Defense Secretary Panetta Meets with China’s Xi Jinping

China’s leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping held his first talks with a foreign official since vanishing from the public eye nearly two weeks ago.

He met with US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

Anchor Aaron Schachter speaks with The World’s Mary Kay Magistad in Beijing.

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Aaron Schachter: I am Aaron Schachter and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston. China’s leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping held his first talks with a foreign official since vanishing from the public eye nearly two weeks ago. He met with US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta today. The World’s Mary Kay Magistad is in Beijing. Mary Kay, before we get into what the two men discussed, as we said Xi hasn’t been seen in public in two weeks. Where was he; do we know?

Mary Kay Magistad: We have no idea. We just know that he gave Leon Panetta a firm handshake and a big smile and said he thought the meeting would be very helpful in furthering ties between the U.S. and China. Leon Panetta said later that Xi seemed to him to be very healthy and very engaged and if you want to learn more about what happened to him you’d better ask him.

Schachter: Mary Kay, what was on the agenda when Panetta met Xi Jinping?

Magistad: Well, something that was certainly front and center in everyone’s mind is the tensions that have been basically escalating in recent days between China and Japan over islands that both countries claim. Japan calls them the Senkaku Islands; China calls them the Diaoyu Islands. There have been several days of protest in Beijing and in other cities around China. Now, while these have been, in many cases, organized by either the government or by entities that are close to the government such as the Communist Youth League, they have at times gotten violent. They have cost several Japanese companies to either suspend or close operations and there have been rather bellicose statements made. When Leon Panetta met yesterday with Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie, Liang Guanglie said that China may yet take further action against Japan. Leon Panetta’s response was that the United States is urging calm and restraint by all sides. There’s a little bit of an irony to this because this is what China always says when it comes to, say, Iran’s nuclear buildup.

Schachter: As you say, the demonstrations have gotten violent. Frighteningly so, I would think in a couple instances. We’ve seen quotes from people saying, you know, “We should go to war with Japan and that will show them.” Is this just blowing off steam or is this a big deal?

Magistad: Somewhere in between, I think. When you have protests that are somewhat orchestrated by the Chinese government as these have been, it’s to send a message to the Japanese government and indirectly to the U.S. government as well. The Chinese state-run media have been saying, you know, the U.S. has no business interfering in this bilateral dispute. Of course, the U.S. does because the U.S. has a mutual defense treaty with Japan. I think the Chinese leadership knows that once everything cools down a little bit it’s really not in China’s interest, in the middle of a leadership transition, with a slowing economy, to actually get into a physical conflict with Japan. However, it has always been expected that when the economy slows and there is some sort of political, internal dispute that the government could always turn to playing the ‘nationalist card’ because the Communist Party legitimacy these days comes not from communism but from economic growth and from defending China’s honor in the world, and if the economy is slowing then there’s the other option of playing the ‘nationalist card’ and that seems to be what’s happening.

Schachter: Is there a way out of this stalemate that you can see with both sides maintaining their honor?

Magistad: Well, if you go back three decades or so, former leader Deng Xiaoping when asked about the islands on a visit to Japan said, “Look, we’re going to leave this issue for wiser heads than ours to resolve in future generations” and for many years that’s what China and Japan did. Ironically, this year was supposed the friendship year of Japan/China people-to-people exchanges, celebrating 40 years of diplomatic ties. The fact that this issue has become so tense all of a sudden can’t really be divorced from everything else that’s going on in China right now.

Schachter: The World’s Mary Kay Magistad in Beijing. Mary Kay, thank you.

Magistad: Thanks Aaron.

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