U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has just wrapped up his three-day visit to China. Despite his hopeful words, it does not appear he made substantive progress on core issues.
No surprise for the apparent lack of success. For one thing, Beijing had signaled that talks would be difficult. Earlier in the week, China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy launched a JL-2 intercontinental ballistic missile from a nuclear-powered submarine. The JL-2 is designed to deliver a one-megaton nuclear warhead.
The launch was ostensibly connected to the Chinese Navy’s 75th anniversary celebration, but observers saw the event as a warning to the U.S. The launch occurred just two days before Blinken touched down in Shanghai for the trip to that city and Beijing, his second visit to China in a year.
Beijing prominently displays these missiles, carried in rows of flat-bed trucks, in military parades, even going so far as to adorn them with “JL-2” markings that appear to be for parade purposes only.
The missile was not the only unfriendly sign, however. At the moment, Beijing does not appear to be in any mood to have meaningful conversations with Washington, even America’s top diplomat.
For one thing, the Chinese regime is exceedingly full of itself. Xi Jinping, for years, has been promoting the notion that “the East is rising, the West is declining.” Recently, he has even been propagating the line that he’s already in charge of the world.
“Change is coming that hasn’t happened in 100 years,” the Chinese leader said to Vladimir Putin in March 2023. “And we are driving this change together.”
Unfortunately, the Biden administration’s policies have reinforced this perception of Chinese strength because America’s repeated attempts to promote dialogue feed Beijing’s already inflated sense of self-importance. A Monday report by the Global Times noted that visits from Blinken and other U.S. officials “indicate that Washington is unable to solve domestic and global issues without cooperation from China.”
What Biden intends as friendly gestures are interpreted in the Chinese capital as signs of America’s perception of its weakness, which means Chinese officials think they have a veto over at least some of Washington’s policies. Reciprocity, unfortunately, does not work with China’s Communists, who look like they are becoming even more arrogant.
Moreover, Beijing sees the Western democracies as feeble because they are divided, especially on Ukraine, a focus of Blinken’s visit that he highlighted before his latest China visit.
“We see China sharing machine tools, semiconductors, other dual-use items that have helped Russia rebuild the defense industrial base that sanctions and export controls had done so much to degrade,” Blinken said in Italy on the 19th.
“China can’t have it both ways,” he continued. “It can’t purport to want to have positive, friendly relations with countries in Europe and at the same time be fueling the biggest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War.”
But Beijing undoubtedly thinks it can have both. Steve Yates, chair of the America First Policy Institute’s China Policy Initiative, told me German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s visit to Beijing “gravely undermined any notion Blinken hopes to sell that the West will stand unified in imposing sanctions should China continue to aid Russia’s military assault on Ukraine.”
“After significantly expanding trade with Russia since the invasion, blunting the impact of sanctions and helping replenish military capabilities, Europe’s anchor state warmly embraced China’s leader with unchanged hopes for expanded trade and economic opportunities,” Yates added.
Unfortunately, the Biden administration has also been undermining Blinken. Reuters reported Tuesday that the U.S. has “no plan to roll out sanctions on China’s banks in the near-term,” which would be the most effective measures at Washington’s disposal.
An anonymous Biden administration source said, “Officials hope that diplomacy will avert the need for such action.”
Biden has been warning Beijing about providing “lethal aid” to Russia since almost the beginning of the conflict, but, as Blinken’s comments indicate, China has persisted. And now Washington has reportedly signaled it does not intend to do anything meaningful about the Chinese support.
Why the reluctance? Because there is still hope that America can work with China.
That’s not realistic, however. Administration officials and other Americans have not wanted to acknowledge that China and Russia are acting together to destabilize the international system. Yet neither Beijing nor Moscow has been bashful about the nature of the relationship, for instance declaring their “no-limits” partnership in their 5,300-word joint statement just 20 days before Russia invaded Ukraine.
Beijing, in anticipation of Blinken’s visit, had been telling Washington that its support for the Russian war effort was none of America’s business.
“The Ukrainian issue is not an issue between China and the United States, and the United States should not turn it into an issue between China and the United States,” a Chinese foreign ministry official said on Tuesday.
A comment on social media by Hu Xijin, the former Global Times editor is a stronger indication of China’s dismissive attitude toward Blinken. On Wednesday, Hu called Blinken’s visit to China “imploring.”
Blinken received a cold welcome in Shanghai. There was no red carpet, Hu pointed out. No senior Chinese official bothered to go to the airport to greet him.
And then there was an unmistakable sign of disrespect for Secretary Blinken and the country he represents: The launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile.
Gordon G. Chang is the author of “The Coming Collapse of China” and “China Is Going to War.” Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @GordonGChang.
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