Their counterparts in China, starved of international visitors and potential investors during four years of pandemic and border controls, were “overjoyed” to receive the American mayors, said Min Fan, executive director of U.S. Heartland China Association, a U.S. nonprofit that organized the trip for six mayors to five cities in China late last year.
“Everywhere we went, whether it was Hong Kong or Wuhan, they hadn’t had a delegation like this for a long time,” she said. Even more Chinese cities wanted to host them, Fan added. “Cities were fighting to get on our itinerary, but we literally couldn’t.”
Chinese provincial and city leaders have for decades appealed to their American counterparts to try to create investment and trade opportunities. Those efforts, stalled during the coronavirus pandemic, are ramping up again — with newfound gusto.
Chinese officials are seizing on opportunities to forge ties with mayors and other local American leaders, the kinds of connections that give Beijing leverage against an increasingly hostile government in Washington.
The United States’ relationship with China is at its worst since the two countries agreed to officially recognize each other more than 45 years ago, although there have been recent efforts to stabilize relations. Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s bid for global dominance means that, more than ever, Beijing is seen by Washington as a threat to the country’s national security and economy.
With Xi’s encouragement, leaders outside the Beltway are the next target of Chinese efforts to win friends and influence in the United States. But during a sensitive election year these friendships will be hard to come by as American leaders are wary of being seen as too close to China.
“What the Chinese are doing is trying to find supporters and advocates for the U.S.-China relationship and operationalize them,” said Evan Medeiros, head of Asia studies at Georgetown University, who served as a top Asia Pacific adviser during the Obama administration. “They want to activate the sources of ballast in the relationship to stop the deterioration.”
Before the pandemic, these exchanges — business delegations, governor visits, cultural and academic exchanges — were common between the two countries. U.S. states, after the 2008 financial crisis, actively sought Chinese investment and chances to benefit from China’s economic rise. More than 100 “sister city” agreements were signed, while dozens of Chinese-government-linked Confucius Institutes set up shop in U.S. universities.
That all slowed during the Trump administration as the relationship soured, and ground to a halt during the pandemic. Incidents such as the Chinese “spy balloon,” U.S. export controls limiting China’s access to advanced chips and back-and-forth threats over Taiwan didn’t help.
This past fall, things began to shift as China hosted a series of American politicians, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and a delegation of senators. In November, Xi, on his first visit to the United States in six years, called for building “more bridges and more roads for people-to-people interactions,” and had dinner with business executives from Apple, Nike, Pfizer and Boeing.
Chinese diplomats in the United States are doing their best to engage in what Chinese and American diplomats call “subnational diplomacy” — an area of new focus for both governments.
“Our purpose is quite simple: to promote subnational cooperation. For example, business investment and people-to-people exchanges,” said Zhou Zheng, head of the subnational affairs section at the Chinese Embassy in Washington.
Zhou, who said he was “cautiously optimistic” about restarting these exchanges, said a desire for Chinese investment means that U.S. city and county governments are “quite relaxed” about interacting with Beijing compared with more frigid national-level relations.
Even in Republican stronghold states where legislators have pushed laws limiting Chinese investment, some are actively scouting for Chinese money.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) — who last year dubbed China’s ruling Communist Party an “existential threat” to America when signing into law restrictions on the use of Chinese technology on state networks — recently approved tax…
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