After the coldest winter since 1989, the U.S. has survived the Gengzi year, and the folk tradition of Groundhog Day, which predicts spring, is a sign that winter will not soon be over. This may be an apt description of the current U.S.-China relationship.
China and the United States began their honeymoon period with reform and opening up, and then plunged into a harsh winter in 1989. The relationship has been up and down since then, and mutual trust has long since disappeared, but the Chinese Communist Party has maintained an on-again, off-again relationship for more than 20 years, thanks to a combination of bunkering down and utilitarian political realism in the United States. In this high-level meeting between China and the United States, Yang Jiechi’s phrase “the United States is not qualified” is followed by the phrase “20 to 30 years ago, you were not qualified”, which reveals the real mentality of the CCP during its previous period of hiding its light and obscurity, that is The second hand of the historical clock is pointing to the moment of tearing the face off. If 1989 was the beginning of a long winter between the U.S. and China, it is now entering a harsh ice age. For the foreseeable future, no matter which party is in power in the United States, there is no spring in the relationship between the two countries.
The dramatic scenes of this high-level U.S.-China meeting were certainly exaggerated by Yang Jiechi. But those scenes were more for the top than for the young and old pinkos below. Yang is already at the top of the power pyramid, and his top is the Life-long president. Yang Jiechi’s wording and performance are in fact an effort to interpret Xi Jinping‘s diplomatic thinking that “China can already look at the world on an equal footing”.
This also reveals a knot in Xi Jinping’s heart. There are three sentences in the Chinese Communist Party: “Mao Zedong solved the problem of being beaten, Deng Xiaoping solved the problem of being starved, and now he wants to solve the problem of being scolded”. This saying has been circulating for a long Time, and apparently neither Jiang Zemin nor Hu Jintao dynasty has taken off the hat of being scolded. Xi Jinping wants to act as a great leader, thinking that the first two historical positions are occupied by Mao and Deng, and he has to take the other one in order to reach the high point of history. The so-called “level view of the world” means that no one will be able to talk to the CCP from a position of strength. The so-called “old problem” of the United States is not only “interference in internal affairs” in the context of the CCP, but also the deeper meaning that the United States must put down its position and the CCP will no longer eat this. In the end, this is the core of Xi Jinping’s diplomatic thinking. His ultimate goal is to lead and guide the direction of mankind, and to level the world, especially the United States, is a minor goal that has already been achieved.
It is thus clear that Xi’s self-expectation is definitely more than just a level view, but a bird’s eye view of the entire world. Therefore, what is more noteworthy about this high-level Sino-US meeting is not the rhetorical saber-rattling and exaggerated performances, but the previously unprecedented declarations by the Chinese side, even if they have long thought so in their hearts but never expressed it explicitly. This time, they have opened up the sky and told the truth.
In the past, when the CCP rejected universal values, the context was limited to the Chinese people, whom it represents, and the China under its rule did not recognize or accept them. This time, the card it played was “the vast majority of countries in the world do not recognize the universal values advocated by the United States.” In other words, it is a value break with the United States on behalf of the whole world. Previously, Deng, Jiang and Hu all recognized the U.S. leadership in the world, and even Xi Jinping had said he had no intention of challenging the established international order. The other card shown at this meeting is that “the United States does not represent the world”; “the United States itself does not represent international public opinion”; and “the Western world does not represent global public opinion. This is Beijing‘s new political narrative, which means that the CCP will launch a comprehensive challenge to ideology, national system, and international order.
While the CCP’s opposition to the United States in the past three decades was a matter of its own survival, today’s opposition to the United States is its determination that the United States and the Western world as a whole are at a crossroads from prosperity to decline. Can there be a spring between the U.S. and China when it comes to this point? It is worth remembering a response from Secretary Blinken, who said, “Betting on the United States to lose is never a good bet, and it is today.”
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