President Xi Jinping has gotten to the point, when receiving Secretary of State Antony Blinken: “China and the US should be partners, instead of rivals.” “We hope that the US sees China’s progress as something positive. The planet is large enough to accommodate the prosperity of both,” added the Chinese president, this Friday in Beijing.
Until the last moment, his meeting with the head of American diplomacy, which closes three days of official visit to China, has not been confirmed. The main course this morning was a five-hour meeting – lunch included – with his counterpart Wang Yi. The Chinese Foreign Minister has recognized a “positive stabilization” of the relationship between the two great powers, after the meeting of their heads of state last fall in San Francisco. Something corroborated hours later by Xi himself. However, Wang has let it slip that it is in Washington’s hands to continue down that path or fall back into a negative spiral. Something that, according to him, would have consequences not only for both countries, but for the entire world.
In any case, the head of Chinese diplomacy wanted to highlight the progress in several issues of mutual interest, especially narcotics control, a very sensitive issue in a nation on which the British Empire imposed two Opium Wars to convert Hong Kong. Kong in the center of drug trafficking. The equivalent of opium for 19th century China is today, for the United States, fentanyl, the leading cause of death for its adult population under 50 years of age. At Washington’s request, Beijing would have introduced greater controls on the export of active ingredients used in the production of this drug.
The second visit of the head of American diplomacy to China in twelve months ends with a more positive tone than the first, last June. Washington then had fewer open fronts, since the war in Ukraine did not seem lost and the carnage of Hamas had not yet occurred, nor the subsequent unbridled revenge of the Israeli Tsahal, with weapons and projectiles of mostly American manufacture.
Four days ago, Antony Blinken finally spoke of “genocide and crimes against humanity”, but he did so in reference to the treatment of the Uighur minority in Xinjian, Chinese Turkestan. He also did so a few hours before embarking for China, where he has spent the last three days. A face-to-face meeting that the Secretary of State has defended in the name of “clarity”, in order to “avoid misunderstandings and miscalculations.”
His government has also criticized China in recent days for its exports to Russia, not only of weapons, but of dual-use manufactures and even raw materials. However, there is no evidence that the Chinese government has introduced any objection to the United States alliances, including Aukus, the defensive tripartite with the United Kingdom and Australia that has China, openly, in the target.
Likewise, its president, Joe Biden, in the pre-campaign, has threatened to triple tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum. The Wall Street Journal, for its part, goes even further and suggests that some Chinese banks could be sanctioned by the United States and expelled from the American-based international banking system. The reason, its alleged collaboration with Russia – whose economy is growing much more than that of the rest of Europe – so that its companies can circumvent Western sanctions. The identity of these banks is unclear, but the world’s top four banks by asset value are all Chinese.
To all this we must add the more than likely ban in the United States of TikTok, the globally successful Chinese application. It seems to have done little good for China to have half-opened the door to Mastercard, the American debit card. The fact is that, if the US ban on Chinese apps may be arbitrary and malicious, it is still a symmetrical response to the ban in China of most US apps and social networks, from WhatsApp to Facebook, including X (The Chinese have high quality national alternatives). The suspicion, it seems, is shared.
On the other hand, Biden continues to arm Taiwan to the teeth and affirms more emphatically than any other American president in half a century that his country would defend the Republic of China from hypothetical aggression by the People’s Republic of China.
In any case, Beijing and Washington recognize a certain detente in the Taiwan Strait, compared to the prevailing situation throughout last year. Of course, any support for the secession of the island of Chinese population and culture is part of the red lines drawn by Beijing and that Wang has pointed out again today, linked to “the sovereignty, security and development of China.”
Although the pulse remains in the South China Sea, the United States acts with greater discretion, pushing the territorial claims of the Philippines of Ferdinand Marcos Jr., while reopening military bases in the archipelago, something that has already been deplored by the previous president , Rodrigo Duterte.
Secretary Antony Blinken has joined the chorus of voices openly expressing fears that Chinese electric cars will bury domestic automotive industries. While Washington talks about “overproduction”, the European Union – which for many is synonymous with subsidy – has decided to attack the flank of Chinese state aid, describing it as unfair competition. A swampy territory, given the enormous European aid for the energy transition or the US federal subsidies for reindustrialization. Saving the planet takes a second place if it is to save jobs in Shanghai or Shenzhen, rather than at home.
It should be said that Blinken’s visit comes a week after that of the chancellor of a stagnant Germany, Olaf Scholz, whose industry is experiencing with great concern the economic consequences of the war in Ukraine and the cooling of the commercial relationship with China. Beijing, by the way, has coincided today’s high-level meeting with the launch of its Shenzhou-18 manned spacecraft, heading to the Chinese Tiangong space station. Another China, another world.
