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Opinion | Is China taking a tactical step back in the face of a still powerful US? Perhaps
- The widely held pessimism about the prospects for the US secretary of state’s visit to China has turned into a subtle sense of triumph
- While Beijing has shown its determination to confront the US presence near its border, the reception of Antony Blinken, Elon Musk and Bill Gates suggests China sees a chance to improve relations and sustain its rise
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US-China relations have been so bad, and the chain of recent events that led up to Antony Blinken’s visit to China – the first by a US secretary of state in nearly five years – had put so much attention on it, that his appearance in Beijing on Sunday was nothing short of melodramatic.
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The widely held pessimism about the prospects for Blinken’s two-day visit has turned into a subtle sense of triumph. This is in contrast to the efforts of both sides to tamp down expectations of the potential significance of the visit before it started.
At a media briefing on June 14, Daniel Kritenbrink, US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, who had made a trip to Beijing to prepare for Blinken’s visit, said his boss was going to Beijing to keep communication channels open, to stand up for American values and interests and to cooperate where the two sides can, in areas such as “climate and global macroeconomic stability”. That sounded more like posturing than foretelling anything substantive.
Kurt Campbell, coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs on the National Security Council, said during the same briefing that “after investing at home and strengthening ties with allies abroad, now is precisely the time for intense diplomacy” with Beijing, adding that the United States is doing so “from a position of confidence in ourselves and in the importance of consistent, clear and high-level communication with other great powers”.
That ominously brought to mind a scene in Anchorage, Alaska, in March 2021. Yang Jiechi, then China’s top diplomat, responded to Blinken’s similarly expressed views by insisting that “the US does not have the qualification to say to China it wants to speak to China from a position of strength”.
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Gloves off at top-level US-China summit in Alaska with on-camera sparring
Gloves off at top-level US-China summit in Alaska with on-camera sparring
Adding to efforts to dampen expectations was a phone call between Blinken and his Chinese counterpart Qin Gang. According to Chinese sources, Qin “made clear China’s solemn position on the Taiwan question and China’s other core concerns”. For his part, Blinken, before leaving for Beijing, was quoted as saying that “intense competition requires sustained diplomacy to ensure that competition does not veer into confrontation or conflict”.
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