“This is an important opportunity for us to express in very frank terms our many concerns,” Blinken told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday. “We’ll also explore whether there are avenues for cooperation, and we’ll talk about the competition that we have with China to make sure the United States has a level playing field and that our companies and our workers are taking advantage of that.” However, they are many, and they were detailed by interlocutors from Blinken during the House briefing. At the top of the list was China’s crackdown on the Turkic Muslim population in Xinjiang, which Blinken has repeatedly said he believes is “genocide”. Whatever the Biden administration’s desire to find meeting points around a host of thorny issues – from trade and intellectual property rights to cybersecurity and the climate – it faces Beijing not only as a geopolitical rival, but as an ideological adversary. This is a position reinforced by widespread anti-China sentiment in Washington, and prior to the meeting in Anchorage, there were other efforts from the Biden administration to reach out to Asian allies also concerned about the rise of China. On Friday, Biden will actually meet the leaders of the “Quartet”, a group of major democracies that place the United States side by side with Japan, India and Australia, and which, among other things, is widely seen as a platform for regional coordination on China. Before heading to Alaska, Blinken will then hold meetings in Japan and South Korea, where he will be joined by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who is also scheduled to visit India separately, and there are no high expectations for the Alaska talks. This is not a strategic dialogue. On Wednesday, Blinken said there is no intention at this point for a series of follow-up engagements. “These posts, if they are to follow, must really be based on the suggestion that we are seeing concrete progress and tangible results on the issues that matter to us with China.” Matthew Pottinger, China’s senior policy advisor to the former president, said the White House under Donald Trump, said the meeting should “simply define the terms of participation in the future,” referring during a webinar hosted by the Hoover Institution to “a long list of grievances on our part that must be addressed.” “. He suggested that the Biden administration present a list of 14 complaints, referring to a 14-point list of objections that Chinese officials submitted to their Australian counterparts during a tense phase of diplomacy last year. He released standard talking points indicating that Beijing doesn’t have much equity in the discussions either. We ask the United States to view China and Sino-American relations in an objective and rational manner, reject the Cold War mentality and the zero-sum game, respect China’s sovereignty, security and development interests, and stop interfering in China’s internal affairs despite all their political differences, it seems that the Trump and Biden administrations They share a common analysis of the Chinese system, centered around opposition to President Xi Jinping’s dictatorial measures and a hard-line view of the role China plays on the world stage. Biden spoke in his speeches of defying China as part of a global clash between democratic values and illiberal authoritarianism. Blinken emphasized this week. That the White House plans to host a “Summit of Democracies” at the end of the year, Pottinger said, “The ideological dimension of competition with China is inevitable.” “That could be central.” But there is already a flash of a strong political response from Biden as well. With $ 1.9 trillion worth of domestic funds, lawmakers are working on legislation aimed at countering China’s economic influence. Although the details are still unclear, it is likely to propose “funding. Q to strengthening US manufacturing and supply chains, among other measures, “my colleagues said, and you would get at least a degree of bipartisan support, and then there’s the political front. Beijing knocked more nails into the coffin of Hong Kong’s Limited Democracy this week. The National People’s Congress on Thursday approved a resolution to reform the electoral system of the former British colony and ensure that only “patriots” can take seats in the legislature. It is only the last step to pacify opposition and tighten Beijing’s control over the semi-autonomous region, which has seen the Chinese authorities revoke key political freedoms over the past year. “Two years ago, the people of Hong Kong stood up to demand the Chinese Communist Party fulfill their promise of one country, two systems,” Representative Andy Kim (DNJ) said in a statement, referring to the Hong Kong bloc. The 2019 protests that sparked solidarity around the world, but had little real support. “Today’s actions are the final knockout blow to that promise and mark the true end of democracy in Hong Kong.”
The Biden administration’s first confrontation with China
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