Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Chinese Communist Party officials for the first Time on Friday, February 5. During the call, he repeatedly addressed human rights issues, saying the U.S. would stand up for and defend human rights and democratic values in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong. He also reiterated that Washington will work with allies to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for threatening peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, including across the Taiwan Strait.
The Chinese Communist Party official who spoke with Blinken was Yang Jiechi, director of the CCP’s Foreign Affairs Working Committee Office. In his call with Blinken, Yang asked the United States to “correct” its recent mistakes and that “both sides must respect each other’s political systems and development paths. Speaking at an online forum on Feb. 2, Yang also called on the United States to “stop interfering” in issues related to China’s sovereignty, including Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Tibet.
In his speech on Feb. 1, Yang also warned the Biden administration not to cross Beijing‘s “red line. He also took aim at the Trump administration, saying its “wrong policies” had led to the “most difficult period” in bilateral relations since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
However, during the call, Blinken repeatedly touched on the so-called “red line” of the Chinese Communist Party and reiterated the U.S. position on human rights issues. On the Taiwan issue, Blinken told Yang Jiechi during the call that the U.S. would work with allied partners to defend each other’s shared values and interests and hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for its actions that threaten the stability of the Indo-Pacific region, including across the Taiwan Strait, and undermine the international system based on international rules.
On Wednesday, February 3, the BBC released a report that women in the Xinjiang concentration camp in China were severely abused and that “several former detainees and a guard told the BBC that they had experienced and seen organized and systematic crimes of mass rape, sexual abuse and torture.”
In response to the report, the State Department issued a statement the same day saying the U.S. was “deeply troubled” by the facts in the report and said the Chinese Communist Party must face serious consequences for these atrocities.
President Biden said Thursday, Feb. 4, that China is “our most serious competitor” and that Washington will continue to confront China’s “attacks on human rights, intellectual property and global governance. But Biden also said he was “prepared to work with Beijing, however, when it is in the U.S. interest to do so.”
China affairs commentator Tang Jingyuan said the Chinese Communist regime is using a combination of hard and soft pressure on the Biden Administration to restart official talks with the United States. He sees Yang Jiechi’s recent speech as an example of a soft strategy, while the recent invasion of Taiwan airspace and sanctions against former U.S. officials are hawkish tactics. Tang believes that the Communist regime ultimately still wants to negotiate “back to the days when human rights and business were disconnected” so that the regime can continue to do business with the United States and ignore human rights issues.
The Trump Administration has been confronting the Communist Party over China’s human rights abuses against Falun Gong practitioners, Hong Kong people, Muslim minorities, Tibetans and Uighurs, imposing visa restrictions and sanctions on senior Communist Party officials. In addition, Pompeo last month labeled the persecution of the Uighurs and other Muslim majorities as genocide and “Crimes Against Humanity.
During the Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Justice filed more prosecutions for Chinese trade secret theft and related crimes in 2019 than it did during the eight years of the Obama administration.
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