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When US President Joe Biden declared that America was back to President Emmanuel Macron of France two years ago, Macron reportedly responded, "For how long?" Two years later, with another chaotic US presidential election heating up and the "America first" agenda remains intact, doubts remain about the US' commitment to its allies and to true multilateralism.

Things look a bit different across the Pacific Ocean. During his first press conference as China's Foreign Minister on March 7, Qin Gang said that "with the COVID situation turning for the better in China, we're steadily resuming exchanges with the world. We've pressed the 'acceleration button' and sounded the clarion call for our diplomacy."

What followed was a diplomatic blitz that included brokering a momentous peace deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran and paying a high-level state visit. This week, China has hosted two major forums back-to-back. In Beijing, the China Development Forum (CDF) brought in over 100 executives of Fortune 500 companies. One day after the CDF concluded on Monday, the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) annual conference kicked off in South China's Hainan Province, with about 2,000 representatives from around the world in attendance, including 119 ministerial level officials and 11 national leaders.

What's the significance of this? What is China trying to achieve?

For about three years, since the start of the COVID-19 epidemic, while China maintained engagements with the outside world, there was little of the type of face-to-face interaction seen in the recent meetings. And as scores of officials and business leaders said at the BFA this week, these face-to-face interactions are crucial for any type of relationship, be it between countries or businesses.

The lack of face-to-face interactions created a void that led to the rise of foreign media's smear campaign against China that portrayed the country as in complete standstill, isolation and even decline due to its anti-COVID strategy. That has clearly created a misunderstanding of China overseas. And what the back-to-back engagements showed was that China has not stopped advancing and has not been isolated.

"The world assumed China had been sleeping for three years, but it certainly has not," Mark Hutchinson, CEO of Fortescue Future Industries, an Australian green energy firm, said at a panel discussion at the BFA, pointing to advances in China's automated manufacturing - or "robots making robots" as he put it.

Hutchinson has been traveling to various parts of China and meeting with Chinese officials and businesses. "When you get into the provinces and you actually talk to businesses, they want to do business. That's what I love about China," he told the Global Times, adding that the business countries should ignore the "noise" of geopolitical tensions and "just get on with it."

Hutchinson's experience in China was echoed by many of the government officials, business leaders and scholars who have visited China for the CDF or the BFA's annual meeting. They also expressed excitement about the resumption of face-to-face exchanges and great expectations for China's economic recovery and its leadership role in addressing regional and global issues.

"I can feel the representatives at the opening ceremony have high expectations for China, which takes a leading role in Asia, and they look forward to China playing a bigger role," Yasuo Fukuda, Japan's former prime minister and chairman of the BFA's Council of Advisors, told the Global Times.

China is determined to meet such expectations. In a keynote speech at the opening ceremony, Chinese Premier Li Qiang talked at length about China's economic resilience and market opening-up, as well as its vision for promoting regional and global peace and development. "In this uncertain world, the certainty that China offers is an anchor for global peace and development. This has been the case in the past and will remain so in the future," Li said.

With such an unmistakable signal, the world can expect more earnest efforts and greater contributions to global peace and development from China this year and beyond. China's economy is expected to contribute more than one-third of global growth this year, and there will be more opportunities for foreign political and business leaders to have face-to-face interactions in China later this year at major events such as the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

The same cannot be said about the US, where domestic politics have just become even more chaotic, with the indictment of former president and a leading candidate for the US presidency in 2024, Donald Trump. Trump's "America first" agenda was what made it necessary for Biden to declare "America is back" to reassure allies. But then again, as Macron asked, "for how long?" Furthermore, with Biden's adoption of many of Trump's toxic policies like the trade war with China and its tactics of pressuring allies to follow suit, Biden's "America is back" could be even more dangerous for the world.

The author is a reporter with the Global Times. bizopinion@globaltimes.com.cn