On March 10, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken emphasized at a Senate Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that the meeting was not a “strategic dialogue” and that the two sides had no plans for follow-up contacts at this stage.
The U.S. and Chinese top brass will meet in Alaska on the 18th, and all sectors are concerned about how relations between the two countries will develop. During this period, U.S. warships and military aircraft have made moves around the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Wang Yi have made statements on U.S.-China relations and international issues.
The timing of Li Keqiang’s “concessions” at the “two sessions” is suspicious, according to current affairs commentator Li Linyi, as the Chinese Communist Party may once again buy Wall Street with concessions.
The United States in the Taiwan Strait South China Sea are actions analysis: intimidation of the Chinese Communist Party
On Thursday, March 18-19, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan will hold “2+2″ talks with Yang Jiechi, Director of the Foreign Affairs Office of the CPC Central Committee, and Wang Yi, State Councilor and Foreign Minister, in Anchorage, Alaska. ” talks in Anchorage, Alaska.
In addition to economic and Epidemic issues, the U.S. side said the talks will also cover Hong Kong, Taiwan and Xinjiang human rights issues.
Prior to the talks, U.S. warships and military aircraft have made moves around the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.
On March 10, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken used the word “country” in place of Taiwan in a rare question-and-answer session in the House of Representatives. He replied, “I share your view that Taiwan is a strong democracy with a very strong technological presence and a country that can contribute to the world, not just to its people.”
On March 11, the U.S. Navy announced that a U.S. Burke-class destroyer, USS John Finn (DDG 113), passed through the Taiwan Strait. In a statement, the U.S. Seventh Fleet said it was intended to “demonstrate the United States’ commitment to support freedom and openness in the Indo-Pacific region.
At 7 a.m. on March 8 during the “two sessions” of the Communist Party of China, a U.S. Air Force RC-135W electronic reconnaissance aircraft took off from Okinawa and conducted close reconnaissance along the coastlines of China’s Guangdong Province, Hainan Island and the Xisha Islands, reaching as far as Beibu Gulf airspace at one point. The reconnaissance aircraft flew to the southwest airspace of Xisha Islands, only 28.34 nautical miles from the baseline of the territorial waters. More unusually, the U.S. military aircraft turned on its ADS-B signal almost the entire Time, identifying itself as such.
Earlier, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi stressed that the Taiwan issue is the “red line” of the Chinese Communist Party during a Q&A session on March 7.
According to current affairs commentator Li Linyi, it is unclear whether Blinken’s statement was a slip of the tongue. The Biden administration’s current initiatives to intimidate the Chinese Communist Party may be related to the talks on the 18th. But whether Biden will be very tough on the Chinese Communist Party depends on his actual actions. on February 11, the Chinese New Year‘s Eve, Biden called Xi, posing as a gesture of goodwill to the Chinese Communist Party, while two days ago, on the 9th, the U.S. twin aircraft carriers Roosevelt and Nimitz also held exercises in the South China Sea.
Li Keqiang again threw “concessions,” which also appeared during the U.S.-China negotiations last year
In contrast to the United States, the Chinese Communist Party has also made moves.
Notably, on March 11, Li Keqiang said at a press conference that he would “guide financial enterprises to make reasonable concessions. This statement also came up around the time of the U.S.-China talks in June last year.
On June 17, 2020, then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Yang Jiechi in Hawaii. The Wall Street Journal described the talks as “saber-rattling”. On the same day, Li Keqiang held an executive meeting of the State Council to “guide financial institutions to make further reasonable concessions to enterprises”.
On March 28, 2020, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley took a controlling stake in their Chinese securities joint venture; on May 14, 2020, the Communist Party of China allowed Fitch Ratings to file and register its wholly owned company; on June 19, 2020, JPMorgan Chase was approved to take full control of a futures company. On June 19 of the same year, JPMorgan Chase was approved to take full control of a futures company; in August, another Wall Street giant, BlackRock, became the first foreign company to receive preliminary approval to open a wholly-owned public fund business in China; on Sept. 2, Citigroup was approved for securities investment fund custody business in China.
Li Linyi said Wall Street has started to gain ground in the financial sector of the Communist Party last year. The timing of Li Keqiang’s recent “concessions” is suspiciously coincidental. It is likely that the Chinese Communist Party will make even greater financial concessions in order to buy Wall Street and enlist the Biden Administration. In addition, the Chinese Communist Party has the North Korea, Iran and Burma cards in its hands, but it is difficult to say whether these cards will still work in the rapidly changing international situation.
According to a March 16 report by KCNA, Kim Woong-jung, sister of North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, issued a statement on March 15 warning the U.S. not to “create trouble” and “spread the smell of gunpowder. The U.S. has repeatedly contacted North Korea before, but has not received a response.
At a press conference at the March 7 meeting of the Chinese Communist Party’s National People’s Congress, Wang Yi responded to the Iran nuclear issue, saying he hoped the U.S. side would return to the comprehensive agreement as soon as possible.
China is the largest buyer of Iranian Crude Oil, importing 6 percent of total oil imports from Iran, reaching 30 million tons last year. In recent weeks, the sheer volume of Iranian crude imported by the Chinese Communist Party has threatened OPEC’s efforts to reduce production in the global market.
On March 10, the U.S. side took the lead in announcing that the two sides would meet, and on March 11, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang called for a “multi-faceted, multi-level dialogue between China and the U.S.” at a press conference at the “two sessions” on U.S.-China relations, saying, “We hope that the U.S. and China will have multi-faceted, multi-level dialogues, so that even if we cannot reach a consensus at the moment, we can exchange views, enhance trust and clear doubts. This is conducive to managing and resolving differences.”
Blinken does not recognize this as a “strategic dialogue”
The U.S. and China are already at odds over the positioning of the meeting before it even happens.
On the 11th, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said that China and the United States would hold a high-level “strategic dialogue” in the near future.
However, this claim was denied by the U.S. side, with Blinken stating that “this is not a strategic dialogue” and stressing that there would be no return to the high-level dialogue format of the past. Speaking at a Senate Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on March 10, Blinken said the U.S. has no intention of initiating a series of follow-up contacts with the Chinese Communist Party, and stressed that the U.S. will not make concessions in other areas in order to gain room for cooperation with the Chinese Communist Party.
Previously, the U.S. and China had a strategic security dialogue mechanism. Then-U.S. Executive Deputy Secretary Blinken chaired two such dialogues, the sixth U.S.-China Strategic Security Dialogue on June 5, 2016, and the fifth U.S.-China Strategic Security Dialogue on June 22, 2015. Then-Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui co-chaired it with Blinken.
Under Obama’s presidency, the “2+2” mechanism of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue was used to communicate with the Chinese Communist Party. The participants were the U.S. Secretary of State vs. the CCP State Councilor on the diplomatic side and the U.S. Treasury Secretary vs. the CCP Vice Premier on the economic side.
When Trump came to power, the Strategic and Economic Dialogue was eventually discontinued as relations between the two sides took a sharp turn for the worse.
This time around, the mechanism has changed to a “2+2” dialogue between the top levels of security and diplomacy, with the U.S. National Security Advisor vs. the Director of the CCP Foreign Affairs Office on the security side and the U.S. Secretary of State vs. the CCP State Councilor on the diplomatic side.
Cautious U.S.-China Contacts
The U.S. and China are currently engaged in cautious contacts on a number of projects.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the U.S. and Chinese governments will co-chair a G-20 study group focused on financial risks related to climate change. This is a cautious step by both sides in an area where the stakes are low.
Last month, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told finance ministers of other G20 members that the U.S. would co-chair the study group. A day later, Communist Party of China central bank governor Yi Gang said the Communist Party’s central bank was co-leading the study group. Neither the U.S. nor China mentioned the other in the announcement.
In addition, the U.S.-China Semiconductor Working Group was recently established.
The high-profile announcement of the U.S.-China Semiconductor Working Group came after the U.S. announced that high-level U.S.-China meetings would take place.
On March 11, the Chinese Communist Party’s Semiconductor Industry Association (CSIA) issued a press release on its official website stating that, after several rounds of consultations, the CSIA had formally established a “Working Group on Technology and Trade Restrictions in the U.S.-China Semiconductor Industry”.
The CSIA release emphasized that the working group will “establish a timely information sharing mechanism for the semiconductor industry in China and the United States to exchange policies on export controls, supply chain security, encryption and other technical and trade restrictions” and that the working group will work together to build a robust and resilient global semiconductor value chain.
Reuters reported that the news was not seen on the website of the Washington-based Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), and the SIA did not respond to a request for comment.
On the same day, the U.S. government has notified some of huawei‘s suppliers that the U.S. Commerce Department will impose stricter restrictions on export licenses, prohibiting the export of items used in or with 5G equipment.
The 5G ban is effective as of this week, people familiar with the matter said.
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