As Chinese strategists pored over foreign-policy papers this week to prepare for a key Sino-U.S. meeting in Anchorage, Alaska on Thursday, outside their windows, a howling sandstorm enveloped Beijing. The sandstorm revived Chinese anxieties about creeping desertification—but it also offered up a small measure of hope for what has been until now a serious worsening of U.S.-China relations.
The eerie orange cloud of Gobi Desert sand—Beijing’s worst sandstorm in a decade—was a wordless reminder that both sides face a common challenge they say they are determined to confront: global climate change.
