State Department spokeswoman Jalina Porter said in a press briefing March 19, “We know that sometimes these diplomatic speeches from the Chinese side can be exaggerated and may even be for a domestic audience. But we’re not going to let the other side’s theatrics stop us from doing what we intend to do in Alaska, which is to articulate our principles and what our expectations are and to have these difficult conversations with the Chinese side that we need to have as early as possible.”
Porter said the U.S. and Chinese talks on Thursday were “very serious discussions.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi and Foreign Minister Wang Yi for two days of talks in Alaska on March 18 and March 19.
During the 18-day meeting, Blinken and Yang exchanged heated words in public.
The U.S. raised a range of security and human rights issues with the Chinese side, including the Communist Party’s persecution of Uighurs, repression of Hong Kong, economic coercion of allies, cyber attacks on the U.S. and acts of aggression against Taiwan.
The Chinese side immediately issued war-wolf-style remarks, with Yang Jiechi speaking for 17 minutes instead of two minutes each. Yang said the U.S. was not qualified to speak to China from above, and said the U.S. should mind its own business instead of talking about human rights and democracy in China.
CNN reported that a senior U.S. government official told reporters that the Chinese delegates came to Alaska with an agenda to put on a show. He said the Chinese side appears to have focused on “public theater, not substance” and “focused on public theater (performance) and exaggeration. Why is this necessary? He added that Communist Party representatives’ “exaggerated diplomatic speeches are usually aimed at domestic audiences.
In response to the heated exchange, the U.S. media analyzed that U.S. policy toward China will continue to be tough. The Voice of America reports that Robert Ross, a fellow at Harvard University’s Fitzgerald Center for China Studies and professor of political science at Boston College, said the Biden administration is clearing up friction with its allies to build a broader cooperative alliance against the Communist Party, and that while the United States is trying to establish a full dialogue and reestablish a diplomatic posture, regional countries will consider whether the United States really has the strength to to fulfill its commitments in the Asian region.
With the U.S. now having closer ties with Taiwan and even sanctioning 24 Chinese Communist Party and Hong Kong officials ahead of high-level U.S.-China talks, Washington is not yet ready to take the pressure off U.S.-China relations, and on many levels the Biden Administration‘s China Policy will be a continuation of the Trump administration’s, said Lubin.
Matthew Goodman, a senior adviser on Asian economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, also noted that the U.S. will not relax its tough stance on the Communist Party because of domestic political considerations and China’s current posture, and that the Biden team does not believe the U.S. can change the Communist Party’s decision, so Biden’s focus is on working with allies to strengthen the U.S. The Biden team does not believe the U.S. can change the CCP’s decision, so Biden’s focus is on working with allies to strengthen the U.S. preferred international standards and systems.
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