Do the United States and China Live in the Sliding-Doors Moment of History? Mr. Xi’s Letters to China Revisited
The Western allies have come to view themselves as being in competition with the other major nuclear powers of the world, and sometimes in conflict with them. He said that Russia is the more manageable.
Mr. Wang’s entreaties came after China’s leader, Xi Jinping, ended his “zero Covid” policy this winter, paving the way for the country to step back into the spotlight on the world stage. Despite the Chinese government grappling with a slower economy, they are trying to strengthen their trade ties with Europe because of China’s support of Russia.
There are a lot of domestic unhappiness with Mr. Xi being stuck with zero Covid policies, mismanaging the economy and alienating the West. Yet so long as Mr. Xi can point to perceived U.S.-led efforts to contain China’s development, his appeals to Chinese nationalism will continue to win these domestic debates and sideline dissent as unpatriotic. Many Chinese who are unhappy with how Mr. Xi has ruled still share his view that U.S. pressure and sanctions are intended to undermine China’s development and preserve U.S. primacy.
Mr. Fleming said that in the case of China, this could be “the sliding-doors moment in history,” in which the United States and its allies may soon discover that they are too far behind in a series of critical technologies to maintain a military or technological edge over Beijing.
He warned China against givingmaterial support to the war in Ukraine, and later suggested it was now considering that possibility.
But Biden’s comments underscored how opposition to China, which has been crystalizing here for several years, has now become a rallying and unifying point in US politics. China has long mounted a broad intelligence campaign against the US, using satellites, cyber and traditional methods of collection. The US also has extensive intelligence operations targeting China. But the sight of a balloon tracking across the US, visible from the ground and on blanket television coverage, encapsulated a potential threat to US sovereignty from China as never before amid talk that a new Cold War may be dawning.
CNN reported last week that Milley ordered a comprehensive review of US military interactions with Chinese forces over the last five years as concerns about Beijing’s assertive behavior in the Indo-Pacific region increases, according to three Defense officials.
“The volume, the number of Chinese intercepts at sea and in the air have increased significantly over five years,” Milley said, though he offered no further details on the figure.
Pelosi, the Pentagon, and the Security Threats in the South China Sea: a Prime Minister’s Call for a World Where We Are All Competing with China
Beijing and Washington said they’d resume climate talks that had been frozen after Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, which Beijing claimed as its own. The White House said the leaders “agreed to empower key senior officials to maintain communication and deepen constructive efforts.”
President Joe Biden has suggested the US military believes a potential trip by Pelosi and other lawmakers would pose security risks. The Pentagon has declined to say if officials have directly briefed the California Democrat, but officials say worries include China establishing a no-fly zone or increasing unsafe intercepts of US and allied ships and aircraft in the Pacific region.
Officials tell CNN the aim is to have a solid look at any changes in patterns of Chinese military activity. The two militaries are very sensitive to each other and incidents rarely go public. In June of this year, a US C-130 transport plane operated by the US special forces had an encounter with a Chinese aircraft, but the Pentagon did not publicly acknowledge the incident.
In one of the most serious recent incidents, the Australian government said in February that a Chinese warship allegedly used a laser to “illuminate” an Australian Air Force jet in what Canberra called a “serious safety incident.”
The Australian Defence Force condemned the disrespectful military conduct, saying it has the potential to endanger lives. In the past, pilots who have been Targeted by laser attacks have reported flashes, pain, and spots in their vision, as well as temporary blindness.
Austin, the commander of the US Pacific Fleet, told the defense conference that indo-pacific countries shouldn’t be harassed by maritime militias.
Take the situation of Japan, a country limited in its post-World War II constitution to “self-defense” forces. Now it’s going to buy long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles from the US, weapons that could strike well inside China.
Earlier this month, a US Navy warship challenged Chinese claims to disputed islands in the South China Sea, the US 7th Fleet said in a statement – the second operation of its kind this week.
With the help of writing the pillars of his policy, Biden is laying out a world where America and its allies are increasingly competing with China, even as they work to avoid a Cold War style standoff.
The president delivered his speech at a crucial time, with the United States having confrontations with both China and Russia. Those two nuclear superpowers have tightened their relationship in a new age of great power politics that Biden sees as a fight between democracy and tyranny. Biden framed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as “a test for the ages, a test for America, a test of the world” and an example of how America was working for more “freedom, more dignity, and more peace.”
“We will not leave our future vulnerable to the whims of those who do not share our vision for a world that is free, open, prosperous, and secure,” he goes on. “As the world continues to navigate the lingering impacts of the pandemic and global economic uncertainty, there is no nation better positioned to lead with strength and purpose than the United States of America.”
The State of the State: Competition between China and the United States is a Threat to the West and to the Crimes It Is Born In China
China and Russia are the two leading autocracies determined to challenge the West and undermine the notion that democracy is the most desirable system of government.
“If we lose the time this decade we will not be able to keep pace with massive challenges, it’s critical both forDefining the terms of competition, particular with the People’s Republic of China) and for getting ahead of massive challenges,” he said.
The United States once judged that the world would be safer with China inside rather than outside the international system. The bet worked out and is still better than the alternative. Leaders in the United States and China should utilize bilateral and multilateral forums, like the Group of 20, to discuss steps each side could take to move away from the brink.
Competition will be a risk in the long-term because it’s difficult to focus resources on achieving positive outcomes when there’s too much competition. In the US, competition could cause domestic divisions and undermine democracy. More than 60 percent of Chinese-born scientists working in the United States are considering leaving the country after being targeted by anti-Asian violence in America, according to a study.
Beijing further stoked tensions by conducting multiple military exercises in the Taiwan Strait over the past year. In late December, China sent 71 military planes and seven ships toward the island over a 24-hour window after Beijing expressed anger of Taiwan-related provisions in the omnibus spending bill.
Taiwan and the U.S. as a key issue for China and the country’s progress toward a “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”
No leader has had more than two terms since Mao led the People’s Republic of China. The senior fellow of the East Asia Program and director of the China Program at the Stimson Center believes that China is moving into a new era.
The U.S. doesn’t want conflict with China, but rather wants to win it. The so-called competition by the US is all-round containment and suppression of life and death.
She said she expected his political loyalists to be appointed to key positions in foreign policy and national security to help him fulfill his vision.
Sun predicts that the voices of those who do not think China’s policies toward the U.S. are the best will be removed from within the bureaucracy, thus leaving China without a system of checks and balances.
Two key issues China and the U.S. are likely to clash over in the coming years are Taiwan and technology, according to Chris Li, the director of research at the Asia-Pacific Initiative at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
Li said there’s a catch-22 situation because of the perception that resulted from high-level congressional visits in the U.S.
“You get this tit-for-tat retaliation where there’s not a lot of trust … and sort of a back and forth where the U.S. views its actions as responsive to China’s actions, [and] China views its actions as a response to the U.S.’s actions,” Li said.
Meanwhile, the tech industry has become a larger priority for China, especially as the country moves toward the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” by the centennial of the People’s Republic of China in 2049, in which Xi aims to make China a modern socialist country.
As this has become more of a focus, China has worked to bolster its domestic research and innovation capacity, Li said, and that has then caused those in the U.S. to talk about decoupling from China when it comes to the technology and the supply chains that support it.
That has led to what Li said is an announcment. That doesn’t mean that progress can’t happen, only that it will test both countries in the years to come.
Television images of smiling officials, handshakes and a commitment to reopening lines of communication were the highlights of the meeting. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who had sparred with his Chinese counterparts at the 2021 summit in Alaska, is now expected to visit China next year.
The last time an American president shook hands with a Chinese leader was three years ago. Donald Trump was in the White House, the COVID-19 pandemic was months away and relations between Beijing and Washington, while experiencing friction over trade, were on much firmer ground.
The American-China Correspondence During the Biden-Penegide Meeting: A Keystone for Putting the United States into the State of the Art
Trust is low, the rhetoric is not friendly, and disputes are still going on in areas like trade, technology, security and ideology.
There is not going to be a joint statement here. This is really not a meeting that’s being driven by deliverables,” a senior U.S. administration official told reporters this week. “The president believes it is critical to build a floor for the relationship and ensure that there are rules of the road that bound our competition.”
The two leaders have talked by phone several times since Biden took office last year, but they have been unable to reverse — or even slow — the downward slide in ties between the world’s two largest economies.
“If the result of this meeting is to put the relationship back on a more diplomatic plane, in which instead of beating each other up they can begin a dialogue on the kind of issues that need to be dealt with, I think this meeting could very well be pivotal,” Panetta told CNN’s John King on “Inside Politics.”
Biden said on Wednesday his goal for the meeting is to get a deeper understanding of the priorities and concerns of the Chinese President, and to explain what each of the red lines are.
For his part, Xi is fond of using a specific metaphor to warn Biden against overstepping: “Those who play with fire will perish by it,” he told the US president over the telephone in July as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was preparing to visit Taiwan with a congressional delegation.
And in October, the Communist Party chief again reiterated that China’s preference would be for “peaceful reunification” but repeated that the use of force remains an option.
It is not known if Biden will make a similar statement when he sits down with Xi on Monday. Asked during a news conference ahead of his trip whether he would reiterate his commitment to defend Taiwan militarily directly to his counterpart, Biden demurred.
The Biden administration has repeatedly said it intends to compete with China and wants dialogue to put “guardrails” around the relationship, so that it does not veer into conflict. Qin said U.S. demands were unreasonable.
Taiwan After Cold War: An Expert Analysis of the U.S. Export Control imposed on Microchips Sales in China During the Cold War
Kevin McCarthy would like to visit Taiwan if he becomes majority leader in the House. Another Chinese expert warns of the dangers of such a move.
China has been a main focus of the foreign policy of Biden. The administration imposed export control on the sale of cutting-edge microchips and equipment to China in October.
Chris Miller is the author of CHIP War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology, and he says there was strict export controls imposed on the Soviet Union during theCold War. “There’s really a lot of similarities, to be honest.”
From Beijing’s perspective, the U.S. has since done the opposite on all counts. It has imposed the semiconductor export bans and sanctioned some of China’s leading technology firms — moves Beijing decried.
It could be difficult to enforce the restrictions in China. Microchips are small and easy to smuggle across borders. Also, total enforcement would require other countries that are part of the complex semiconductors supply chain to be on board, and that’s a work in progress.
China and the United States in the Prevalence of the Second Cold War after Pelosi Visited the Straits: The Case of Indonesian President Blinken
Beijing cut three channels of dialogue and stopped cooperation in five areas after Pelosi’s visit. That came on top of already sharply curtailed contact between China and the United States.
NUSA DUA, Indonesia — A highly anticipated meeting between China’s leader Xi Jinping and President Biden finished Monday with both leaders expressing an openness to restoring channels of communication and repairing a relationship that has been compared to a second Cold War.
Notably, neither country said anything about seeking a new date for Mr. Blinken’s trip. Mr. Blinken also told NBC that he had spoken “very clearly and very directly” to Mr. Wang about the balloon incident, and that there had been “no apology” from Mr. Wang during the meeting. It was another reminder that Chinese-U.S. relations have fallen to perhaps their lowest point since Richard Nixon opened a channel of communication to China’s leadership a half-century ago.
There is a chance to take a little bit of a gamble, now that China’s Party Congress is over, according to him.
Zhu advises against expecting too much from the summit. He says that there is no need for a sincere discussion between the two leaders.
The current moment is dangerous like the 1950s and 1960s when distrust grew between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, according to former U.S. official Medeiros.
Both sides thought strategic restraint was important to the interests of each other after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Is he willing to compromise on some issues? After his meeting with Xi, Biden told reporters yes. “We were very blunt with one another about places where we disagreed.”
The prospect that the US will defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack is becoming more likely, as Biden was asked about it.
China regards the “Taiwan question” an internal matter. The first red line in the relationship between China and the US is at the core of China’s interests.
We agree with what we were told a long time ago. And that there’s ‘one China’ policy, and Taiwan makes their own judgments about their independence. We are not moving – we’re not encouraging their being independent. … That’s their decision,” he said.
The World Has Come Full Circle: The U.S.-China Interaction After the G20 Summit, Bali, Indonesia, and the 2011 US-China Summit
According to the US, the summit in Indonesia yielded two important outcomes: a stance that Russia must not use a nuclear weapon in Europe, and the restart of negotiations between the US and Chinese on climate change.
The statement that China and the US made about their opposition to use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine was important.
That the world’s two most powerful leaders had not been addressing these issues together in recent months shows how the entire world suffers when Washington and Beijing are as deeply estranged as they’ve been this year.
Leon Panetta – a former White House chief of staff, defense secretary and CIA chief who dealt with US-China relations for decades – expressed cautious optimism after the talks on the sidelines of the G20 summit.
But even after expressing “questions and concerns” about the war, Xi has reaffirmed the strategic bonds. After a video meeting in December, Putin gushed, “We share the same views on the…transformation of the global geopolitical landscape.” State media said that the two countries should strengthen strategic coordination.
But at the summit in Bali, Indonesia, it was clear that while both sides want to avoid a clash now, their goals – China wants to be the preeminent Asian and potentially global power, as does the US – remain fundamentally incompatible.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said neither side should subvert the other’s system or try to remold the other’s image.
In an official readout, President Biden said the United States and China must work together to address transnational challenges including climate change and global macroeconomic issues including debt relief, health security, and global food security.
So, Washington’s foreign policy has come full circle, since part of Richard Nixon’s motivation in engaging China during the 1970s Cold War deep freeze was to open strategic gaps between Beijing and Moscow.
If Putin’s conflict with Ukraine had turned into a swift Russian victory, the alliance of autocracies would have made huge strides. Moscow has slowed down due to its stumbling. As Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman noted, Russia could become an albatross around Beijing’s neck.
Yu Jie, a senior research fellow on China at the London-based think tank Chatham House, says that given Biden’s “reasonable success” in the midterms, he is in a stronger position to steer Washington’s relationship with Beijing.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised the issue when he met with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on Saturday on the sidelines of the conference, officials said.
The meeting of the world’s top economic powerhouses: Building a floor under Beijing’s coercive actions in the waters around Taiwan
The world is big enough for China and America to prosper together, said a spokeswoman for the foreign ministry.
But the president objected to Beijing’s “coercive and increasingly aggressive” Chinese actions in the waters around Taiwan, according to the White House readout, adding such behaviors “undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the broader region, and jeopardize global prosperity.”
It is the US that provides a steady stream of weapons to the battlefield. The US side isn’t qualified to lecture China or even coercing pressure on Russia, so the ministry would never accept that, a spokesman told a news conference.
The two countries should prevent conflict, according to a statement from the President. He said that both sides would continue discussions based on understandings already in place.
Last year, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi put out three core demands — “bottom lines” — that China wanted the U.S. to agree to in order for relations to improve: to not get in the way in the country’s development, to respect China’s claims over places like Taiwan and to respect Beijing’s Communist Party rule.
While Biden came in to the G20 with a better position thanks to the Senate victory, he is up for reelection in two years.
The meeting could lead to better ties between the world’s top economic powerhouses. Hong Kong’s Stock markets were up on Tuesday while mainland China’s stock markets were up.
The goal of the meeting was to build a floor under the relationship between Washington and Beijing, according to Neil Thomas.
Ken Cheung, chief Asian foreign exchange strategist at Mizuho Bank, said the meeting was positive and that the two sides are keen to find common ground.
The Hang Seng Index, Chinese Technology, and Chinese Prime Minister Xi on Tuesday: Predictions for an In-Person Diplomacy between China and Australia
On Tuesday, the Hang Seng index rallied 4% and was on track for a third straight day of gains. The index, boosted by China’s latest policy shift towards a gradual reopening of borders and a sweeping rescue package for the ailing property sector, has soared 14% since last Thursday.
Chinese technology shares, which had been hammered by a regulatory crackdown at home and rising geopolitical tension abroad, led markets higher on Tuesday. Alibaba shares shot up by 11% in Hong Kong, followed by Tencent, which was up 10%.
Biden’s reiteration of the US position on Taiwan and its “One China” policy was helpful, they said, as was Xi speaking out against the use of nuclear weapons by Russia.
“This was far more progress than we, or indeed most commentators had expected, and dominates what may otherwise turn out to have been a fairly irrelevant G20 summit,” the ING analysts said.
Scott Morrison had brief talks with President Putin of Russia at the G20 in Japan in 2019. But it has been six years since leaders from the two sides have held a formal bilateral meeting, after then Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s sit-down with Xi at the G20 in the Chinese city of Hangzhou in 2016.
In a sign of Xi’s busy schedule, the Chinese leader and French President Emmanuel Macron squeezed in a meeting early on Tuesday, before both leaders showed up at the opening of the G20 summit.
China supports a stop to war and peace negotiations in the Ukrainian situation, according to a statement from the Chinese state media.
France, like other European countries, has hardened its position on China in recent years, increasingly viewing the country as a competitor and security concern.
Most of the time, Xi restricted his diplomatic activities to virtual summits and video conferences, choosing to stay within China rather than travel overseas.
But the most anticipated in-person diplomacy by Xi on Tuesday is perhaps his meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, partly because ties between Beijing and Canberra have frayed significantly over the past years.
The two countries have been locked in a bruising trade dispute and diplomatic freeze since early 2020, when China slapped tariffs on Australia following its call for an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus.
The United States and China’s Foreign Ministry are at odds over Taiwan, South China Sea and South Pacific: Albanese, Lee, and Sullivan
Announcing his meeting with Xi after arriving in Bali on Monday, Albanese said having the meeting alone is a “successful outcome,” pointing to the lack of dialogue at the top level for years.
It is not in Australia’s interest to not have a dialogue with our trading partners, he told reporters.
John Lee, a former national security adviser to the Australian government, said that the core Chinese objectives of the South China Sea, Taiwan and South Pacific policies are at odds with Australia’s core interests.
“It may be a diplomatic reset of some sorts but not one in substance where both sides begin to genuinely approach each other in good faith and a preparedness to compromise,” Lee added.
There’s worry in Seoul that if US forces are drawn into any conflict with China over Taiwan, South Korea will look vulnerable in the eyes of Kim Jong Un in nuclear-armed North Korea.
“We can ensure that this contingency never comes to pass with responsible stewardship, but there is a risk of conflict with respect to Taiwan.” He told Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep it was his responsibility.
“The U.S. must take seriously China’s legitimate concerns, stop containing and suppressing China’s development, and particularly stop using salami tactics to constantly challenge China’s red line,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Sullivan’s comments about Taiwan are part of an interview that touched on a number of other national security concerns, including semiconductors, Ukraine and the Middle East.
I would rather not say what a military contingency would look like. But I will say this. When we entered office, more than 90% of the most advanced semiconductors were produced in Taiwan. The majority of it was produced in the Republic of Korea. It was zero percent produced in the United States.
Two things have been done by the US in the last two years. First, we’ve said we are going to invest once again in the United States of America being a manufacturing powerhouse for semiconductors. The United States is no longer going to allow advanced chips designed in the US to be used in the weapons systems of countries that are our strategic competitors, like the PRC.
The flow of chemicals that go into the drug Fentanyl that are killing tens of thousands of Americans can be reduced by the United States and China.
That does not erase the fact that we have fundamental differences and different disagreements with the PRC, and we are not going to be shy about those, whether it’s speaking out on human rights, whether it is pushing back against provocative actions around Taiwan, whether it is the ways in which the PRC acts in an intimidating and coercive way against its neighbors.
Semiconductors, Security and Security: The State of the State of Israel after the COVID-19 Crisis and the Development of the Middle East
Semiconductors, as many people have now learned, actually just since the COVID-19 pandemic, are fundamental to the powering of our economy across the board, whether it’s our cars or our appliances or any of our high tech products, our iPhones, computers and so forth. Military power is dependent on Semiconductors. It is semiconductors that that power the guidance systems for advanced missiles, it is semiconductors that are in every part of a nuclear submarine.
The invasion ofUkraine has given the forces trying to transform the world a boost and gave a clue as to the direction of US foreign policy.
The first thing that I intend to convey is the fact that […] the United States is absolutely committed to Israel’s security, and that’s not going to change. President Biden has been a fundamental and stalwart supporter of the state of Israel for as long as he’s been in public service. Second, we’re going to talk through the challenges and opportunities in the Middle East region. The threat from Iran is one of the significant challenges. There are real opportunities, including what you’ve seen between Israel and some of the Arab states.
We are still in favor of the two state solution and we will fight against policies and practices that attempt to undermine it, or that attempt to end the historic status quo in Jerusalem. I will direct you on those points.
Biden called out Beijing on Tuesday before millions of viewers in the US and around the world as diplomatic tensions with China soar and new details emerge of an expansive Chinese balloon surveillance program.
China initially struck a contrite tone about the balloon, saying that it was a weather craft that had drifted off course. In the wake of the United States shooting down three other objects that it now concedes were probably innocuous craft, Beijing softened its tone.
Biden’s Address to Putin: Standing With Democracies Against Russia and the China of the People’s Republic (New York Daily News)
Domestic issues were the focus of Biden’s speech. At a time of turmoil, his address came at a time when the United States is facing another nuclear rival: Russia. He promised the ambassador of the Ukrainian nation that he would stand with him as long as it took to counter Putin.
Biden specifically named Xi, in an ad-libbed addition to the speech, as he decried autocracies and argued for the superiority of democracies.
The meeting on Saturday night came two weeks after Mr. Blinken abruptly canceled a long-planned trip to Beijing intended as a step toward soothing relations between the United States and China that have been inflamed in recent years, with some analysts worried about the growing potential for future military conflict.
A State Department description of Mr. Blinken’s message to Mr. Wang, using the abbreviation for the People’s Republic of China, said the United States “will not stand for any violation of our sovereignty, and that the P.R.C.’s high-altitude surveillance programs — which has intruded into the air space of over 40 countries across 5 continents, has been exposed to the world.”
His remarks on Russia immediately proceeded those on China, making it impossible to miss the symbolic synergy between his policy toward both nations as he laid out what might be seen as a Biden doctrine of standing with democracies against autocracies and increasing attempts by nations like Russia and China to apply their power outside their borders.
In addition to her column, a former CNN producer and correspondent is also a world affairs columnist. She is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review. Her views are her own, that’s what this commentary is about. There are more opinions on CNN.
Xi: Is he or Putin? The Iranian president visits China to implement a strategic cooperation pact with the United States
Russian President Putin stood beside the Chinese President in February of last year. Putin was still denying plans to invade Ukraine, which he would do just after the end of the Beijing Winter Olympics.
In a show of unity, the leaders of the nuclear powers said they would have a relationship with no limits. It looked like a pivotal moment in a global realignment of power.
A year after Putin made his push for a quick victory in the Balkans, it appears that the alliance is not as valuable to him now as it once was.
In addition to fortifying NATO and strengthening alliances, which President Joe Biden’s administration has accomplished with great success, the US must aim to forestall the creation of a credible, unified force of aggressive antidemocratic regimes.
But the rule of the strongest doesn’t work when you can’t win, which is how Russia’s plans started to unravel, and China had to rethink its commitment.
Is Xi in or out with Putin? It looks like he wants it both ways. He wants the relationship with a country that has invaded its neighbor without provocation, but he’s trying to present himself as a responsible global leader; an alternative to the democratic Western model for other countries to follow.
The US intelligence has it that Russia has bought some of the weaponry from North Korea, a dictatorship that denies involvement in a war in which morality is beyond the pale.
Iran told the world that it sold weapons before the war began, but they weren’t used inUkraine. Newly-declassified documents show the drones in Ukranian are the same ones used in the Middle East.
Iran, whose repressive, interventionist regime has also turned it, like Russia, into a pariah to much of the world, now finds itself being courted by both Moscow and Beijing.
This week, Ebrahim Raisi became the first Iranian president to visit China in 20 years. The trip, at Xi’s invitation, ostensibly aims to implement an agreement for a 25-year strategic cooperation pact the two reached at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in 2021.
Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress are worried that China could help Iran evade sanctions related to its nuclear and conventional weapons programs, support for terrorism, and human rights abuses.
The officials would not describe in detail what intelligence the US has seen suggesting a recent shift in China’s posture, but said US officials have been concerned enough that they have shared the intelligence with allies and partners at the Munich Security Conference over the last several days.
A senior State Department official said that the Secretary was very concerned about the consequences of China supporting Russia or assisting it with sanctions evasion.
Since the war began, Beijing has deepened its relationship with Moscow. “Looking ahead, any steps by China to provide lethal support to Russia would only reward aggression, continue the killing, and further undermine a rules-based order.”
“This warfare cannot continue to rage on. We need to think about what efforts we can make to bring this warfare to an end,” Wang said at the conference.
China is not listening to the Europeans: Observations from von der Leyen during an NBC interview with the Washington Post-Newtonian Security Conference
CNN asked von der Leyen if she believed that China was listening to the Europeans and not supporting Russia. She said that it has been seen so far.
As CNN previously reported, the Biden administration last month raised concerns with China about evidence it has suggesting that Chinese companies have sold non-lethal equipment to Russia for use in Ukraine, in an effort to ascertain how much Beijing knows about the transactions, according to two US officials.
We have told them that it would cause a serious problem for us and their relationship and we know that they do not want that to happen.
The US is keeping a close eye on any violations of western sanctions against Russia, as there are indications that Beijing may now be considering it, the officials said.
China and Russia had a public declaration of their friendship before Russia invaded Ukraine, and Wang is set to visit Russia this month, according to CNN.
The U.S. description of the meeting, which resumed diplomatic contact between Washington and Beijing after it broke down over the balloon episode, said nothing about how the Chinese official, Wang Yi, responded. There is an equally sharp exchange that was described in the summary on the Chinese state media.
The balloon incident highlighted how the two countries had failed in their attempts to forge a relationship of mutual respect and co-dependency, which President Biden often talks about during his speeches at the security conference.
Mr. Wang claimed that shooting down the balloon was an abuse of the use of force by the United States, and that they had violated the international convention governing airspace.
The U.S. Navy and the Coast Guard have since recovered much of the balloon’s equipment — contained in a payload about the size of a small regional airliner — and American officials have said they intend to make public details about the sensors they found. The craft was visible from the ground, which is contrary to China’s claim that it was a weather balloon.
In his interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” which was taped on Saturday night for broadcast on Sunday, Mr. Blinken said the United States would soon be offering new information to demonstrate Beijing was “strongly considering providing lethal assistance to Russia.”
While the State Department tried to portray Mr. Blinken’s tone as tough, the official statement on the meeting said he stressed to Mr. Wang the importance of maintaining diplomatic dialogue and open lines of communication.
Mr Wang had said during his Saturday speech at the conference that “the Cold War mentality is back” in global affairs.
The canceled trip and subsequent war of words set relations back further. After the shot down of the craft, the Defense Secretary requested a call from the Chinese counterpart, but they turned it down.
Despite the pointed rhetoric, said Danny Russel, a vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute, an independent research organization, “the fact that the meeting occurred and that both sides can claim to have delivered their points on the spy balloon may help the two sides put the incident behind them and move on to rescheduling Blinken’s trip to Beijing — which is where the real work needs to get done.”
Mr. Wang is trying to convince European leaders that China is interested in boosting ties with them and trying to play a role in ending the Ukrainian war. He said that China would soon offer a peace proposal to end the fighting. Mr. Blinken warned against cease-fires being used to regroup for new offensives.
As US President Joe Biden touched down in Ukraine to meet with his counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday, China’s top diplomat was traveling in the opposite direction, on his way to Russia.
Wang Yi, China’s top foreign policy adviser, is due to arrive in Moscow this week as part of his eight-day Europe tour, which could bring into focus China’s attempts to balance its diplomatic and economic relations with Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Beijing and Putin Talk at the Kremlin after the World War II: The Story of the Two-Dimensional Sino-American War
The two trips took place a week before the one-year anniversary of the war, and they show the sharper divide between the world’s two powers.
The propaganda messaging that regularly made China’s nightly prime-time news program was that the US is prolonging the war because it wants to add fuel to the fire.
He urged European officials to think about “what framework should there be to bring lasting peace to Europe, what role should Europe play to manifest its strategic autonomy.”
Is there a call for dialogue and peace? Who is giving out knives for confrontation? The international community can see clearly.
Beijing has avoided actions that could lead to secondary sanctions, which would deal a huge blow to the economy because of three years of costly zero- Covid policy.
Though Beijing claimed impartiality in the conflict and no advance knowledge of Russia’s intent, it has refused to condemn Moscow and parroted Kremlin lines blaming NATO for provoking the conflict.
Chinese officials have a different story to tell to different people. Wang may have made many appealing pledges during his Europe tour, but whether they will be translated into a consistent message to be delivered to the Russian leader Vladimir Putin when the two meet at the Kremlin this week is another question.
The recent war in Ukraine, Japan and the United States as a key player in the security of the Taiwan Strait: Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and the People’s Liberation Army
In the past few months alone, Japan has promised to double defense spending and acquire long-range weapons from the US, South Korea has acknowledged that it is essential to its security, and the Philippines has announced new US base access rights.
Analysts say all these things would have likely happened without the war in Ukraine, but the war, and China’s backing of Russia, has helped grease the skids to get these projects done.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told a defense conference in Singapore that he had a strong sense of impatience with the current state of Ukraine.
The December plan was to double Tokyo’s defense spending while acquiring weapons with ranges well outside of Japanese territory.
The situation in Ukraine has made the Japanese people feel more vulnerable as a nation, noted John Bradford, senior fellow at the S Rajaratman School of International Studies.
The People’s Liberation Army has been modernizing their forces for a long time. Beijing will increase its military budget by tical 7.2% in 2023. For the first time in the past decade, the military budget growth rate has increased for three consecutive years.
In his last report as premier, Li Keqiang said the armed forces should intensify military training and readiness across the board, develop new military strategic guidance, spend more energy training under combat conditions and make concerted efforts to strengthen military work.
“Peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is essential for peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, and it’s indispensable for security and prosperity of the region as a whole,” Foreign Minister Park Jin told CNN recently.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/05/asia/ukraine-war-us-pacific-alliances-intl-hnk/index.html
Xi Jinping questioned the United States: What has been wrong with China during the Ukraine war, and what it has taught us about the region
It signed a mulitibillion-dollar deal with Poland, Ukraine’s neighbor to the West and part of the US-led NATO alliance, for all of those items. It is also selling them in the region.
The former president was looking for ways to work with Bejing and not Washington. The analysts said that Ferdinand Marcos Jr., his successor, has shown he is eager to work with the US and its allies.
“It is difficult for the new Marcos administration to justify accommodating Beijing’s policy preferences when previous attempts at doing so by the previous government were not reciprocated,” said Jeffrey Ordaniel, director of maritime security at the Pacific Forum and an assistant professor at Tokyo International University.
“Beijing’s continued bullying, like we saw in the case of the China Coast Guard blinding Philippines Coast Guard sailors with a laser (recently), has only helped to make the case for a stronger alliance” with Washington, said Blake Herzinger, a nonresident fellow and Indo-Pacific defense policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute.
“Singapore and Vietnam have become even more open to greater US footprints in the region. They don’t want China to dominate Southeast Asia,” Ordaniel said.
The Quad alliance linking the US, Japan, Australia and India has not been helped by the Ukraine war according to analysts.
India refused to join the US, Australia, and Japan in condemning Russia. India claimed that the Quad only tackles Indo-Pacific challenges, and since Russia isn’t in the region, this topic cannot be broached,” said Derek Grossman, senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation.
BEIJING – Chinese leader Xi Jinping name-checked the United States in remarks during the annual session of parliament under way in Beijing this week, saying it was leading Western countries in an effort to encircle and suppress China.
The rare comment of China’s new foreign minister and former ambassador to the US, was followed by a torrent of criticism and ridicule towards Washington.
Xi, Yu, Min and Kewalramani: How China has influenced the development of democracy in the world, and how China will respond to the crisis
The delegates to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference are at a break in the proceedings of the National People’s Congress.
Top leaders in China rarely single out other countries or leaders by name for criticism, preferring to leave it implicit or refer vaguely to “some countries” or “individual countries.”
Qin also slammed the U.S. for talking about respecting sovereignty and territorial integrity when it comes to Ukraine but not Taiwan, a self-governed island that Beijing says is part of China. “Why does the U.S. ask China not to provide weapons to Russia while it keeps selling arms to Taiwan?” Qin said.
“If the United States does not hit the brakes, but continues to speed down the wrong path, no amount of guardrails can prevent derailing, and there will surely be conflict and confrontation,” he said.
China’s leaders and propaganda are closely followed by a person with the Takshashila institution in India, named Manoj Kewalramani. He said the explicit naming of America by Xi was a signal of the level of unhappiness.
Kewalramani said the balloon crisis angered Chinese officials and may have been the trigger for this shift. He did not think China’s policy would change substantively.
“By directly pointing to the U.S. as the source of major problems around the world, by name, you feel like that sets the possibility for China to potentially take substantive actions that they haven’t been willing to take before,” he said.
Security confronts China: Australia’s decision to end the world on a nuclear submarine is not a puzzle: what do the Chinese can do about it?
This month, Australia struck a deal with the U.S. and the U.K. to acquire nuclear-powered submarine technology. It’s a significant moment for the country that it has decided to side with the two world powers.
What’s the big deal? It’s rare for the US to make such a move, but it’s also indicative of the importance of Australia to the Biden administration.
The whole of this place is covered by submarines. We’re also talking about a series of collaborations in cyber, in artificial intelligence, in quantum, on unmanned underwater vehicles — a host of different technologies.
I think from Beijing’s perspective, Australia is a bit of a puzzling case because it’s a smaller state. And because they have prospered it doesn’t exactly make sense from a Chinese perspective why the Australians have asserted their own sovereignty quite so strongly. And frankly, I think the reason why you’ve seen such anger emanating from Beijing is not so much what Australia has done, but the fact that Australia as a middle-sized democratic power, has set an alternative example about how states can stand up, protect their own sovereignty, and not simply buck to the demands of the Chinese state.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/24/1165644709/china-us-australia-security-confrontation-politics-submarines
A New chapter in our history: Technology, Security, Stability, and Security in the Infrared Gulf of the Intra-Pacific
Today, we’re going to demonstrate a next chapter in our history. I’m very happy that you have agreed to share this technology for the second time. And I think it will make a difference in advancing security and stability in the region.
Today, as we stand at the inflection point in history, where the hard work of announcing deterrence and enhancing stability is going to reflect peace and stability for decades to come, the United States can ask for no better partners in the Indo-Pacific where so much of our shared future will be written.