China announced on Wednesday, per the bilateral agreement with the US, that US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry will visit the Asian nation from July 16 to 19. Even though both nations agreed on making the climate issue more urgent than before, experts are expressing pessimism on whether Kerry's visit will actually give results. 

Observers in China state that the US' flimsy stance on global warming and domestic politics is causing concerns about deepening cooperation with China. 

Kerry's scheduled visit was announced by China's Ministry of Ecology and Environment on Wednesday, which said that both nations are due to have an in-depth exchange of views on cooperating to tackle climate change.

In its statement, the US State Department said: "During meetings with [People's Republic of China] officials, Secretary Kerry aims to engage with the PRC on addressing the climate crisis, including with respect to increasing implementation and ambition and promoting a successful COP28". 

Ma Jun, director of the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, relayed to the Global Times that the current time proves urgent for both of the world's biggest economies and carbon emitters to cooperate and address the matter. 

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This comes as the World Meteorological Organization declared on Monday that the beginning of July was the hottest week on record for the planet.

Ma added that the joint cooperation enforces a strong impetus for global effort since previous cordial interactions yielded meaningful results from UN Climate Change conferences.

Lü Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times: "For the US, cooperating with China on climate change equals making requests at its will: telling China dos and don'ts and steer clear of cooperation on technology and products". 

Lü noted that China will not have it with empty promises and that it will talk with Kerry on the specifics. "We all want to meet the goals, but it is the technicalities that matter, and they must be mutually beneficial."

US recent measures against China, such as attacking their solar panel industry, have shown the former's unwillingness to cooperate. Back in May, the US Senate voted to reinstate tariffs on solar panels from Chinese firms in Southeast Asia coming into the US which it claimed were "in violation of trade rules."

Aside from that, the US' shaky position on handling climate change is worrying as well, especially after it withdrew from the 2015 Paris climate agreement under the Trump administration, and as some Republican politicians continue to call climate change "fake science", claiming that "carbon is healthy."

Boston Herald reported that Subcommittee Chairman Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla, stated last week that Kerry will be confronted by House Republicans on Thursday for his climate budget. "Over the last several years, we have witnessed a boondoggle of climate change spending, and our bill provides a much-needed course correction in several key areas".  

Mending fragile ties

According to observers, if China and the US fail to form a healthy relationship to tackle the matter and if the US demonstrates no willingness in improving ties, then having China join the climate talks would be similar to impossible.

After China imposed countermeasures following the visit of former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the island of Taiwan in 2022, both nations agreed to resume discussions after Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Joe Biden met in November 2022 and agreed to jointly work for the success of the COP27 climate conference. 

Kerry's trip will be considered the third time in the course of a month that a top US official traveled to China for talks after US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Secretary of State Antony Blinken did so earlier. 

Experts argue that the Biden administration is hoping that these consecutive visits will mend the fragile stability in ties with China and encourage cooperation in areas that could be strategic guardrails.  

China's Ministry of Finance released a statement on Monday that China raised major concerns with the US side during Yellen's visit, in addition to requesting that the US remove additional tariffs on Chinese goods, end crackdowns on Chinese firms, and treat two-way investments with fairness. 

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On Wednesday, Reuters cited Chad Bown, a trade economist with the Peterson Institute of International Economics, who said that the US political pressure to raise China tariffs is increasing. "There is no political appetite to reduce tariffs on China - Secretary Yellen will do well in this political climate if they manage to stay where they are." 

"We welcome the visits of US high-level officials; we give the floor to them to talk as much as they want. But they should know that for China, we need to see actions," Lü concluded.