During the U.S.-China talks in Alaska on March 18-19, Yang Jiechi, a member of the Chinese Communist Party‘s Political Bureau and Director of the Foreign Affairs Office, gave a tough speech to Secretary of State Blinken’s team, in which several paragraphs of dialogue on “international order” were key and revealed a lot of information. Yang Jiechi’s tough speech will break the triangle balance of “competition,” “cooperation,” and “hostility” in Biden‘s strategy toward the CCP. In the future, the “hostile” part of the two sides will increase, and the “competition” and “cooperation” will be seriously reduced.
Brinken and Yang debate on “international order” is the key to the U.S.-China talks
In the dialogue between Blinken and Yang Jiechi on the 18th, the U.S. purpose of the talks was raised at the beginning, of which two paragraphs were the most crucial.
Blinken first mentioned the world system, emphasizing “an international order based on rules. He said, “If we go against a rules-based international order, then the rules of the world could become might makes right, and we would see a winner-take-all situation. For each of our countries, that would be a more violent and volatile world.”
“We will also discuss our deep concerns about China’s actions, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan, cyber attacks on the United States, and economic coercion against our allies. These actions all threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability. Because of that, these are not just domestic issues, and because of that, we feel obligated to raise them here today.”
In other words, the U.S. is raising these issues with the CCP because what the CCP is doing is no longer just an internal Chinese issue, but an issue where the stability of the world system is at stake. If every country with power does what the CCP does, then the rules of the world may become “power is justice” and a “winner-takes-all situation” will emerge.
It is also understandable that the reason why Biden’s team held this meeting with the CCP after taking power was to tell and warn the CCP once again in person that if it wants to stay in the Western-dominated international order, its behavior must change, otherwise it will destroy the whole world system.
But Yang Jiechi’s subsequent reply left Blinken speechless.
Yang Jiechi said, “What China and the international community follow and maintain is an international system centered on the United Nations, an international order based on international law, not a ‘rules-based’ international order advocated by a small group of countries.”
The “three non-recognitions” Yang uttered at the end of his 17-minute speech are typical of the CCP’s brutality, “I think the vast majority of countries in the world do not recognize the universal values advocated by the United States, do not recognize that the opinions of the United States can represent international public opinion, and do not recognize that the rules made by a few will become the basis of the international order.
The “UN-centric international system” that Yang Jiechi refers to is the fact that, after decades of manipulation, the Chinese Communist Party now leads four of the 15 UN and UN-affiliated bodies or groups, and has begun to set international norms and standards that are dominated by the Chinese Communist Party. For example, in air travel, the International Civil Aviation Organization is led by a Communist Party representative; the Communist Party’s secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union, who took office in 2015, supports huawei; and some 30 U.N. agencies and organizations have signed memorandums of understanding to support China’s Belt and Road infrastructure projects, including the United Nations Industrial Development Organization.
In other words, the Chinese Communist Party has begun to impose its own set of rules, order, and redefine the “international order” through its control of various UN organizations. Yang Jiechi’s words clearly tell the U.S. side that the CCP will no longer abide by the U.S. “international standards”.
What the talks have shown so far is that the two sides have no consensus on this most critical aspect.
Yang Jiechi’s Remarks Break the Triangular Balance of Biden’s Strategy Toward the CPC
After taking power earlier this year, the Biden Administration‘s strategy toward the CCP is divided into three parts, namely “competition, cooperation and hostility”, i.e. “competition”, “cooperation” and “hostility”. “hostile”. The balance of this “strategic triangle” design can be seen from the U.S. top-level expressions of “competition when it’s Time to compete” and “cooperation when it’s time to cooperate.
However, there is one point: the “competition” in the U.S. government’s mouth is “rules-based competition”, which is an American concept of competition, not “competition” under the rules and order led by the Chinese Communist Party as Yang said. “.
This is also reflected in the speech of U.S. National Security Advisor Sullivan’s talks. After Blinken’s statement on international rules and order, Sullivan told Yang Jiechi that the United States “welcomes fierce competition” and later added that the United States “will always defend our principles.
Yang Jiechi’s refusal to abide by the U.S. proposed “international order” seriously undermined the balance of Biden’s “strategic triangle. The Chinese Communist Party’s disregard for the rules and order in the eyes of the United States will make it impossible for the United States to compete with the Chinese Communist Party.
Take the “photovoltaic, extra-high voltage, and new energy” economic cycle strategy being promoted by the CCP as an example. The so-called “photovoltaic” simply means relying on solar power, which is one of the ways to obtain electricity. Then, the Communist Party of China (CPC) will use “extra-high voltage” to transmit electricity from the west to the east to solve the problem of electricity consumption in China’s eastern coastal cities. If there is excess power in the places where the power is obtained, some of the excess power can be stored in electric vehicle charging piles as the local electric vehicle industry grows. In this way, the CCP feels that it constitutes a self-circulating system.
In the United States, the Biden administration is also promoting clean energy technologies, and in the field of “photovoltaics”, the United States finds itself in no position to compete with the Chinese Communist Party.
Not to mention the fact that most of the world’s solar panels are made in Xinjiang, China, which is under U.S. sanctions for human rights issues. For the U.S., if the CCP does not play by human rights rules (U.S. rules) and continues to persecute in Xinjiang, the U.S. cannot ignore the human rights issue and order so many solar panels from Xinjiang. If the U.S. cannot even buy solar panels, how can it compete with the CCP in the field of “photovoltaics”?
In other words, when Yang Jiechi personally told Blinken that the CCP would not follow the U.S. rules in the future, it had a serious consequence. The rules-based “competition” component of Biden’s “strategic triangle” with the CCP will be severely curtailed in the future.
The Communist Party has been developing its economy and military in a way that violates the rules and order, and the United States is unable to compete with the Communist Party in many areas for a variety of reasons. When “competition” is severely reduced, this part of the friction will inevitably fall under the category of “hostility. As a corollary, the U.S. and China will cooperate less and less.
One more example. In the South China Sea arbitration case, after the international tribunal in The Hague ruled in favor of the Philippines, the Chinese Communist Party kept saying that the arbitration result was a “scrap of paper” and emphasized that it would not endorse the result. According to Yang Jiechi’s so-called “international order,” what will happen in the future is not whether the ruling of the international tribunal can still bind the CCP, but that the CCP will probably bring a group of “little brothers” to the United Nations to discuss the legality of the existence of the international tribunal in The Hague. The question of the legitimacy of the existence of the International Hague Tribunal itself has arisen.
Perhaps realizing that Yang’s remarks were a bit over the top, Xinhua’s summary of the talks on March 20 added that “China has no intention of interfering in the U.S. political system and has no intention of challenging or replacing the status and influence of the United States”.
In any case, Yang Jiechi’s face-to-face rebuttal of the U.S. “international order”, coupled with the internal discussion of the “East rising and West falling” within the Chinese Communist Party, is believed to have greatly stimulated the Biden team and broken the balance of Biden’s “strategic triangle” with China. The balance of the “strategic triangle” with China will be upset. Even if Biden wants to ease relations with the CCP, his policy toward the CCP will have little room for maneuver.
Biden’s team is changing
The U.S.-China Alaska negotiations are a landmark.
On the one hand, Yang Jiechi’s performance of “looking at the world” has shocked the whole U.S. government. At the same time, it also made European countries more wary of the Chinese Communist Party. In the future, Western countries will be more united in dealing with the Chinese Communist Party.
What the Chinese Communist Party is doing now is validating some of the claims highlighted by former U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo. For example, “the Chinese Communist Party poses a serious threat to the health and way of Life of Americans,” “the greatest external threat to the United States is the Chinese Communist regime,” “the Chinese Communist Party is the greatest threat to the United Nations,” and so on.
A U.S. official was quoted in the March 18 Financial Times as saying that with the CCP, “we will look at actions, not words.” The official added that the United States “has a very clear understanding of the poor record of the People’s Republic of China in keeping its promises.”
This suggests that Biden administration officials realize that the former Trump administration was right to “mistrust + verify” the CCP, i.e., to mistrust their words and then verify them. This change of opinion by Biden administration officials marks the end of the U.S. “trust + verify” approach to the CCP.
On the other hand, Yang Jiechi’s move will also leave the CCP with less room for maneuver in future diplomacy, making it more likely to cause friction between the CCP and other countries.
The world will be buzzing with the general trend.
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