A solemn greeting was held on the Beijing airport tarmac without a red carpet. A firm handshake from a senior Chinese foreign policy official. Seated at the head of a long desk, looking up at Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Bringing Secretary of State Anthony J. Brinken’s Optics to a Global Audience 2 days visit I hardly frowned when I went to Beijing. Foreign ministers are seldom, if ever, greeted in a big way at airports. And an audience with the head of state alone is very important and respectful.
But for China’s nationalist-minded audience, especially on social media, the scene tells a different story. For them, Mr. Blinken finally arrived after months of begging for an invitation. And during the visit, he learned to respect China’s interests and played an aide to Mr. Xi. Chinese social media users gleefully pointed out that Mr. Blinken had arrived on his Father’s Day, and what it means – to use internet terminology – is that Mr. Xi is America’s daddy.
The nationalist tone in China to Mr Blinken’s visit underscores what Mr Xi said in a meeting with top US diplomats on Monday that “great power competition is not keeping up with the times”. Enclosing China as a security partner and cutting off access to advanced technology invites conflict, not healthy competition.
Xi’s rejection of the two recent US presidents’ frameworks for US-China relations has raised questions about whether the world’s two superpowers can reach strategic alignment with each other in the coming years.
“They have clearly not embraced the framework at all,” said Bonnie Glaser, Indo-Pacific program managing director at the US German Marshall Fund.
“Then the question arises: Is it possible to stabilize the relationship?”
Chinese censors generally have broad control to sway public opinion, but it is unclear to what extent the state has played a role in propagating victory stories online. Even in China’s more staunch state-run news outlets, which mostly reported on summaries of government talks, reports of the visit said Mr Brinken was there to reassure the Chinese government and listen to its concerns. He emphasized the views of the Chinese government.
Positioning China as a powerful and responsible power willing to defuse tensions with a warring US may help mask politically unfavorable reasons for China’s desire to reengage with the US. , analysts say. Chief among them is the need to stabilize the Chinese economy. struggling to maintain recovery After 3 years of coming out of tight restrictions due to the pandemic.
“The sight of Xi Jinping lecturing from the top of the boardroom table to his subordinate, the U.S. Secretary of State, successfully conveys to domestic audiences that China is a world power that not only demands respect from other powers, but also receives it. I’ll tell you,” Drew said. Mr. Thompson is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore.
He noted that Mr. Blinken’s two immediate predecessors, Mike Pompeo and Rex W. Tillerson, were sitting in an armchair next to Mr. Xi when they met. (Xi sat with Pompeo in Beijing in June 2018, but he did not meet when Pompeo met with Pompeo. I came back that October) as others noted: Bill Gates was invited to sit Last week, sitting next to a smiling Mr. Xi in an ornate wooden chair.
U.S. officials say maintaining regular high-level diplomacy between the world’s two rival superpowers, and their two economic and military powers, is crucial to avoiding outright conflict. Blinken’s visit was necessary because of this. Not only are the two governments seeking stability in relations, but so are their allies and others. And diplomacy will allow both countries to articulate their views in private and public talks.
“If you want to defend American values on human rights, and if you want to free the Americans being held here, or if you want China’s help in the fentanyl crisis, do it on the sidelines. You can’t,” said U.S. Ambassador R. Nicholas Burns. he said in an interview Tuesday in Beijing. “We need to talk to them and put pressure on them, as we did when Chief Brinken visited here.
Burns, who was present at all meetings with Blinken, added that “the Chinese side received the secretary with great dignity.” “President Xi Jinping was very polite during the meeting.”
Chinese officials want to shift the focus to trade as the linchpin of U.S.-China relations, and had asked Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimond to visit first, but U.S. officials have He strongly insisted on Ms. Yellen’s visit to the United States. Blinken had to get ahead of them. Two other US Cabinet members are now scheduled to visit Beijing this summer, as is Special Envoy for Climate Change John Kerry.
Analysts say China hopes the talks will help boost business confidence at a time when many of China’s traditional tools of economic growth, such as real estate, face dramatic challenges. It has said.
Moreover, China wants to emphasize its opposition to trade restrictions to the Biden administration. block Chinese access It can even be applied to critical technologies such as cutting-edge semiconductor chips.
Willie Lam, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, a research institute in Washington, said China political analyst Willie Lam said, “President Xi’s main motivation for entertaining Americans is that the Chinese economy is in a very bad state.” said. “Exports have fallen significantly, and more US and Western companies are moving production out of China.”
In entertaining Blinken, China also tried to arrange for Xi to visit the United States in November for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference, which could lead to a one-on-one meeting with President Biden. have a nature. A visit like this would help boost Mr. Xi’s image as a global politician.
Beijing may also be driven by a sense of urgency to seek more assurances from the Biden administration not to inflame pro-independence sentiment in Taiwan, especially ahead of next year’s U.S. and Taiwanese presidential elections. Politicians in both regions have increasingly spoken out against the Chinese Communist Party during election campaigns. Because I think it will lead to votes.
China is furious over the Biden administration’s growing support for the democratic and autonomous islands, including new trade deals, increased arms sales and increased interaction between officials. Mr. Blinken’s visit was an opportunity for China to signal that it had warned the United States not to provoke it over what its leaders called “the core of China’s core interests.”
Blinken’s visit may have helped end the freeze on top-level bilateral diplomacy, but China’s attitude toward Taiwan and the escalating military and economic confrontation have prevented significant dialogue between the two countries. It also highlights the fact that they are still in danger.
After House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan last August, Beijing froze official exchanges with Washington on military issues, climate change and drugs. China only agreed to resume talks on climate change. U.S. officials hold talks in Beijing in hopes of getting China to resume direct communication channels between the military, including between the U.S. Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Commander of Indo-Pacific Command and the Indo-Pacific Command. came to their Chinese counterparts.
Chinese officials who met with Mr. Blinken declined the request.
Olivia Wang contributed to the report.
