The U.S. and China hold high-level U.S.-China talks in Washington, Feb. 21, 2019.
The first high-level U.S.-China meeting since Biden took office was held in Alaska on the 18th. The connotations behind the two sides’ choice to meet in the Arctic Circle, far from Washington, have sparked speculation. The report said the dialogue did not prepare a meal, which is unprecedented in high-level talks between China and the United States, and will make Zhongnanhai lose face.
Secretary of State Blinken and National Security Advisor Sullivan traveled to Anchorage, Alaska, on March 18 to meet with Chinese Communist Party Politburo member Yang Jiechi and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. This was the first high-level meeting between the U.S. and China since the Biden Administration took office, and was seen as a new overture by the U.S. and Chinese governments.
The White House press secretary recently said that the U.S. side will discuss issues such as opacity and human rights oppression regarding Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the Chinese Communist Party’s virus (Wuhan pneumonia) Epidemic, as well as areas where the two sides can cooperate.
The U.S.-China Alaska Dialogue begins in a few hours, but it is not a dialogue that the Chinese side had hoped for, RFE/RL reported on 18 June. Details revealed in Blinken’s recent speech suggest that the Chinese side had high expectations for the meeting and agreed to U.S. conditions to that end.
The report emphasized that the dialogue was not as simple as the Chinese Communist Party’s official media said it was “in response to an appointment. Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi came all the way to Alaska, the snowy land of the United States, and the U.S. side told the world all its arrangements and intentions.
First of all, the U.S. side determined the location and order of talks. A White House spokesman said on the 10th that it was important to the U.S. side that the first meeting between the current administration and Chinese Communist Party officials be held on U.S. soil, and that it should take place after the U.S. side has met and consulted closely with its partners in Asia and Europe.
Second, the Communist Party characterized the meeting as a “high-level strategic dialogue. But Blinken later corrected this, saying that the CCP must make substantive progress and produce concrete results on issues of concern to the United States before there will be any follow-up engagement.
Once again, the U.S. side has no intention of conducting the series of follow-up exchanges that the Chinese side expects. At this stage, we have no intention of having a series of follow-up contacts,” Blinken said on Oct. 10. If there have to be conditions based on that, we want to see China (Communist Party) come up with substantial progress and concrete results in addressing our concerns.”
According to the report, the U.S. side did not prepare any meal for this dialogue, which is unprecedented in previous high-level meetings between China and the U.S., which may make Zhongnanhai feel disgraced.
The U.S. State Department announced on the 10th 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 timing of this dialogue is very clever
The Free Times reported that according to the weather report, the lowest temperature in Anchorage, where the two sides will meet, is -18 degrees, which is suspected to define that the relationship is running below zero, and it is quite difficult for the two sides to break the ice.
Radio Free Asia mocked that Blinken’s tone was aggressive, but Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi were still willing to move their ships to meet with Blinken in the Arctic Circle.
Since Vice Premier Liu He signed the “U.S.-China Phase I Trade Agreement” in Washington, D.C. in January 2020, the top Chinese officials have not been able to set foot in Washington, D.C., the political center of the United States. Last June, 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 in Alaska, far from Washington. Moreover, the timing of this dialogue is very clever. It was scheduled after Biden’s quadrilateral summit with the heads of India, Japan and Australia, and after Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s trip to Japan and South Korea.
Biden attended a video conference on the 12th with the heads of state for the “Quadripartite Talks,” seen as a meeting of Asia’s “mini-NATO” to defend against Communist expansion, to discuss Beijing‘s “provocative, coercive Beijing’s “provocative, coercive” behavior.
And Blinken and Austin went to Tokyo and Seoul from the 15th to the 18th for 2 plus 2 talks with the foreign and defense ministers of Japan and South Korea.
The U.S. and Japan issued a joint statement after the talks in Tokyo on the 16th, strongly criticizing the CCP’s expansionist hegemonic behavior in the Indo-Pacific region as inconsistent with the current international order and a challenge to the U.S.-Japanese alliance and the international community.
Experts: U.S. Seems to Lay a Skyrocketing Net for CCP
Martijn Rasser, a former adviser to the U.S. Secretary of Defense, told Free Asia Analysis 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 there should be no unrealistic illusions that the relationship with Washington will magically reset.
Pang Zhongying, an international relations expert and director of the Ocean University of China’s Institute of Ocean Development, also analyzed the statement as a sign that Washington is exercising “skillful diplomacy” and appears to be “laying a net” against the Communist Party of China, especially since the U.S. side has said that while the U.S. and China will cooperate in some areas, conflict and competition are also important. The U.S. side in particular has said that while the U.S. and China will cooperate in some areas, conflict and competition are inevitable.
According to Gloria Grainger, director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, this arrangement is a way to show Beijing that the United States has a powerful alliance.
Meanwhile the U.S. is hammering the Chinese Communist Party. On March 16, Blinken updated his report on Hong Kong’s autonomy law, naming 24 senior Chinese and Hong Kong officials for imposing sanctions on them for undermining Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy. These officials include 14 vice-chairmen of the Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party’s National People’s Congress, in addition to Li Zhanshu.
The French broadcaster mocked the meeting as so awkward, why bother? Beijing will not be unaware of the difficulties of this dialogue, and to make a little progress in this meeting, Beijing will have to make concessions, and if they don’t give an inch, Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi run to Alaska, hardball? Of course, they are following Xi Jinping‘s will.
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