[China & US] The Blinken's China speech: the yogi can't hide the flaws
Secretary of State John Blinken's speech on 26 June gave a comprehensive account of US strategic thinking on China, with the intention of creating a thoughtful, prudent and determined image of US development in China-US relations and international affairs.
After Trump's US-centric approach to tearing apart US relations with its allies and taking on strategic rivals with reckless abandon, Biden and Blinken have taken over a rotten state of international affairs probably unlike anything the US has seen in the last two decades. Since the collapse of the former Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, America's unipolar world hegemony, though affected by events like 9/11, has never been absent nor really challenged in its overall image of strength and leadership, until Trump himself rose up and left.
When Biden and Blinken took office, they set out to deal with Trump's diplomatic legacy and return to the centre of the world stage, and China was one of the many issues they had to deal with that they could not avoid. That is why the Biden administration has proposed a strategy of three baskets of "cooperation, competition and confrontation" with China, and has begun to work within these three quadrants, including a more active engagement with China than Trump. The climate talks, with Kerry as special
representative, are included in the "cooperation" category, while in areas such as high technology and trade they are more "competitive" and closer to "confrontational". The action is more "confrontational" than "competitive" in areas such as high technology and trade.
The meeting in Adelaide was the beginning of Blinken's formal engagement with China as Secretary of State, but a continuation of the years of American diplomatic hegemony that China had endured, especially the previous four years of dealing with Trump's brutality. So when Yang Jiechi, head of the Central Foreign Affairs Working Committee Office, dropped his gentle diplomatic rhetoric, Blinken, who looked across the table, could feel the anger from the Chinese side, even though he did not understand Chinese.
This is an unprecedented spectacle. China's proposed 'even-handed' diplomacy is based on the size of the Chinese economy. The diplomatic posture of both countries has changed since Adelaide, with China looking to further prove the reality of 'even-handedness' and the success of the Chinese model; including the centenary of the Chinese Communist Party, the great success of the Chinese delegation at the Tokyo Olympics, and the smooth success of the Beijing Winter Olympics, all seem to confirm that China is in a position of unquestionable power in the midst of a century of unprecedented change. The United States, on the other hand, is in the midst of a host of domestic and international affairs. For its part, the US has (passively) opted for a more pragmatic, reticent but resolute strategy in a host of domestic and international matters. The abandonment of Meng's extradition was a revision of an earlier misguided strategy and a disorienting gesture of goodwill, while the woeful withdrawal from Afghanistan was undoubtedly the biggest reorientation of US military strategy abroad since the Gulf War.
At the heart of strategy is making the choice that best meets the need. A prolonged presence in Afghanistan has not allowed the US to gain control of the mountainous country, and the barren resources have prevented the US from recouping the cost of its presence, while leaving the US tied to its own hands and unable to focus its resources on more important imaginary enemies. Stepping away from unnecessary battlefields, bringing allies back into the fold, accelerating the strengthening of epidemic control and vaccination, addressing US domestic consumption and boosting employment through a significant increase in liquidity, all the while maintaining a hold on China by constantly nudging issues closely related to China such as Taiwan, the South China Sea, trade, high technology and the Olympics. The Biden administration's efforts have paid off significantly in the wake of Russia's launch of the war against Ukraine.
Russia did not achieve a quick victory. The US also found that: firstly, Russia was not as powerful as it thought; secondly, the war of public opinion helped to unite NATO allies and bring in potential allies to stop Chinese aid to Russia; thirdly, helping Ukraine to stall Russia through military aid had obvious results and avoided the huge costs and escalation of war brought about by direct US or NATO entry.
Kissinger demonstrated at Davos the latest US intentions: whether Zelensky accepts it or not, the only strategic focus for the US at the moment is China, so the US wants Ukraine to cede the land and rest the war in order to focus on competing with China because: firstly, Russia needs to recuperate and restore its power after this war and does not need to worry much more; secondly, a continued war will further push up supply chain, energy and food risks and further push up inflation, which is not in the interests of the US and its European allies; and third, the continuation of the war will prompt an escalation of the Russian-Chinese alliance if it escalates out of control. In short, competition with China is the key, and with Ukraine's intentions of dragging Russia down having been achieved, there is no need for further war.
At the same time, mainland China's economic development has been significantly affected by the impact of the epidemic and has seen its GDP growth rate fall below that of the US for the first time since China's reform and opening up. With the end of Biden's trip to East Asia and the new economic, trade and supply chain alliances with ASEAN and India, the US has created many problems for China in its immediate neighbourhood and has tied up more fences. And China's inside-the-beltway model in the face of epidemic disruption is undoubtedly facilitating the door for the US to build closer ties with these countries through basic manufacturing and new supply chains.
These were the diplomatic gains that the United States had begun to enjoy before Blinken's speech on China. The process of this and that came faster than expected, in what sounded like a passive but more provocative and confident speech by Blinken, which was both a summary of the Biden administration's policy and actions towards China since it took office, and a more mature,three-dimensional,intelligent and offensive programme of action after the rhetoric had been tinkered with.
The brilliance of Blinken's speech was that it avoided conflict, emphasised the people of China and the US, stressed common development and did not seek to change China. With the epidemic raging for two years, the war between Russia and Ukraine continuing, prices soaring and economic development sluggish, these words are more than capable of pleasing allies and the public, and gaining the US a high position in international public opinion. But the verbal embellishments do not hide the fact that essentially the
US seeks to contain and change China to the greatest extent possible. Biden's expressions of military involvement in the Taiwan Strait in Japan can no longer and seemingly do not want to be explained by "slips of the tongue", but rather by nakedly offensive provocations - even expressions that directly judge Taiwan as cannon fodder, which have nothing to do with the choice of tens of millions of Taiwan's compatriots, as US interests require.
The straightforwardness and self-confidence of Biden and Blinken show that they are still stuck in the narrow view of unipolar hegemony and the priority of American interests, and that they lack a more comprehensive thinking and vision of the changing world trends and the corresponding China-American relations. In the three decades since the end of the Cold War, American elites have become accustomed to a self-centred mindset, where the advantages of determination and efficiency in local and short-term strategic decision-making and implementation do not replace the potential harm of deviations in long-term strategic direction. The strategic short-sightedness
brought about by the limitations of thinking is bound to have adverse effects on both world peace and development.
Firstly, the fence framework has to actually fall into place
- making China's neighbouring countries a direct rival to China instead of the US is something that Biden and Blinken will not be able to achieve anytime soon, or even in the long term. Blinken's formulation of old wine in new bottles remains the unilateral logic of US interests above all else, and his desire to build a fence around China is itself a manifestation and escalation of the confrontational Cold War thinking that Blinken strives to deny. Transferring the potential conflict and confrontational risks of US-China competition to East, Southeast and South Asia would require both a very high political and military cost to the US and the elimination of long-term, real geopolitical anxiety on all sides.
In his China policy speech, Blinken changed the three baskets of "cooperation, competition and confrontation" proposed more than a year ago to "invest and align" for friendly countries, leaving China with only "Compete".In describing this strategy, Blinken seeks a basis for consensus by playing up the "China threat", while the two stars and stripes behind him suggest that it is all based on the US interest perspective.
The Indo-Pacific economic framework implicitly entails a price to be paid for its acceptance by geographical countries, and whether it can be accepted or in what way and to what extent will be measured and assessed concretely. It is relatively easy to reach a basis for cooperation with the US when it meets the short- and long-term interests of the country's aspirations, but not vice versa. The reality is that the countries of East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia all have different economic bases and development aspirations, and the challenge of finding coherence within the US-led Indo-Pacific governance framework is itself enormous, while long-term stability and coherence is largely difficult to achieve.
But the consistency of US diplomatic strategy was predicated on maximising US interests. When Russia turned to long-term combat preparations, the US advice to Zelensky was to sacrifice Ukrainian territory to end the war. For the countries the US cooperates with, this is something that needs to be factored into the risk assessment. From the Indo-Pacific economic framework to a substantial agreement that works, the US has much more to substantively invest and prove.
The domestic political developments in the US do not seem to have left Biden with sufficient time and space. In the aftermath of the epidemic, the dollar overdose, global supply chain issues, and food and energy issues exacerbated by the war in Russia and Ukraine are all reflected in huge inflationary pressures. The enormous challenges facing the Biden administration in the run-up to the mid-term elections are also not limited to inflation, but also include the social tearing up of major issues such as gun control and abortion. US domestic issues, along with the Republican challenge to the Democrats through the midterm elections, will all be magnified one by one; meanwhile, Blinken's speech on China is likely to be attacked by the Republicans for not being flagrantly tough with China. The resurgence of Trumpism, at the other end of the spectrum, has reduced the space for Biden's and Blinken's seemingly subtle and meticulous strategy towards China. The pressure of domestic affairs has forced the Biden administration to be more eager to do something about containing China, which could trigger more offensive and destructive actions by the Biden administration if the gains are limited.
Globalisation is suffering from great challenges and shocks. The epidemic has exacerbated fragmentation on a physical level, deepened geopolitical, ethnic, religious, climatic,
development imbalance and trade imbalance conflicts, and spawned narrow nationalism and unilateralism. But from the point of view of human development, globalisation is objectively an inevitability that no government, no authoritarian power, can stop. A confrontational approach to the differences and contradictions arising from profound exchanges is the old path of imperialism seeking dominance and will only lead to conflict and violence.
In the process of irreversible globalisation of human development, it is normal to recognise differences and contradictions, but it is the role of visionary and wise politicians to provide long-term solutions to resolve them. The US elites, who are used to talking about diversity and inclusiveness, have adopted the expression "not seeking to change China" in their speeches to China, but are unable to accommodate the differences between China and the US, which undoubtedly leads the world to question American-style diversity and inclusiveness - whether it is the US political elites who are unable to provide a future-oriented model of world governance that is truly respectful of diversity and inclusive, or is there no intention to be respectful of diversity and inclusive? So far, neither Biden nor Blinken has been able to offer a more intelligent solution to the world's development.
The current world's rapid development and profound connectivity are placing greater demands and challenges on leaders around the world. Maintaining a model of governance that is specific to regional and sovereign states and capable of maintaining a smooth synergy with geo-neighbours and the international community is a common requirement for large and small countries, developed and developing countries, countries with different mechanisms and institutions, cultural heritage and social environments. Curbing one's own desires and controlling one's own behaviour, avoiding the maximisation of interests through containment, confrontation, closure, intolerance and even recourse to force, are the basic requirements for the world's future leaders. The thrust of Blinken's current speech to China has not yet managed to break out of the realm of national competition, still lacks solutions to diversity and inclusiveness, and remains objectively banal.