.

The question now is: Given the fundamental, red line marked disagreements, what can another U.S.-China summit achieve?

The answer is: Talk about climate change and the G-20 Energy Transition Roadmap. Agree to manage differences peacefully and keep all communication lines open to prevent misunderstandings, accidents and miscalculations.

Does that require another do-nothing summit? Why not, that would give a glad-handing photo-op that Trump cannot have during an election year.