The much-awaited high-level meeting between the U.S. and China took place in Alaska on the 18th, the first contact between the two countries since President Biden took office. However, the first day of the meeting was full of fireworks, and the Chinese representative Yang Jiechi even went against diplomatic practice and criticized the U.S. values and foreign policy in front of reporters. Some scholars believe that the meeting brought out the difference between U.S. and Chinese values, which will encourage the Biden Administration to continue the hard line against China in the Trump era.
The U.S. and Chinese representatives entered the meeting with a serious look, did not shake hands for a group photo, and sat down and started talking directly. In their respective opening statements, the U.S. side directly criticized the Chinese Communist Party.
Secretary of State Blinken said, “We’re going to raise our deep concerns about the Chinese Communist Party’s actions in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and hacking attacks on the United States, and economic coercion of our allies, all of which threaten global stability based on the normative order. So this is not just an internal issue that we have an obligation to raise at today’s meeting.”
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said during the meeting that these areas that Blinken raised, from economic and military coercion to fundamental values, are all areas that the U.S. and China will be discussing together in the future.
Chinese Communist Party Counterattacks U.S. Human Rights and Universal Values
When it was China’s turn to speak, Yang Jiechi, Director of the Foreign Affairs Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, spoke for more than 16 minutes in one breath, relatively politely for the first few minutes, but later becoming increasingly forceful, criticizing the U.S. for using its strong military and economic power to exert pressure on other countries and for abusing the name of national security to threaten the future development of international trade. He also accused the United States of “massacre” of black people.
Yang Jiechi also said that Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan are inseparable parts of China’s territory and that China firmly opposes U.S. interference in its internal affairs, and he denied the U.S. universal values.
On March 18, 2021, two days of high-level talks between the United States and China opened in Alaska. The two sides exchanged a rare public exchange of heated words in their opening remarks.
The U.S. side was raided and then left reporters to add to it
Because Yang Jiechi’s remarks took longer than expected, Blinken asked reporters to stay and continue filming and to make additions.
Blinken said: “Knowing that we’re not perfect, that we make mistakes, that we suffer setbacks, that we backslide, but what we’ve done throughout our history is to face those challenges head on, to be honest and open and transparent, not to try to ignore them. Nor trying to pretend they don’t exist, or trying to hide them, sometimes painfully, sometimes unbearably, but each Time we have become stronger, better, more united as a nation. “
Sullivan also added that a confident nation that can save itself from its own shortcomings and continually seek to improve is the secret of America.
Secretary of State Blinken and National Security Advisor Sullivan at the U.S.-China High Level Talks in Alaska on March 18, 2021.
Scholars: Meeting Will Help Biden Administration Continue Trump’s Tough Line
The first U.S.-China meeting, in front of the camera has been farcical, the Australian National University Asia-Pacific College lecturer Song Wendi said in an interview with this station, the U.S.-China meeting, the two sides held a so-called “head-to-head meeting” at the top, to establish their differences and bottom line, is the United States and China “fight but not break The pattern of “fighting but not breaking” between the United States and China. The first meeting was necessary to maintain basic contacts, but after the meeting, the two countries have little chance of cooperation in the short term.
Song Wendi said: “The two sides are very far from having a consensus, the purpose of this time is only the two sides to each other’s ‘red line’, according to the order of policy priority interests, as far as possible are listed, to establish the basis for future interaction. Rather than a working meeting, it’s more like a confidence-building measure for each side. The meeting will only help the Biden administration continue to define the hard line of the Trump-Pompeo era and will be the basis for the Biden administration’s negotiations with China.”
Song also described the meeting as a “watershed” that brought out the differences in values between the U.S. and China, adding that Blinken actively interacted with allies before the meeting in the hope that China would recognize that the U.S. and its allies are quite united in helping the U.S. fight China in the world, and that the follow-up negotiations with China would be as “group in The group will be “in” and “out” as much as possible in the follow-up negotiations with China.
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