Cheng Xiaonong: A New U.S.-China Encounter Begins

There has been a recent spate of various news about U.S.-China relations. Will the tensions between Trump and the Chinese Communist Party ease after Biden takes office? This is a question of global concern, and the Chinese Communist Party is even more anxious. However, U.S.-China relations are not a one-man show for the United States alone, and the CCP’s conflicting diplomatic and military postures have greatly reduced the likelihood of a de-escalation.

Before Biden’s inauguration, U.S.-China relations had in fact entered a cold war, but it was not Trump who initiated this cold war, but the CCP. In the first half of last year, the Chinese Communist Party made three consecutive nuclear threats to the United States, comparable to the Cuban missile crisis caused by the Soviet Union’s placement of nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962. At the beginning of last year, the Chinese naval fleet forced its way into the U.S. base at Midway Island and, under the guise of exercises, declared that it could attack Pearl Harbor with nuclear missiles; in March last year, the Communist Party announced that it had occupied the entire South China Sea and reached the coasts of Indonesia and the Philippines as “launching positions” for strategic nuclear submarines against the U.S. threat; in June last year, the Communist Party announced again that it had completed the Beidou satellite navigation system, which could In June last year, the Chinese Communist Party announced that it had completed the Beidou satellite navigation system, which could achieve precise nuclear missile strikes against the entire U.S. territory. Thirty years after the end of the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, the U.S. once again encountered a blatant nuclear threat from another Red power, so Trump began to launch a comprehensive counterattack in the military, espionage, economic and political fields in July last year, and the U.S. and China thus entered a Cold War.

Biden succeeded, and the Chinese Communist Party is eager to improve Sino-U.S. relations economically and diplomatically. The first is to remove tariffs and resume large-scale exports to the U.S. The second is to remove financial controls and resume the operation of Chinese companies to make money in the U.S. The third is to remove technology controls and restore its “freedom” to steal intellectual property. After Biden came to power, he only suspended the discussion on the restriction of investment in Chinese military and industrial enterprises, but otherwise “special rules and regulations follow”.

The Chinese Communist Party seemed to be impatient, first letting the Wall Street Journal leak that Beijing intended to send Yang Jiechi to visit the U.S.; then on January 26, its mouthpiece Dovetail News published an article titled “Xi Jinping Leaves Little Time for Biden”, urging Biden to make an early decision; then on January 29, Wang Qishan shouted at Biden, and his Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng also called on the U.S. to adjust its strategy toward China to achieve “The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been shining its sword frequently.

The Chinese Communist Party frequently shines its sword. The situation can hardly be eased.

However, the U.S. seems to be ignoring the CCP’s appeals, and its key considerations are two. The first is the lack of domestic tranquility, and the fact that troops in Washington dare not withdraw, both in case Trump supporters protest again, and in case Antifa, the far-left Rangers who hold the “sickle and axe” banner, cause trouble. Biden is facing a domestic political situation that is unique in the history of the United States, while the Chinese are reminded of Zhao Kuangyin’s “yellow robe, the sound of the axe and the shadow of the candle”. Second, the Pacific Ocean is not at peace, and the Chinese Communist Party’s military threat against the United States is gradually accelerating. Although the Chinese Communist Party’s plan to expand its aircraft carrier fleet is not progressing fast, its nuclear submarine fleet is exploring underwater routes into the Central Pacific Ocean from the “deep sea fortress” it occupies in the South China Sea. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been seeking to turn the underwater nuclear threat used as a secondary nuclear strike force in the Cold War into a ready nuclear threat to the United States.

To this end, since last fall, the Chinese Communist Party has not only repeatedly attempted to breach the Bus Strait with nuclear submarines, but has also used unmanned underwater vehicles in the Java Sea of Indonesia to gather hydrographic information on submarine shipping lanes in order to open a “deep sea fortress” southern shipping lane into the Central Pacific via the Java Sea and the northern coast of Australia.

On January 23, the USS Roosevelt carrier battle group entered the South China Sea to declare freedom of navigation in the international waters of the South China Sea, both to break the “deep sea bastion” of Chinese nuclear submarines in the South China Sea and to support the U.S. submarines battling Chinese nuclear submarines underwater in the waters southwest of Taiwan. Prior to that, from January 2 to 9, and then from 11 to 20, the Communist forces deployed anti-submarine aircraft or telecommunication jammers almost daily to reconnoiter the waters off the border of Fujian and Guangdong, seemingly to detect the U.S. submarines that were following the Communist Party’s modified nuclear-powered submarines.

The U.S. military countermeasures cannot be stopped, as the U.S. Navy announced late last year a new fleet to defend the South Pacific in response to the Communist Party’s naval activities in the region. The Chinese Communist Party has maintained its military posture of assertiveness and has been pressing forward since the start of its military expansion and war preparations.