Senior Biden administration officials told the Voice of America that the current administration’s strategy toward China is global, working with allies in Asia and Europe, but also focusing on China’s influence in Africa and Latin America, and that China poses an even greater challenge to the United States than Russia.
On Thursday, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken will meet with Chinese diplomats Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi. Senior officials say that in the past, China has played divisive tactics, pitting State Department officials against White House officials, but this Time the secretary of state and national security adviser will sit down together to confront Chinese officials. The Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor sat down together to confront Chinese officials to let China know that the Biden Administration is consistent in its China Policy.
U.S. officials have repeatedly stressed the importance of reaching out to allies and partners in Asia and Europe to discuss relations with China, and that the Biden administration’s first high-level U.S.-China official contacts should take place on U.S. soil.
At a White House background briefing on Tuesday evening, March 16, a Voice of America reporter asked how Russia’s role in U.S.-China relations was being considered, and whether the Biden administration had reached out to countries in Africa and Latin America where China has significant influence, such as the Belt and Road Initiative, which has reached out to those regions. The senior official replied that the Biden administration’s dialogue in this area is “global” and that it is in close contact with “Latin America, Africa, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, South Korea, etc.” and that they are all aware of the U.S. agenda, which, in addition to responding to the new Epidemic and climate change, is to resist the power of China and Russia. They all know that the U.S. agenda, in addition to responding to the new epidemic and climate change, is to resist the “coercive and aggressive behavior” of powers such as China and Russia.
In many ways, senior officials said, Russia poses a similar challenge to the United States as China, but on a “larger scale and to a greater extent.
A senior official stressed that he has served in both the State Department and the NSC, and is well aware of China’s tactics. “China has played tricks in the past to divide us or to try to divide us,” and that China will give special benefits to a particular department, leading to internal conflicts within the U.S. government, even causing confrontation between the secretary of state and the White House national security adviser. This time it was the national security adviser who met with Chinese officials along with the secretary of state to tell China that this tactic will not work for the Biden administration now; that the Biden administration will be consistent in its China policy, both privately and publicly.
White House national security adviser Sullivan (AP photo)
When Blinken and Sullivan meet with Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi, in addition to discussing issues such as the new crown epidemic, climate change, and the economy on which the two countries can cooperate, they will also directly address China on Xinjiang and Hong Kong, China’s coercive economic practices, and its advances in the Taiwan Strait, pressure on Australia, and Beijing‘s malicious cyberattacks. For China may also put forward countermeasures, saying that in these topics belong to China’s internal affairs, asking the United States not to intervene, senior officials said that the Biden administration only asked China to comply with international law, in line with international norms, and to abide by its own stated multilateral international commitments, and that China must pay the consequences of its violations of international law, international norms and universal values. And even if China is determined not to change its behavior in those areas, it is still important for the United States to make its position clear.
U.S. Secretary of State Blinken
Secretary of State John Blinken has said publicly that the meeting was not a strategic dialogue, but the Chinese have called it a “high-level strategic dialogue. At a White House background briefing Tuesday, senior officials said the Biden administration is still working on its policy toward China and that the meeting is just the beginning of a process to get to know each other that will provide important information in developing a U.S. national security strategy, and that no joint statement will be issued after the meeting.
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