The U.S. State Department announced on October 10 that Blinken (1st from left) and Sullivan (2nd from left) will travel to Alaska on the 18th to meet with Yang Jiechi (3rd from left) and Wang Yi (4th from left). (composite photo)
The United States and China have announced that U.S. Secretary of State John Blinken and National Security Advisor Sullivan will meet with Chinese Communist Party Politburo member Yang Jiechi and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Alaska. With the lowest temperature in Alaska currently at -18 degrees, the two sides chose to meet in the Arctic Circle, far from Washington, D.C. The connotation behind the meeting has led to speculation.
The State Department announced on the 10th that Secretary of State Blinken will visit Asian allies Japan and South Korea from the 15th to the 18th, and will go to Anchorage, Alaska with National Security Advisor Sullivan when he returns to the U.S. on the 18th to meet with Yang Jiechi, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, and Wang Yi, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the CPC.
This will be the first high-level meeting between the U.S. and China since the Biden administration took office, and is seen as a new overture by the U.S. and Chinese governments. Both sides are currently in the shouting and deployment stage, and the location of the first meeting in the icy, bitterly cold far north has drawn interpretation from all walks of Life.
Both sides chose the Arctic Circle as the venue for their talks
The Free Times reported that according to the weather report, the lowest temperature in Anchorage reached -18 degrees when the two sides announced the venue of the talks on the 11th, which is suspected to define the relationship between the two sides running below zero, whether the two sides can break the ice, the degree of difficulty is quite high. But the Chinese side interpreted the friendly side of the dynasty, referring to the location and Washington and Beijing equal distance, the Epidemic is relatively moderate.
According to international media predictions, the first meeting between the two sides is more difficult and has a decisive impact on the future direction of bilateral relations to some extent. Beijing authorities began by calling the meeting a “strategic dialogue,” but Blinken later corrected them. Blinken emphasized that the Chinese Communist Party must make substantial progress and produce concrete results on issues of concern to the United States before the two sides will have follow-up contacts.
Pang Zhongying, an international relations expert and director of the Institute of Ocean Development at Ocean University of China, said the U.S. side’s rebuttal of China’s “strategic dialogue” was a hint that even though Beijing wants to “get back on track,” U.S.-China relations will not return to the days of former Presidents Bush and Obama. The Chinese Communist Party is in a passive quandary.
The Chinese Communist Party in a Passive Dilemma
On March 11, the Chinese Communist Party announced in high profile that Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi would meet with Blinken and Sullivan in Alaska on March 18-19 at the invitation of the U.S. side. Radio Free Asia mocked that “at the invitation of the U.S.” may seem dignified, but in fact it reflects a passive and embarrassing situation for China.
Since Chinese Vice Premier Liu He signed the “U.S.-China Phase I Trade Agreement” in Washington, D.C., the Chinese top brass has not been able to set foot in the political center of the United States. In June last year, Yang Jiechi met with Pompeo in Hawaii, the outer islands of the United States.
This Time, Blinken chose to meet with Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi far away from the U.S. mainland and across from Canada in Alaska. Blinken said the U.S. side will raise issues of concern to the U.S., including human rights in Xinjiang, and that the U.S. values concrete actions taken by the CCP to address these issues and the substantive results they produce.
Ears to the wind said that Blinken’s tone was aggressive, but Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi were still willing to move their boats to meet with Blinken in the Arctic Circle. The wind in our ears flirted with the idea that if the U.S. and China had high-level interactions in the future, would they choose Saipan, Guam, Midway, American Samoa, or even Kingman Reef?
According to external analysis, the U.S. side chose to meet with the Chinese side in the Arctic Circle, far away from the political center of the United States, coupled with the current climate of -18 degrees Celsius, which in terms of diplomatic etiquette means that the Chinese Communist Party is extremely cold, and it is difficult for both sides to break the ice.
The timing of the meeting between the two sides is clever
The timing of the meeting was very clever, as it was arranged after Biden’s quadrilateral summit with the heads of India, Japan and Australia, as well as the visits of Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to Japan and South Korea.
Biden attended a video conference on the 12th with the heads of state for a “quadripartite meeting,” which is seen as a “mini-NATO” meeting in Asia to defend against Communist expansion and discuss Beijing’s “provocative, coercive “In addition, Blinken and Austin will travel to Tokyo and Seoul from the 15th to the 18th for 2+2 talks with the foreign and defense ministers of Japan and South Korea.
For the U.S. high level of the above foreign affairs activities, and then held talks with the top level of the Chinese Communist Party. Martijn Rasser, a former advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Defense, told Radio Free Asia that the U.S. is sending a very clear signal to the Chinese Communist Party. The front and center of the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy is to engage with allies and partners, and to let Beijing know that it should not have unrealistic illusions that relations with Washington will magically reset.
Pang also said that this shows that Washington is exercising “skillful diplomacy” and seems to be “laying a net” for the Chinese Communist Party, especially since the U.S. side has said that although the U.S. and China will cooperate in some areas, conflict and competition are inevitable.
The White House press secretary, Sharkey, said recently that the U.S. side will discuss issues such as opacity and oppression of human rights with regard to Taiwan, Hong Kong and the Chinese Communist virus (Wuhan pneumonia) epidemic at the Alaska talks, as well as areas where the two sides can cooperate.
Patrick Cronin, director of Asia-Pacific security at the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank, said the Chinese side appears more anxious to meet than Washington.
Cronin said Xi is considering seeking space and time for dialogue on a “reset” of U.S.-China relations ahead of the major agendas of the Winter Olympics in Beijing in early 2022 and the 20th Communist Party Congress in the second half of the year. Biden’s concern is to focus his foreign policy on the Indo-Pacific region and to work closely with allies on issues that counter the Chinese Communist Party.
Recent Comments