The country was holding its breath ahead of Joe Biden’s summit meeting with Chinese dictator Xi Jinping at the APEC conference in San Francisco.  These days, you never know how Biden will perform on any given day. Thankfully, there didn’t appear to be any major gaffes, tumbles, or verbal breakdowns during the meeting, or at least no more than usual. But was anything accomplished? The situation between the United States and China has been beyond tense over the past couple of years as the Chinese seek to expand their global footprint both militarily and economically while trying to overtake U.S. hegemony, particularly in the Pacific. There were many pleasantries exchanged, and brief discussions of steps that could be seen as progress. But in the end, what we really seemed to get out of the summit was a suggestion that China would send more pandas back to America. (AP)

Chinese President Xi Jinping signaled late Wednesday that China will send new pandas to the United States, calling them “envoys of friendship between the Chinese and American peoples.”

“We are ready to continue our cooperation with the United States on panda conservation, and do our best to meet the wishes of the Californians so as to deepen the friendly ties between our two peoples,” Xi said during a dinner speech with business leaders.

The gesture came at the end of a day in which Xi and President Joe Biden held their first face to face meeting in a year and pledged to try to reduce tensions. Xi did not share additional details on when or where pandas might be provided but appeared to suggest the next pair of pandas are most likely to come to California, probably San Diego.

Don’t get me wrong. I like pandas as much as the next person and they have been one of the most popular attractions at a number of American zoos for decades. When China recently decided to take back most of the pandas they loaned to us it seemed like an obvious diplomacy ploy. The situation gave Xi the opportunity to look magnanimous by regifting them to us. And that’s clearly what appears to be going on at the moment.

But what of the other, far more pressing matters between our two nations? Biden later told reporters that the meeting was “constructive and productive” but he didn’t seem to come away with any productive agreements of substance. Xi made the same promises he has in the past about tackling the fentanyl producers in his nation and “working to address climate change.” But as the Wall Street Journal pointed out in a more sober analysis, we’ve heard all of this before and China never carries through.

The question is how much any of these verbal commitments will matter given the Chinese Communist Party’s ideology and ambitions. Beijing has promised to round up the usual fentanyl-producing suspects before, with little to show for it. China’s pledges to reduce carbon emissions in the future are worthless given its plan to build 366 gigawatts of new coal-fired power. Mr. Xi must laugh privately at U.S. climate envoy John Kerry’s pleas that China act against its energy self-interest. It won’t happen.

The sign of a real thaw in relations would be if China eased up on its relentless military buildup and its military harassment of Taiwan and the Philippines. The People’s Liberation Army has stepped up its almost daily aircraft incursions across the median line in the Taiwan Strait. Some of the air and naval maneuvers are the sort that could presage an invasion or military blockade.

Xi told Biden that ‘Planet Earth is big enough’ for both the US and China. That’s the sort of thing you would expect him to say while his country is facing a significant real estate crash and sagging export markets. He’s hoping for sanctions relief and an end to American limits on Chinese technology. And Joe Biden is desperately trying to avoid yet another global conflict, specifically around Taiwan. (With good reason.) But what is China actually putting on the table in return? There was little or no discussion of how China has been trying to snap up land all across the United States. China’s aggressive expansion of its military and hostile maneuvers, particularly around the Philippines didn’t seem to come up either.

I wasn’t looking for Joe Biden to go into the meeting rattling sabers and pushing us closer to a potential military conflict with China. But there are many serious issues between our two countries that need to be addressed and most of them appeared to receive little more than lip service. If all we’re going to get out of this summit is a few pandas and a return to the status quo, it was probably a waste of time.