Military confrontations unfolding in Europe, Middle East and East Asia all come down to one crucially important bilateral relationship.

Unable to put an end to those rapidly spreading wildfires, Washington is turning to Beijing for cooperation while leveling allegations that China is using “non-market” practices to manipulate the world system of commerce and finance.

That, of course, is a non-starter and a strange idea of diplomatic leverage. It offers China easy rebuttals, reaffirms its convictions of American hostility, destroys the trust necessary to engage in such a delicate cooperative relationship and leads China to think it is invited to solve problems that America created.

Contrary to American democratic traditions, the Western mainstream media are silent about that, and China’s opinions are either glossed over or blissfully ignored.

It is possible, however, that more will be heard about the U.S. (i.e., West)-China relations during Chinese President’s Xi Jinping state visits May 5-10, 2024, to France, Serbia and Hungary (in that order).  Mr. Xi is usually philosophically cryptic about his worldviews, but Chinese diplomats have recently published several papers about Beijing’s positions.

Here is what transpires from those readouts.

Starting with the war in Ukraine, U.S. has asked China to use its influence with Russia to end the hostilities and initiate peace talks. Washington has also criticized China for trading with Russia and allegedly supplying dual-use technologies to “strengthen Russia’s war effort.”

China unlikely to cooperate

China’s response is that it talked to Moscow and Kiev and presented its own peace plan. Beijing also said that it maintained normal economic relations with Russia, and that – unlike the U.S. – it did not provide arms and financial help to add “oil to fire” in Ukraine.

More generally, Beijing bases its view of Ukraine conflict on the principle of indivisible security, alluding to the fact that the largest military alliance in the history of the world (NATO) had systematically expanded to Russia’s western borders – and that, in the process, Russia’s protests and negotiation attempts had been dismissed.

In China’s view, those issues must be addressed for a peaceful settlement in Ukraine, implying an important change of American policy.

Washington and Beijing also differ on Israeli-Palestinian issues. China wants an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and a two-state solution according to the U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181 of 1947. The U.S. also wants a ceasefire, but it cannot force Israel to accept that and the sovereign Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem.

China stands by its two-state view and is hosting rival Palestinian groups (Hamas and Fatah) in Beijing to help them adopt a united stand for a new Arab state.

Closer to home, Taiwan is China’s most dangerous issue with the U.S. Despite officially recognizing that Taiwan is part of “one China,” Washington is maintaining relations with Taiwan that Beijing considers incompatible with the island’s status as a province of China. The latest point of tension was last week’s U.S. financial aid package and arms sales to Taiwan.

For China, that is an intolerable violation of its core red line. China’s contested maritime borders in the South China Sea – constantly challenged by U.S. “freedom of navigation and overflight operations” -- is also a closely related issue to Taiwan.

U.S. faces recession and a different world

Apart from that, U.S. alliances with Japan and the Philippines, and the AUKUS (Australia, U.K. and U.S.) military block, are all signals to China that Washington’s “strategic competition” is an open-ended set of hostile economic, political and security measures.

The question is: What does all that mean for U.S.-China relations in the months ahead?

This is an American election year when jobs and incomes are the key issues. And so far, both economic variables point to a weakening economy.

The unemployment rate has edged up to 3.8% last month, with the labor supply stabilizing at (a low) 62.6% of the labor force.

Ominously, households’ real disposable incomes -- driving 87% of the economy -- look much worse. The income growth slowed down sharply to a 1.7% annual rate in the first three months of this year from 4.1% in the previous quarter. That also depleted the households’ savings rate to 3.2% (of disposable income) in March from an average of 4.5% in 2023.

Higher government spending is the only thing that can now moderate the economic slowdown and, hopefully, help avoid a recession. And that’s what Washington is doing. Government outlays were rising 6.5% in the first quarter from the same period of 2023.

In such an election year economic context, foreign policy will take a back seat. But it will be important for Washington to appear tough on China and Russia.

After the elections, the U.S. will have to deal with a weak economy, rising unemployment, soaring public debt and excessive budget deficits while confronting the two nuclear armed contenders for a new world order.