Secretary of State Blinken talks about the Biden administration’s priorities in the State Department’s Franklin Room. (March 3, 2021)
Secretary of State John S. Blinken on Wednesday (March 3) declared the U.S. relationship with the Chinese Communist Party to be the world’s “greatest geopolitical test” of the century.
In an advance copy of Blinken’s first major policy address, Blinken said the new Biden Administration would “manage” its relationship with the Chinese Communist Party “from a position of strength.
“This requires engagement in diplomacy and in international organizations, because where we have withdrawn, China has taken advantage of the situation,” Blinken said in the statement, released hours before his speech at State Department headquarters in Washington.
The chief U.S. diplomat said Washington will continue to compete, cooperate and, if necessary, “confront” China. He said China is “the only country that has the economic, diplomatic, military and technological strength to pose a significant challenge to a stable and open international system – all those rules, values and relationships that we want the world to function that way.”
Blinken’s speech laid out President Biden’s strategy to “renew American dominance” on the global stage, vowing to “lead through diplomacy.
Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, waged a trade war against Beijing throughout his presidency. Trump also strongly signaled that the Chinese Communist virus was leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, and challenged China’s military control of the disputed South China Sea.
Other major foreign policy goals of the Biden administration include efforts to contain the global Communist virus pandemic, build a more inclusive global economy and address the growing global threat to democracy, according to a transcript of Blinken’s speech.
Blinken also said last month that the Biden administration would also seek to strengthen and expand the nuclear deal Iran has reached with world powers.
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