The Biden administration’s effort to isolate climate negotiations from broader foreign policy goals has become untenable. Rather than reconciling the conflicting objectives of its top foreign policy decisionmakers—Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Special Climate Envoy John Kerry—the division of function has created a crisis of authority, leading to confused negotiations with China.

The divergent stances on China policy have been evident since the earliest days of the Biden administration. Secretary Blinken’s first international trip was to Japan and South Korea. During his trip to Tokyo, he highlighted the strength of America’s Pacific alliance and accused China of acting “coercively and aggressively” in the South China Sea. Kerry, by contrast, visited China just a month later to discuss green energy policy. The Chinese delegation took the opportunity to criticize Japan’s treatment of nuclear waste from the Fukushima power plant meltdown.

As relations sour between Beijing and DC, the role of climate envoy (tasked with cooperating with China on climate) and the position of secretary of state (responsible for upholding American interests abroad) continue to diverge. When US authorities discovered Chinese spy balloons drifting over the continental U.S. in early 2023,  Blinken canceled his first planned trip to Beijing. Canceling visits is an age-old practice in the diplomatic toolbox, serving as an effective yet non-escalatory form of retaliation. Yet within months of Blinken's announcement, Kerry accepted an invitation to visit China “in the near-term.”

In the past, DC policymakers have always disagreed on issues from free trade agreements to America's military engagements overseas. What makes the two diplomats’ conflicting China strategies unique is not the fundamental dispute over policy but the crisis of authority. Kerry spent four years as Secretary of State and boss to then-Deputy Secretary Blinken. Kerry can count on established rapport with foreign leaders and career officials in Foggy Bottom. The crisis of authority does not just come from overlapping responsibilities of the positions of climate envoy and secretary of state. It also comes from Kerry's history leading the organization and his relationship with Blinken.

As the first-ever climate envoy and a long-time friend to the president, Kerry is uniquely positioned to shape his own role. While his role is not explicitly concerned with foreign policy, former Secretary of State Kerry has chiefly focused his efforts abroad. His overseas focus can be partly attributed to his pre-existing knowledge and relationships in the foreign policy sphere and the stubbornness of domestic policymaking bodies (i.e., Congress).

Despite having offices and employees at the Department of State, the climate envoy is outside the department's chain of command, reporting only to President Biden. Kerry’s position is a unicorn in the history of American statecraft. He is a cabinet-level official on par with Blinken, even sharing access to military aircraft for diplomatic visits. Yet, he leads no agency and requires no confirmation from the Senate.

The only historical comparison is President Eisenhower’s appointment of Harold Stassen as “special assistant to the president for disarmament” to aid in reconstructing post-WWII Europe. Stassen’s ad hoc appointment antagonized incumbent Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. The following years were consumed by unnecessary bureaucratic competition that ultimately distracted American foreign policy. Order was only restored when Eisenhower effectively eliminated Stassen’s position.

While Kerry and Blinken appear to have a cordial relationship, the potential for conflict is even more troubling than the historical analog. Dulles was nearly 20 years senior to Stassen. Dulles had a more extensive network in DC and had a longer relationship with the President, which encouraged Stassen to act deferentially. The relationship between Kerry and Blinken is inverse. Here, the secretary of state is nearly 20 years junior to the special envoy. The secretary of state not only has less experience in DC—and formerly worked under the special envoy—he has fewer years leading his department.

Kerry's seniority does not mean he will have the president's support over Blinken if a serious dispute arises. However, it creates an ambiguous wrinkle in the foreign policy hierarchy. Will Chinese Climate Envoy Xie Zhenhua and senior Chinese foreign-policy official Wang Yi treat Kerry where they left off when Kerry was Secretary of State, or will they defer to Blinken? Will foreign negotiators be able to extract concessions from  Kerry that  Blinken would not have offered up and vice versa?

Though Kerry insists that he exclusively works on climate issues, climate concerns are inextricably linked to economic policy and security. Kerry’s position on the National Security Council questions the notion that his position is hermetically sealed from the rest of American foreign policy. The roles of climate envoy and secretary of state have become further blurred by Kerry’s speech at the Munich Security Conference and Blinken's appearances at COP 26 and COP 27.

While the US foreign policy establishment declares that Kerry only represents climate issues, Beijing disagrees, and they have repeatedly said so. In one meeting, Wang told Kerry that climate “cannot possibly be divorced” from geopolitical tensions. It comes as no surprise that Beijing is only willing to subsidize failed industrial reforms to lower China's carbon emissions in exchange for something from the US. Kerry seemed to acknowledge the challenges of persuading China to produce less carbon with few meaningful concessions, asserting “...[o]ur president has tried hard to separate climate from the other issues that are real that we obviously have with China, but we can’t get bogged down by that...” This comment directly contradicts statements by Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and even Kerry’s previous assertions that climate is a critical, stand-alone issue.

Foreign policy is messy. Overlapping issues like climate policy, industrial policy, trade policy, and security cannot be neatly separated from one another. Climate change's transnational nature makes it especially difficult for bilateral negotiations. The number of battleships or nuclear warheads a state possesses is easily verifiable. However, allocating greenhouse gas emissions (already an imperfect indicator of climate change) on a per-country basis is difficult. It becomes even more challenging to establish which country or people are responsible for what pollution considering that Europe and the US effectively outsource the production of consumer goods and resulting pollution to China.

Bilateral negotiations with competitor states are inherently zero-sum. China cannot be a competitor in one domain and an ally in another. Attempting to negotiate in a climate vacuum where no outside issues interfere is implausible. Expecting a former secretary of state to remove himself from statecraft altogether is impossible.

Now is not the time to win favor among domestic environmental constituents. The White House must restore a unified foreign policy front under the leadership of the office of the secretary of state. If the status quo continues, we risk paralyzing our diplomatic efforts with Beijing during one of the most pivotal times in Sino-American relations.

Daniel McVicar is a Research Director at the White House Writers Group. He is a regular contributor to Jamestown Foundation and has written for leading foreign policy outlets, including the Council on Foreign Relations.

Image: Courtesy of the U.S. Department of State.