What is behind the sudden thaw in relationship between Washington and Beijing?

As European Union foreign ministers met in Stockholm on Friday to recalibrate their policy towards China, Beijing announced that it was sending a senior diplomat to Moscow and Kyiv next week. Li Hui, who was China’s ambassador to Russia for 10 years until 2019, will also visit Berlin, Paris and Warsaw to talk about how to end the war in Ukraine.

“As the Ukraine crisis drags on and escalates, the world continues to experience the spillover effects of the crisis. The voices for ceasefire and de-escalation are building in the international community. China will continue to play a constructive role and build more international consensus on ending hostilities, starting peace talks and preventing escalation of the situation, and help facilitate a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis,” foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said.

Some EU foreign ministers expressed scepticism on Friday about China’s credibility as a potential peacemaker but it is one of the few major countries in the world that is talking to both sides in the conflict. And there are been signs that the Biden administration is beginning to warm to the idea of a Chinese role in a peace process that could follow the Ukrainian offensive on the battlefield.

After three months in the deep freeze after the US shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon, there is a sudden thaw in the relationship between Washington and Beijing. US national security adviser Jake Sullivan and China’s top diplomat Wang Yi met in Vienna on Thursday for talks that lasted more than 10 hours, according to Chinese sources.

They had “candid, in-depth, substantive and constructive” exchanges on bilateral relations, Taiwan, Asian-Pacific security and Ukraine. And they agreed to try to move past the stand-off over the balloon and to keep channels of communication open.

Recent speeches by Sullivan, secretary of state Anthony Blinken, treasury secretary Janet Yellen and US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns have seen a slight shift in rhetoric towards China. In an echo of European leaders, including Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Yellen and Sullivan explicitly rejected the idea of economic decoupling from China, in favour of “de-risking”.

“We do not seek to ‘decouple’ our economy from China’s. A full separation of our economies would be disastrous for both countries,” Yellen said.

Washington’s rhetorical shift may be part of its diplomatic effort to align the EU’s policy towards China with its own. Beijing wants Europe to pursue an independent policy and it has been encouraging the idea of European strategic autonomy.

Although some of the foreign ministers meeting in Stockholm on Friday talked tough about China, proposals for de-risking are likely to be substantially defanged in the course of internal negotiations. But rough rhetoric carries its own risks and if the European public discourse about China starts to echo that of the US, it will narrow the political space and drive poor policy choices.