US ‘whole-of-govt’ animosity against China building up with Blinken's upcoming speech
By GT staff reporters
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken File Photo: VCG
US
Secretary of State Antony Blinken will detail a national security
strategy in the coming weeks to deal with the emergence of China as a
great power, which will contribute to the US' latest
"whole-of-government" propaganda of the "China threat," jointly hyped by
the government and lawmakers, along with think tanks and media.
Observers
said Blinken's upcoming address won't be something new but rather seeks
to demonstrate the US' ability to manage foreign affairs in Europe and
the Asia-Pacific at a time when the Ukraine crisis continues.
But
when the all-out animosity against China reaches a new high, a US too
obsessed with "China threat" is losing its capability of analyzing China
in a nuanced manner, silencing domestic rational voices and risking
military conflict with China over the island of Taiwan.
Blinken
said at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Tuesday that he
would speak publicly and in detail about the strategy.
He
said before the Senate appearance that China is paying a reputational
cost for sitting on the fence and even possibly falling on the Russian
side.
Lü
Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,
told the Global Times on Thursday that the international community will
pay attention to whether the US will adjust its trade policies with
China and how it keeps a balance between the traditional transatlantic
alliance and its "Indo-Pacific Strategy" ambition against the backdrop
of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Blinken
on Tuesday also mentioned a US delegation to the Solomon Islands, with
which China just signed a security pact. US President Joe Biden is
expected to host a US-ASEAN summit in mid-May and visit South Korea and
Japan following that, according to the US News.
Experts
noted that Blinken's upcoming speech may try to link the Russia-Ukraine
conflict with US strategy on China and further coordinate the different
mechanisms in its "Indo-Pacific Strategy," including QUAD and AUKUS, to
show US presence in the region will not decrease despite the Ukraine
crisis.
A
Beijing-based international relations expert who asked not to be named
said Blinken has a clear goal of manipulating the Ukraine crisis and
diverting European countries' evaluation of relations with China.
The
US has positioned China as a rival and will only cooperate when it has
to, such as lowering certain tariffs to ease its domestic inflation, the
expert said.
US
Trade Representative Katherine Tai has restarted an exclusion process
that could lower tariffs on some Chinese goods, but has made no major
moves to remove tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of
Chinese goods, Reuters reported.
But
not long ago, on March 30, Tai, in her testimony before the House Ways
and Means Committee, said that a good-faith effort to engage with
China's government on trade may be hitting its limits and that existing
tools aren't up to the task.
US
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen urged China to use its "special
relationship with Russia" to persuade Russia to end military operations
in Ukraine.
Photo taken on Jan 25, 2021 shows the US Capitol building in Washington, DC, the United States. Photo:Xinhua
Numerous
bills targeting China have been approved and anti-China draft acts are
piling up in the US Congress. Rational voices on China are now rarely
heard from US think tanks, and the US doesn't hesitate to use its allies
to amplify the anti-China propaganda. In an op-ed article recently
published in the Los Angeles Times, former Japanese prime minister
Shinzo Abe mentioned Taiwan and Ukraine in the same breath and said the
time had come for the US to make clear that it would defend Taiwan.
Franz Gayl, a
retired US Marine who served as an officer for 22 years, told the
Global Times in a recent interview that US professional staff, all
well-attuned to political winds and opportunities, summarize the issues
in ways that provide political advantage to their principals.
In the process the
national security establishment and its congressional overseers have
been dumbed down to embrace a China-averse groupthink. This unbridled
approach to managing contemporary US-China relations is fraught with
deadly risks, Gayl said, noting the current (US) groupthink is hawkish
on China's positions and policies on all matters.
The
"whole-of-government" anti-China propaganda has an influence on public
opinion, as Gallup's latest annual World Affairs poll showed the
American public's opinion of China remains at a historic low.
The
poll, conducted from February 1-17, found that 79 percent of
respondents have an unfavorable view of China, with 41 percent answering
"very unfavorable." It also found that Americans view China as a
"critical" threat to US security.
The
trade imbalance, COVID-19 pandemic, and the US-concocted lies of human
rights violations in Xinjiang and Hong Kong regions, are frequent
excuses the US uses to smear China, and contributed to a negative
impression.
A
basic consensus was developed in the US to perceive China as a
challenge or threat prior to the Biden administration, yet the new
administration is not actively trying to adjust the perception, Da Wei,
director of the Center for International Security and Strategy of the
Tsinghua University in Beijing, told the Global Times.
The
US government and academia have been aggressive in their rhetoric
toward China, all because of the US strategic consensus on China which
has been formed and increasingly consolidated, Da said.
Describing
the Trump presidency as creating a "war-time like" atmosphere, Da said
that at the beginning of a war, there may be anti-war opinions on all
sides, but after the bullet is fired and everyone's emotions get fierce,
there will be less rational voices. The same is true between China and
the US.
What
we see today is that the US is equating China to Russia, two countries
that have good relations but cannot be equated in any way, or repeatedly
comparing the Ukraine issue with the Taiwan question, two issues that
are not comparable at all. Once again, the US is losing its expertise
and willingness to understand the nuances of international issues,
leading to this very dangerous phenomenon, experts said.
The
US is storing up trouble for the future because existing hostility will
not be reversed in a snap even when the US ultimately realizes treating
China as a rival doesn't work out, experts said.
In
contrast, Chinese Ambassador to the US Qin Gang has been carrying out
active exchanges with American society in order to offset a distorted
understanding of China in the US, because "China sees bilateral ties in a
completely different perspective and always seeks stable and
constructive relations," Lü said.
China
will try its best to de-escalate tensions on the condition that its
bottom line is safeguarded. Such an attitude is a responsible and decent
way in major power diplomacy and will be supported by the majority of
the international community, he said.
Ambassador
Qin Gang reads a letter on the 2021 Gala Dinner of the National
Committee on US-China Relations on November 9, 2021. Photo: Website of
Chinese Embassy in the US