The U.S. delegation led by Secretary of State John Blinken (second from right) and the Chinese Communist Party delegation led by Yang Jiechi (second from left), director of the Foreign Affairs Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, meet in Alaska on March 18, 2021.
The first high-level U.S.-China talks since Biden took office kicked off in Alaska recently, and the two sides were tit-for-tat in their opening remarks. Some U.S. analysts say that the opening performance of both sides is intended to show their countrymen their tough stance. Some Chinese scholars, on the other hand, point out that the Chinese Communist Party’s top diplomats are not only showing their “tough” stance to the Party and outside, but also trying to stimulate the domestic public’s anti-American sentiment.
On Thursday (18), the U.S.-China high-level talks in Alaska began with strong opening statements from each delegation.
In his opening remarks, Secretary of State Blinken briefly noted that the Chinese government’s actions against Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan, cyber attacks on the United States and economic coercion against U.S. allies are “threatening the rules-based order that maintains global stability” and go beyond domestic affairs, according to the Voice of America. The U.S. side therefore felt obliged to raise these issues in the talks.
White House national security adviser Sullivan later added that not only is the United States concerned about China’s behavior, but so are its allies and partners, and the broader international community. He said the U.S. does not seek conflict, but welcomes “vigorous competition.
Yang Jiechi, director of the Foreign Affairs Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, then delivered a 10-minute opening statement. He accused the United States of using force and financial hegemony to exercise “long-arm jurisdiction” over other countries, abusing the concept of national security to “impede trade,” and ridiculed the United States for its own “deep-rooted” human rights problems. The U.S. has “deep-rooted” human rights problems and “many people don’t have confidence in American democracy. In response to U.S. concerns about Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan, Yang Jiechi stressed that these are so-called “internal affairs of China” and opposed interference by other countries.
Later, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi added that China would not accept unfounded accusations from the U.S. side in the future and hoped that the U.S. side would “completely abandon its hegemonic practice of interfering in China’s internal affairs.
Immediately after the opening confrontation at the Alaska talks, Xinhua, a mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, published in detail Wang Yi’s condemnation of the U.S. at the talks, but avoided mentioning the statements of the U.S. representatives. Another CCP mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, also immediately threw up a series of pre-prepared graphics on mainland China’s social media to heavily promote Yang Jiechi’s opening remarks.
At the same Time, the Chinese Communist government’s long-established online “water army” was out in full force, stirring up nationalist sentiment and creating a wave of resistance against the United States, and praising the Chinese delegates’ performance in Alaska as an implementation of Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping‘s “level view of the world” and “rising from the east and falling from the west. The Chinese delegates’ performance in Alaska was praised for implementing Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinan’s diplomatic ideas of “looking at the world from a level perspective” and “rising in the east and falling in the west. Some Chinese netizens lamented that this was not a negotiation, but a war of public opinion.
In response to the performance of the representatives of the high-level U.S.-China talks in Alaska, James Berger, a partner in the international regulatory and compliance group at JLG Berger & Co. told VOA that the meeting was mainly a formality, and that the main thing the U.S. and Chinese representatives wanted to do was simply “make their respective domestic audiences feel that they looked tough”.
A tweet published by Radio Free Asia on Friday revealed that while Blinken and Sullivan each spent less than 2.5 minutes on their opening statements at the Alaska talks, Yang Jiechi spent more than 16 minutes “cursing the United States” and did not allow an interpreter to interject throughout, before adding more than three minutes to his remarks and Wang Yi spent more than four minutes Wang Yi then spent more than four minutes to “fill in the blanks”.
Taiyuan international relations scholar Zhang Yong said in an interview with Radio Free Asia that it has been proven many times that the tougher Chinese officials are towards the United States, the more they can arouse the so-called “national pride” inside and outside the Communist Party, and the easier it is to stir up anti-American sentiment among the people. Today, being tough on the outside world has become the CCP’s “political correctness.
“In this case, as long as we are seen to be tough inside and outside the party, in Xi Jinping’s words, to be a man, this is interpreted by mouthpieces as China being strong.” Zhang Yong said that “for China, whatever the ending of the dialogue with the United States, he has a set of explanations.”
The high-level U.S.-China talks will last until Friday, and there will be no joint statement after the talks.
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