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ANCHORAGE (BLOOMBERG) – The first high-level talks between the United States and China since President Joe Biden took office immediately turned into disputes and recriminations, with each side sharply criticizing the other for human rights, trade and law. international alliances.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken began his remarks at the meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, promising to express concern over recent cyberattacks, the treatment of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, and Beijing’s growing control over Hong Kong. He said that China’s actions threaten the international order and human rights.
“The alternative to a rule-based order is a world where the power does the right thing and the winner takes all and that would be a much more violent and unstable world,” Blinken said.
The Chinese fought back. Politburo member Yang Jiechi gave a lengthy monologue in which he said that Western nations do not represent world public opinion and called the United States the “champion” of cyber attacks.
“A lot of people within America actually have little confidence in America’s democracy,” he said, citing the murder of black Americans and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Near the end of his opening remarks, he said that Blinken’s comments were not “normal” and added that in response “mine are not either.”
Mr. Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan responded, and Mr. Sullivan said that “a safe country is capable of looking closely at its own shortcomings and constantly seeking to improve, and that is America’s secret sauce.”
Things only got worse from there. The cameras left the room, only for them to re-enter. Mr. Yang and Foreign Minister Wang Yi took the opportunity to continue with further criticism.
“Is that the way you expected to carry out this dialogue?” Mr. Yang asked, according to his delegation’s translator.
“I think we think too highly of the United States. The United States is not qualified to speak to China from a position of strength.”
Blame
While Chinese officials protested that the initial criticisms from Blinken and Sullivan were not a way to treat guests, a senior US official later said that the Chinese intended to be bombastic and participate in theater over substance.
The rocky start signaled how bad the relationship between the United States and China has become and boded poorly for the prospect of a deal or rapprochement between the world’s two largest economies.
The two sides scheduled a series of three negotiating sessions on Thursday and Friday, but the opening lowered what had already been a low bar for expectations from the Alaska meeting.
Before the meeting began, officials in Beijing had raised the possibility of a virtual summit between President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping next month, to coincide with Earth Day and focus attention on one area in the one that both sides have said they can reach an agreement: the fight against the climate. change. It’s unclear whether the difficult start to the Alaska talks will derail that effort.
Some tensions were expected in the Anchorage talks. Two months in office, and despite Biden’s criticism of former President Donald Trump, it seems unlikely that the new US president will make any major changes to his predecessor’s hard-line approach to China.
On human rights in Xinjiang, on those in Hong Kong and even on tariffs, the policies of the Trump era remain in place.
“At least initially, they are sticking to what Trump left them,” said Aaron Frieberg, a foreign policy professor at Princeton University and a national security assistant during George W. Bush’s presidency.
“On concrete things like saying that China is committing a genocide in Xinjiang, that it was a landmine that they left out the door, instead of trying to avoid it, they just accepted it.
China is the most prominent example of Biden’s continuity with Trump so far, but there are others: In Saudi Arabia, Biden refrained from sanctioning Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman even as he went beyond Trump by publicly implicating him in the death of a columnist. Jamal Khashoggi. Biden is taking on Trump’s push to revitalize the Quad alliance of the US, Australia, Japan and India. Blinken has praised Trump’s “Abraham Accords,” the rapprochement between Israel and Middle Eastern countries.
And although Republicans in Congress accuse Biden of weakness, he remains steadfast in opposing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany, refusing to remove sanctions on Iran unless it again complies with the nuclear deal that Trump abandoned and maintained. a frequent resort to financial penalties as a tool to express disapproval.
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