There has been plenty of comment on President Obama’s recent visit to China. Obama has been criticized by many in the US for being too deferential in his dealings with the Chinese leadership. According to this view, he failed to deliver tangible results, whether in a new Chinese commitment to appreciate its currency, the RMB, or in the realm of human rights. It is argued that this “rebuff” by Chinese President Hu Jintao is another sign of Obama’s weakness.

Others have suggested that the visit symbolized a new phase in the relationship between the two countries, of equality rather than hierarchy, and of increasingly close cooperation rather than acrimony. Obama’s own personal style has contributed to this shift: across the world he has emphasized the importance of respect for his interlocutors, and building cooperative relationships on this basis. This approach goes down particularly well in Beijing, which for years has been criticizing the US for trying to impose its values, something Obama said he would not do.

Visits get the attention, but they are only part of the story. And they need to be put in the wider context not only of the attitudes and approaches of the two countries’ leaderships, but of global developments.

It is in this last area where the impact on the US’s policy towards China has been most evident. The recent global financial and economic crisis has reinforced a trend towards the relative rise of so-called developing countries, such as a China, vis-à-vis the old powerhouses of north America and Europe. Even though China still depends substantially on the US economically, this trend has highlighted the extent of US dependency on China.

As a result, Washington is unable to deliver the sort of lectures on reforming the financial system or revaluing the RMB which were meat and drink to the last US administration. China is occupying the moral high ground in relation to the global economy. Too much pleading for a change of value of the RMB sounds increasingly as if it comes from a position of weakness, and the argument – which the European Union also used last week – that this would also be good for the Chinese economy sounds rather hollow in Beijing.

These global shifts, and other preoccupations such as Afghanistan or Iran, also constrain Washington’s approach to China in the political sphere. The increased need for Chinese cooperation on a range of issues means that traditional bugbears such as human rights or Tibet have been pushed down the agenda by Washington. Obama has been criticized for not meeting the Tibetan leader in exile, the Dalai Lama, but this simply illustrates that he has less freedom for manoeuvre with respect to Beijing than his predecessors did. 

However, this does not mean things are all going Beijing’s way, and it would be naïve to assume that Obama’s more conciliatory approach to China means that he is about to become a “panda hugger”. Indeed, the emphasis he has placed on the security relationship with Japan, admittedly at a time when Tokyo shows signs of cold feet towards the US, and the speed with which India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was welcomed to the White House after Obama returned from China, suggest that Washington is engaged in a subtle balancing act in its relationships in Asia. A further request from Taiwan for US arms sales might give Obama the opportunity to reiterate US commitment to this relationship too.

Nonetheless, the dynamic between Beijing and Washington is shifting. What might be the most obvious consequences of this?

Firstly, it gives Beijing space to play an increasingly active role in global issues, in line with Hu Jintao’s general approach to international relations. The way that China has attempted – pretty successfully – to gain the moral high ground in advance of the Copenhagen climate change negotiations is a good example. The deployment of the Chinese navy to the coast off Somalia is another. And in China’s own neighbourhood, Beijing’s active role in driving regional institutions, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (with Central Asia and Russia), has been a feature of its diplomacy for a number of years.

Secondly, and related to the first point, there will be more Chinese demands for action on specific issues from others. Again the climate change talks provide a good example, but others might include energy security or multilateral trade talks. However, this does not necessarily imply a confrontational approach from Beijing, whose overriding principles will stress common goals and shared responsibilities.

Thirdly, there will be an impact in other areas of the world, as the increased strength of China creates new global dynamics (though the recent US-China relationship has always been global in its implications, and informed by events elsewhere - think about Nixon and Vietnam). Indian nervousness over China’s rise has been very apparent recently. More widely, regions such as South America, Africa, and the Middle East have increasingly seen China take on a more prominent role among the outside powers whose interests those in these regions always seem to have to take into consideration.

In sum, therefore, the main relevance of the Obama visit is not so much to be found in the substance of bilateral issues between the two countries. Rather, its significance is as a further symbol of the complex contemporary shifts in international relations, in particular the continued increase in China’s global profile.