During China’s “two sessions”, Foreign Minister Wang Yi appeared at a press conference at the National People’s Congress, where he drew three untouchable “red lines” against the United States in early February (Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Xinjiang, Tibet), this Time mentioning only one for Taiwan. Some media cheered that China is afraid. This, coupled with the fact that Beijing was recently condemned by the U.S. for “attacking democratic institutions” by amending Hong Kong’s election law, and that Beijing, ever vindictive, did not seize on the Democratic Party’s “H.R. 1” to criticize it this time, reinforces the idea that China is afraid. Actually, it’s not.
Why hasn’t Beijing exchanged barbs with Washington over the election law?
On the eve of the two sessions, Beijing proposed to amend the Election Committee that elects Hong Kong’s leaders by saying it would amend the methods for selecting Hong Kong’s Chief Executive and Legislative Council and Annexes I and II of the Basic Law. In late February, the Hong Kong government formally charged 47 people who participated in last year’s pro-democracy primaries with “conspiracy to subvert state power” for participating in unofficial primary elections for the Legislative Council. Beijing’s move does leave Hong Kong’s quasi-democratic system in name only, moving closer to one country, one system.
But the H.R. 1 bill recently passed by the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives, which it controls, is also aimed at undermining American democracy in the name of serving the people. The bill would institutionalize the way the Democrats harvest votes in the 2020 election, such as allowing no ID verification at the polls, allowing mail-in ballots with a 10-day delay, giving 16-17-year-olds the right to vote, paid party workers filling out ballots in nursing homes and shelters, and having the National Election Commission staffed only by members of the ruling party, among other things. The Republican Party, which has always been insensitive, realized that this bill would create a long-term Democratic one-party rule.
According to China’s foreign propaganda practice, deeply criticizing and exposing H.R. 1 is the best way to clear the name of the Chinese Communist Party‘s amendment to Hong Kong’s election law, but Beijing actually let go of this great opportunity to expose the hypocrisy of American democracy. The answer is given in the March 5 article “Washington’s Intensive Statement on U.S.-China Relations” by the foreign propaganda media Dovetail: Beijing is expecting Biden to adjust his China Policy because the U.S. will not change its position as a “strategic competitor” to China, and the Biden Administration recognizes that it is not realistic to crush China and that the U.S. needs a way to get along with China that ensures the U.S. can maintain its advantage. The Biden administration recognizes that it is not realistic to defeat China and that the United States needs a way of dealing with China that ensures that the U.S. can maintain its advantage.
This judgment is not a figment of the imagination. A few days after taking office, the Biden administration renewed its ban on investment in specific Chinese military companies on Jan. 27. The ban on investment in 44 land-based companies, including SMIC and CNOOC, which was scheduled to go into effect Jan. 28, will be delayed until May, during which time investment in companies with names similar to those already on the blacklist will be allowed. Cabinet appointments are mostly pro-Chinese: Secretary of State Blinken was originally the founder of Western Consulting, whose strong point in soliciting business is their special relationship with the Chinese government. The U.S. Commerce Department is currently reviewing a ban on Chinese Communist tech giant Tencent Holdings, which is owned by new Commerce Secretary Raimondo and her husband, according to a financial filing. U.S. Trade Representative nominee Katherine Tai, who comes from a Chinese Family, came to Guangzhou to teach English at Sun Yat-sen University from 1996 to 1998 as a Yale Yale-China Fellow.
All of this, in the eyes of the Chinese government, is considered a friendly signal released by the Biden administration, which is just in the way of domestic public opinion and is not easy to turn around for a while.
Hong Kong is no longer and Tibetan border was never a bargaining chip in U.S.-China relations
The Heritage Foundation released a new edition of its Global Economic Freedom Index on March 4, and Hong Kong, which had been in first place for 25 years, has been dropped from the list this year after falling to second place last year, and will be included in China’s assessment of economic freedom. The Heritage Foundation’s rationale is that Hong Kong’s economic policy is clearly controlled by Beijing, has lost its political freedom and autonomy over the past two years, and is no longer different from other Chinese cities such as Shanghai and Beijing – a change that suggests Hong Kong will no longer be a topic of conversation in Sino-American relations.
As for the Tibetan issue, even the Dalai Lama’s hardcore supporters in the United States understand that His Holiness is getting old and Beijing is biding its time. On the Muslim issue in Xinjiang, less than half of the world’s Islamic countries have joined the criticism of China, far less than the outpouring of condemnation of French Prime Minister Macron’s anti-Islamism proposal, which was passed by the French parliament in mid-February by a wide margin (a vote of 347 in favor, 151 against, and 65 MPs abstaining). Switzerland held a referendum on March 7 to vote on whether to ban the wearing of burqas that cover the entire face in public places. The vote was 51.21% in favor of banning the burqa in public. Today, “No Radical Islam!” and “No Extremism!” can be seen on the streets of Swiss cities. and “No Extremism!” posters can be seen on the streets of Swiss cities.
Now that Europe, which considers the admission of Islamic immigrants to be “politically correct,” has become “politically incorrect,” the Chinese Communist government can wait for the Western world to adjust itself. This is why Taiwan is the only one left of the “three red lines” that the United States has been asked not to touch.
In 2020, Xi Jinping will indeed become more proud
Since last year, the Covid-19 Epidemic originated in China, which hurt the U.S.; coupled with the rumors of Chinese interference in the U.S. election, which were confirmed by the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, and the interests of Biden and Democratic Party politicians with China, which were filtered out by the mainstream U.S. media, but continued to be reported by the small and medium-sized U.S. media, the U.S. public has a poor impression of China. According to a Pew Center poll, 89 percent of Americans view the Chinese Communist Party as a “competitor” or “enemy,” and 82 percent of Americans do not trust Xi Jinping to properly handle international affairs. Under such circumstances, the Biden administration has no way to reverse the Trump administration’s China policy by 180 degrees, and can only adopt a “strategic ambiguity” approach to deal with it.
However, the electoral politics in democratic countries is a kind of proxy system, and the four-yearly election in the United States is only a renewal of the mandate by the voters, and once the mandate is established, the government is quite autonomous in its domestic and foreign policies. Biden issued dozens of presidential decrees, in the immigration issue met with Latin American immigrants into the U.S. gate Texas resolutely resisted; encourage teenagers without parental consent can be independent transgender, but met with the LGBT group resistance (refused to marry transgender), green energy and even met with Democratic Party lawmakers boycott, the implementation of difficulties; foreign policy, to make allies together to fight China for France and Germany rejected, although the United States will The U.S. is prepared to cooperate with China in areas that are in the U.S. national interest, although it has designated China as its “most serious competitor”. For China, the H.R. 1 election bill to consolidate the results of the 2020 elections can form a long-lasting Democratic Party in power in the United States, and the United States is inevitably in decline, so there is no need to criticize each other, let your own family toss.
What happens in the United States 2020, the world is clear. Xi Jinping, the general secretary of the Communist Party of China, made a surprising statement during the “two sessions”: “China can already look at the world on an equal footing”, after talking about the international situation in an internal speech to county-level cadres nationwide, making the statement that “the West is strong and the East is weak The “West is strong and the East is weak” is the stock, is the history, “East is up and West is down” is the increment, is the future of the political judgment; in talking about the strategic game between China and the United States, made “the biggest source of chaos in the world today in the United States”, ” The United States is the biggest threat to China’s development and security”. This shows that Xi Jinping is not afraid of the United States to reduce the “three red lines” to one, but simply do not need to mention.
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