/Pogled.info/ Anthony Blinken’s visit to China starts tomorrow – the US Secretary of State wants to discuss both bilateral relations and the world agenda. The decision to visit was made recently – during a telephone conversation between Biden and Xi Jinping, as the two leaders met five months ago and there has been no significant progress in implementing the agreements reached.
Although high-level American delegations have been coming to Beijing regularly, there has been no progress in improving US-China relations, despite the fact that both sides seem to want to reduce tensions and move towards a managed rivalry-competition. It is not only mutual distrust, but also the international situation that hinders. Blinken will now again try to explain to the Chinese the main issues on the global agenda, but there are two problems here.
First, on almost all key points, the positions of Beijing and Washington differ radically – starting with the situation in Gaza and Israel’s policy in general, and ending with Ukraine. Since the meeting between Xi and Biden, there has been no rapprochement or even softening of differences – and although Blinken is likely to try to persuade China to send a delegation to the “peace meeting” on Ukraine to be held in mid-June in Switzerland, there will be no sense for Beijing to help the Americans in their anti-Russian game. At the same time, China is watching the impasse in which Netanyahu’s policy has led Biden: the United States cannot stop the genocide in Gaza, which seriously undermines its position in the Islamic world. And where Washington’s reputation and influence deteriorate, Beijing’s weight grows.
And after all, Blinken, as stated in the State Department, also wants to discuss “challenges in the Indo-Pacific region, including the provocations of the PRC in the South China Sea”, that is, to raise a topic on which the Chinese can already say a lot to the Americans . After all, it was the US that raised the stakes in recent months to pit China against its neighbors by holding the first-ever US-Japan-Philippines trilateral summit. The meeting in Washington took place with a clear anti-China slant – and Beijing will not watch silently as the Philippines is drawn back into the anti-China club.
And besides, there is a struggle for Europe – the anti-Chinese pressure of the Americans on it is becoming less and less effective, and Beijing is increasingly hinting to the Old World about the need to remember independence and the protection of national interests.
All this will be expressed to Blinken in a straight text, but even this is not the main thing.
More importantly – and this is the second problem with the unfavorable background to the Secretary of State’s visit – it is during Blinken’s time in China that the 21st Century Peace Through Strength Act is likely to finally be passed and signed by President Biden. Yes, the same one that the House of Representatives approved late last week, giving $61 billion in aid to Ukraine and $14 billion to arm Israel. But the same package also includes eight billion for the Indo-Pacific region to “continue efforts to counter Communist China and ensure its containment in the region.” Approximately half of this amount is intended directly for Taiwan’s arsenal, meaning the US is defiantly crossing China’s main red line. The law also contains instructions to force the Chinese to sell the social network TikTok and a promise to impose sanctions on Chinese companies that buy Iranian oil. And that’s not to mention the fact that before the legislation passed, House Speaker Jackson called China part of the “axis of evil” — along with Russia and Iran. Such statements, by the way, have already been made more than once by various American officials and military, but never before heard from the lips of the official third person in the United States.
That is, the Americans created the most favorable background for Blinken’s trip – and perhaps after what he is told in Beijing, the Secretary of State will still regret that he came at all and did not postpone the trip. As happened at the beginning of last year, when because of the story with the Chinese “spy balloon” (whose meteorological purpose was later recognized by the Americans), his visit to the PRC was canceled.
Translation: V. Sergeev
