China’s US visit snub is because Biden is increasingly behaving like Trump
Tom Fowdy
is a British writer and analyst of politics and international relations with a primary focus on East Asia.
16 Jul, 2021
Beijing’s refusal to meet with the US deputy secretary of state illustrates its worsening relationship with America. Only Joe Biden can resolve this by unpicking Donald Trump’s disastrous legacy, but he is failing to do so.
According to a report in the Financial Times, China has refused to host a scheduled visit from US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy R. Sherman. As part of a wider Asian trip, the veteran diplomat aimed to fly into Beijing for talks which were expected to pave the way for a potential summit between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping.
However, for a reason that remains undisclosed, a meeting between Sherman and her counterpart, Le Yucheng, was rejected. Analysts in the report expressed concern that this would be a dangerous move, while others tied it to the way the US treated China in the fiery Alaska summit earlier this year.
To date, Beijing has not been overly confrontational with the Biden administration – bar these one-off events – and still has many legitimate reasons to stop ties with the US from getting even worse. But on the other hand, the closing down of this potential meeting is an important indicator of the mood in Beijing – it already seems to have had enough of a Biden presidency that is pursuing a foreign policy which is increasingly the same as Trump’s. Dialogue with America is currently not seen as something incentivizing, but a waste of time.
Keen observers will note that the wheels are already falling off Biden’s China policy, which seems mired in growing contradictions. Part of this can be attributed to a lack of coherence on what the policy actually is apart from ‘China bad’.
And the reason is that the Donald Trump presidency continues to linger over the new administration, having set a number of traps for it to cement its new paradigm of relations with Beijing and ‘box in’ Biden – for example, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo’s last-minute declaration of “ genocide” in Xinjiang. This formula appears to have been a success.
And although the Biden presidency suggested there would be more restrained competition with China, and pledged to cooperate with Beijing in areas that were in America’s national interest – such as climate change – six months later, there is scant sign of this.
Rather, the White House has assumed an increasingly confrontational approach against China which has been hamstrung by domestic political pressures and an obsession with protectionism.
In hindsight, the Alaska summit was not just political theater, but an indication that things were not actually going to get better and the scope for improved relations is actually pretty limited. The presidency has adopted a nasty habit – as it also did with Russia – of announcing sanctions when approaching dialogue with these ‘adversarial’ states.
It did so in Alaska with Beijing, and essentially the entire summit was reduced to domestic political grandstanding. Reuters reports that America has yet more sanctions lined up over Hong Kong which predictably would have been announced before the Sherman-Yucheng meeting.
Herein lies the strategic flaw in Biden’s policy. Just like Trump, he is doing nothing to reassure Beijing of America’s intentions. Already he has provoked it over Taiwan by landing military planes on the island – blunders which his ‘Asia czar’ Kurt Campbell attempted to row back on. This is obviously a very big red line for Beijing. And over the past month, he has engaged in a growing spree of sanctions over Xinjiang including a demand for businesses to leave the supply chain altogether, issuing a proposed business advisory targeting Hong Kong – which according to the South China Morning Post “shocked” American business leaders – and confirmed sanctions on China’s solar panel industries motivated by protectionism.
In a nutshell, the more stable, rational competition promised by the White House is not happening at all, and Biden’s China policy is buckling under its own bulging inconsistencies and strategic miscalculations. It is essentially identical to the approach of Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo – if not quite so unhinged – and I’ve previously highlighted how this is alienating allies who do not agree with the sentiment to the same degree. An editorial by The Economist also recently shared this view, opening with the line, “Its protectionism and its us-or-them rhetoric will hurt America and put off allies.”
US-China confrontation may only get worse under Biden as Beijing switches into ‘war mode’ in face of western criticism & sanctionsUS-China confrontation may only get worse under Biden as Beijing switches into ‘war mode’ in face of western criticism & sanctions In this case, China has abruptly – but unsurprisingly – put its foot down on high-level dialogue with the US (but not its allies). Beijing does not want to provoke the US further or empower the worst China hawks, but it is increasingly making a rational calculation that, for the moment, an attempt to talk to the US is a waste of effort and even self-defeating.
The US has given no indication it is going to change its approach, and so distrust and strategic tensions in the relationship with China are continuing to grow. But the onus lies solely on Biden and his lack of spine in standing up to the destructive legacy of Trump, which he has embraced wholeheartedly. Has a Cold War been averted? Perhaps in the conventional understanding of it, but not in the light of America’s actions.
China’s US visit snub is because Biden is increasingly behaving like Trump
Tom Fowdy
is a British writer and analyst of politics and international relations with a primary focus on East Asia.
16 Jul, 2021
Beijing’s refusal to meet with the US deputy secretary of state illustrates its worsening relationship with America. Only Joe Biden can resolve this by unpicking Donald Trump’s disastrous legacy, but he is failing to do so.
According to a report in the Financial Times, China has refused to host a
scheduled visit from US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy R. Sherman. As part of a wider Asian trip, the veteran diplomat aimed to fly into Beijing for
talks which were expected to pave the way for a potential summit between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping.
However, for a reason that remains undisclosed, a meeting between Sherman
and her counterpart, Le Yucheng, was rejected. Analysts in the report
expressed concern that this would be a dangerous move, while others tied it to the way the US treated China in the fiery Alaska summit earlier this year.
To date, Beijing has not been overly confrontational with the Biden
administration – bar these one-off events – and still has many legitimate reasons to stop ties with the US from getting even worse. But on the other
hand, the closing down of this potential meeting is an important indicator
of the mood in Beijing – it already seems to have had enough of a Biden
presidency that is pursuing a foreign policy which is increasingly the same as Trump’s. Dialogue with America is currently not seen as something
incentivizing, but a waste of time.
Keen observers will note that the wheels are already falling off Biden’s
China policy, which seems mired in growing contradictions. Part of this can be attributed to a lack of coherence on what the policy actually is apart
from ‘China bad’.
And the reason is that the Donald Trump presidency continues to linger over the new administration, having set a number of traps for it to cement its
new paradigm of relations with Beijing and ‘box in’ Biden – for example, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo’s last-minute declaration of “
genocide” in Xinjiang. This formula appears to have been a success.
And although the Biden presidency suggested there would be more restrained
competition with China, and pledged to cooperate with Beijing in areas that were in America’s national interest – such as climate change – six
months later, there is scant sign of this.
Rather, the White House has assumed an increasingly confrontational approach against China which has been hamstrung by domestic political pressures and an obsession with protectionism.
In hindsight, the Alaska summit was not just political theater, but an
indication that things were not actually going to get better and the scope
for improved relations is actually pretty limited. The presidency has
adopted a nasty habit – as it also did with Russia – of announcing
sanctions when approaching dialogue with these ‘adversarial’ states.
It did so in Alaska with Beijing, and essentially the entire summit was
reduced to domestic political grandstanding. Reuters reports that America
has yet more sanctions lined up over Hong Kong which predictably would have been announced before the Sherman-Yucheng meeting.
Herein lies the strategic flaw in Biden’s policy. Just like Trump, he is
doing nothing to reassure Beijing of America’s intentions. Already he has
provoked it over Taiwan by landing military planes on the island – blunders which his ‘Asia czar’ Kurt Campbell attempted to row back on. This is
obviously a very big red line for Beijing. And over the past month, he has
engaged in a growing spree of sanctions over Xinjiang including a demand for businesses to leave the supply chain altogether, issuing a proposed
business advisory targeting Hong Kong – which according to the South China Morning Post “shocked” American business leaders – and confirmed
sanctions on China’s solar panel industries motivated by protectionism.
In a nutshell, the more stable, rational competition promised by the White
House is not happening at all, and Biden’s China policy is buckling under
its own bulging inconsistencies and strategic miscalculations. It is
essentially identical to the approach of Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo – if not quite so unhinged – and I’ve previously highlighted how this is
alienating allies who do not agree with the sentiment to the same degree. An editorial by The Economist also recently shared this view, opening with the line, “Its protectionism and its us-or-them rhetoric will hurt America and put off allies.”
US-China confrontation may only get worse under Biden as Beijing switches
into ‘war mode’ in face of western criticism & sanctionsUS-China
confrontation may only get worse under Biden as Beijing switches into ‘war mode’ in face of western criticism & sanctions
In this case, China has abruptly – but unsurprisingly – put its foot down on high-level dialogue with the US (but not its allies). Beijing does not
want to provoke the US further or empower the worst China hawks, but it is
increasingly making a rational calculation that, for the moment, an attempt to talk to the US is a waste of effort and even self-defeating.
The US has given no indication it is going to change its approach, and so
distrust and strategic tensions in the relationship with China are
continuing to grow. But the onus lies solely on Biden and his lack of spine in standing up to the destructive legacy of Trump, which he has embraced
wholeheartedly. Has a Cold War been averted? Perhaps in the conventional
understanding of it, but not in the light of America’s actions.
一边施压，一边要见面
这是对中国的严重误判啊，以为中国分裂了
说到了问题实质，就是现在跟美方对话是浪费时间精力，毫无疑义
but it is increasingly making a rational calculation that, for the moment,
an attempt to talk to the US is a waste of effort and even self-defeating.
我鳖不给一个法可
米联储继续印钞放水，米帝房市股市和物价“蒸蒸日上”，白等有经济底气继续耗呗，看谁耗死谁
支持不见面
没什么好谈的
这种会谈毫无意义
老大舔着脸要跟老二谈说明老大危险了
美帝不把德里克堡和新冠查清楚，还中国一个清白，而且赔偿中国的损失，还有华为的事儿，不然，谈个屁啊。美帝现在就是疯狂收集筹码，学川普极限施压，中国答应谈了，就着了美帝的道了。
美帝现在精神分裂得厉害，又降军机又制裁共匪又禁止新疆种族灭绝强制劳动甚至连港灿嚎叫一下也要插手，却要首脑会谈合作？扯什么鸡巴蛋，直接宣战把共匪邪恶帝国灭了瓜分其财产算了。
就应该晾着美国三年五载，看谁耗得起。
几十年内美帝当然耗得起，农业能源大国不是吹的，不过美帝这样下去必死，功劳归黑幕三。
【 在 offlimit(nothing) 的大作中提到: 】
: 就应该晾着美国三年五载，看谁耗得起。