U.S.-China diplomatic relations have undergone a metamorphosis from ping-pong to rugby-style over the past half century. Fifty years ago, on April 10, 1971, the U.S. ping pong team became the first Americans invited to set foot in China for a friendly ping pong match. This led to then-President Richard Nixon’s visit to China in February 1972, and made “ping pong diplomacy” a new term in international diplomatic relations.
Fifty years later, on April 10, 2021, James Heller, Consul General of the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai, and Chinese table tennis players Zhang Xielin and Zheng Minzhi, who competed in that year’s tournament, received souvenirs and played a friendly match at a ceremony held at the FIVB Museum in Shanghai. While people were remembering the past, the mood of the American diplomats and the Chinese athletes was clearly different. While the celebrations were held in Shanghai, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing was cold and quiet, with no celebration of the iconic anniversary inside; there was not even an ambassador inside the U.S. Embassy, and the U.S. and China now only have diplomatic relations at the chargé d’affaires level.
Frankly speaking, the Americans have been really kind to China and the Chinese, so to speak. From the Gengzi reparations to assisting in the war effort, from the Flying Tigers to the Yunnan-Myanmar highway, from preventing a Soviet nuclear strike on China to military aid to China, to opening markets, importing technology and capital to China, to still providing China today with much needed corn, soybeans and medical products. Even though the Chinese Communist Party and its mouthpieces at home and abroad have gone to great lengths to attack the United States, the majority of the American public today is only angry at the Chinese Communist regime and still has good intentions and hopes for Chinese culture and the Chinese people. Unfortunately, the Chinese Communist Party has missed the perfect opportunity to get closer to the United States, embrace the West, and integrate into the civilized world, which was laid down fifty years ago, and instead continues its evil communist system, accepting American favors while being viciously anti-American and ungrateful. And the U.S.-China relationship has transformed, as it did from ping-pong to rugby, from a friendly, civilized rivalry to a savage, brutal confrontation.
The U.S.-China relationship is now in a state of saber-rattling, no matter how Chinese Premier Li Keqiang “sings the white face” or “sings the red face”, how he argues that the U.S. and China “cooperate for the benefit of both, but fight for the sake of both”, and how he emphasizes that the U.S.-China decoupling “is not a good thing”. Even though the Biden administration is hesitant to move forward, the U.S.-China relationship is still moving step by step toward a complete decoupling and even a military confrontation is brewing.
The U.S. diplomatic team is warming up to playing ping-pong in Shanghai, but in Beijing and Taipei, a completely different drama is playing out. As Chinese military aircraft and warships frequently threaten Taiwan, public opinion of a Communist attack on Taiwan by force is rampant. On the same day that Biden’s climate envoy, John Kerry, arrived in Shanghai, Biden’s “good friend,” former U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd, and two former deputy secretaries of state, Richard Armitage and James Steinberg, met with the Chinese government to discuss the issue. On April 14, an unofficial delegation consisting of former Senator Christopher Dodd and former Under Secretaries of State Richard Armitage and James Steinberg arrived in Taiwan for a visit. The delegation met with President Tsai Ing-wen the next day, and also met with senior members of Taiwan’s national security, foreign affairs and defense ministries. Tsai said that “we are willing to work with like-minded Indo-Pacific partners to stop adventurous and provocative behavior” in response to the Chinese Communist Party’s disruption of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.
Biden and Dodd are really “good friends,” and as Biden’s personal representative, Dodd has many advantages, as he and Biden have worked together in the Senate for 30 years, with many consultations and close ties. Even the Communist Party’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman knows it’s not “unofficial,” Ma said: “The so-called official and unofficial are just a front for them to deceive people.” Good to know, indeed, that the time for a U.S.-China flip-flop on Taiwan, or a breakthrough in Taiwan-U.S. diplomatic relations, may be imminent.
Almost simultaneously with the events in Beijing and Taipei, Secretary of State John Blinken issued his latest remarks, saying he must investigate the source of the Wuhan virus to avoid any “biological threat” from happening again, or he would be doing a disservice to future generations of Americans. He also said, “This is a critical moment in history, we must dare to think, dare to do, and the United States will face the challenge head-on.”
Behind the Biden administration’s policies is, of course, the ammunition provided by the U.S. intelligence community. Appearing at a Senate hearing, CIA Director William Burns said he made winning the competition with China a key priority. Burns sees the biggest geopolitical test for the United States as a “hostile and predatory Chinese (Communist) leadership. In his memoirs, Burns, the first U.S. career diplomat to head the CIA, said that “dealings with Chinese [Communist] officials were sometimes uncomfortable.”
The Communist Party’s Taiwan Affairs Office released a signal that “the determination to curb Taiwan independence and Taiwan-U.S. collusion is not just lip service.” The escalation of Chinese Communist Party public opinion is precisely their reaction to the real threat they feel is coming. It is rather embarrassing that Kerry, as the U.S. special envoy on climate change, was the first senior official of the Biden administration to visit China, but the Chinese Communist government is not interested in climate issues at all; they are more concerned about the storms in the Taiwan Strait. But Kerry was authorized by Biden to discuss only the topic of climate change and nothing else! In other words, what the CCP wants for the economy and security, the US is not interested in right now; what Biden wants for climate and human rights, the CCP is not interested in right now either. Such negotiations are not destined to produce any positive results.
The U.S. wants China to stop building coal-fired power plants, stop building coal-fired power plants in the Belt and Road Initiative, and stop financing overseas coal companies; China wants clean technology, wants more U.S. funding for developing countries, and wants Washington to announce a major emissions reduction plan. The Biden administration is partially continuing Trump’s strategy, but it would be truly harmful to the United States if it had to relax technological restrictions on environmental issues because of what it wants from the CCP, even at the expense of the U.S. economy in order to reduce emissions. With the 2022 election in mind, Biden may have to back off.
The Global Times recently held a seminar in Beijing with the U.S.-based Carter Center on “How to Get U.S.-China Relations Back on Track. The Global Times is the real mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, but the Carter Center was represented not by a real “American” but by Liu Yawei, the son-in-law of Li Xiannian and brother of Communist Air Force General Liu Asia. When the Communist Party mouthpieces began to clamor for a rapprochement and a return to the right track, one knew that they must have sensed that the U.S.-China relationship was at its end.
When it comes to ping pong diplomacy, the Chinese can also take advantage of their small size by using tricks and tricks, such as topspin, bottomspin, arcing, putting high balls, rubbing, etc. These tricks have been used by the Chinese Communist Party again and again over the past half century, from economic and trade negotiations to strategic dialogues, to confuse the Americans.
The current deterioration in relations between the two sides is no longer a civilized, ping-pong game, but more like the rough and tumble of American football-rugby! Playing rugby requires a violent punch, and the Chinese Communist Party is certainly not up to it. Rugby terminology for close contact, intentional collisions, intentional pressures, breaking the line of scrimmage, riding the offense, forcing a break, quarterback break plays, wedge power plays, fish tackling moves, etc. Is this the current U.S. Navy move of scout planes, drones, aircraft carrier fleets, destroyers, etc.? Or the strategy of the diplomatic team? It is the true picture of the current U.S. economic, diplomatic, military, and technological all-out war against the Chinese Communist Party.
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