
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (R) speaks while facing Yang Jiechi (L), director of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission Office, and Wang Yi (2nd L), China's State Councilor and Foreign Minister, at the opening session of US-China talks at the Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage, Alaska, US, on 18 March 2021. Reuters/Pool/Frederic J Brown
By Humeyra Pamuk, Michael Martina and David Brunnstrom | Reuters
ANCHORAGE, Alaska, 19 March 2021
The first high-level US-China meeting of the Biden administration got off to a fiery start on Thursday, with both sides leveling sharp rebukes of the others’ policies in a rare public display that underscored the level of bilateral tension.
The run-up to the talks in Anchorage, Alaska, which followed visits by US officials to allies Japan and South Korea, was marked by a flurry of moves by Washington that showed it was taking a tough stance, and by blunt talk from Beijing.
“We will … discuss our deep concerns with actions by China, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyber attacks on the United States, economic coercion of our allies,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told his Chinese counterparts in a highly unusual extended back-and-forth in front of cameras.
“Each of these actions threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability,” he said.
The Biden administration has made clear that it is looking for a change in behavior from China, which has expressed hope to reset relations between the world’s two largest economies that worsened drastically under former President Donald Trump.
China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi responded with a 15-minute speech in Chinese while the US side awaited translation, lashing out over what he said was the United States’ struggling democracy, poor treatment of minorities, and criticizing its foreign and trade policies.
“The United States uses its military force and financial hegemony to carry out long-arm jurisdiction and suppress other countries,” said Yang.
“It abuses so-called notions of national security to obstruct normal trade exchanges, and incite some countries to attack China,” he added.
Grandstanding and protocol breaches
Throughout Yang’s monologue, US National Security Adviser Sullivan and other officials in the delegation passed notes to each other. At the end, Blinken held journalists in the room so he could respond.
What is typically a few minutes of opening remarks in front of journalists for such high-level meetings lasted more than an hour, and the two delegations tussled about when media would be ushered out of the room.
Afterwards, the United States accused China of “grandstanding” while Chinese state media blamed US officials for speaking too long and being “inhospitable”.
Both sides accused the other of violating diplomatic protocol by speaking too long in opening remarks.
“The Chinese delegation … seems to have arrived intent on grandstanding, focused on public theatrics and dramatics over substance,” the official told reporters at the Anchorage hotel where the meeting was taking place.
“Exaggerated diplomatic presentations often are aimed at a domestic audience,” the official added.
Many netizens on China’s social media said Chinese officials were doing a good job in Alaska, and that the US side lacked sincerity.
Some even characterized the talks as a “Hongmen Banquet”, referring to an event that took place 2,000 years ago where a rebel leader invited another to a feast with the intention of murdering him.
Still, the two sides reconvened for another meeting on Thursday evening, and a senior Biden administration official said that the first session was “substantive, serious, and direct,” running well beyond the two hours originally allotted.
“We used the session, just as we had planned, to outline our interests and priorities, and we heard the same from our Chinese counterparts,” the official said in the pool report, adding that a third session of talks was scheduled for Friday morning.
While much of Biden’s China policy is still being formulated, including how to handle the tariffs on Chinese goods implemented under Trump, his administration has so far placed a stronger emphasis on democratic values and allegations of human rights abuses by China.
China firmly opposes US interference in what it regards as its internal affairs, issues such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and Xinjiang.
Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said it was expecting the United States to brief them about the talks.
Terms of disagreement
Washington says Blinken’s Asia tour before the meeting with Chinese officials, as well as US outreach to Europe, India and other partners, shows how the United States has strengthened its hand to confront China since Biden took office in January.
But the two sides appeared primed to agree on very little at the talks.
Even the status of the meeting became a sticking point, with China insisting it is a “strategic dialogue”, harkening back to bilateral mechanisms of years past. The US side rejected that, calling it a one-off session.
On the eve of the talks, the United States issued a flurry of actions directed at China, including a move to begin revoking Chinese telecoms licenses, subpoenas to multiple Chinese information technology companies over national security concerns, and updated sanctions on China over a rollback of democracy in Hong Kong.
Adding to tensions, China on Friday tried a Canadian citizen on espionage charges, in a case embroiled in a wider diplomatic spat between Washington and Beijing.
At the talks on Thursday, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi questioned Blinken about whether the sanctions were announced ahead of the meeting on purpose.
Washington has said it is willing to work with China when it is in US interests, citing climate policy and the coronavirus pandemic as examples. Blinken said Washington hoped to see China use its influence with North Korea to persuade it to give up its nuclear weapons.
Bonnie Glaser, an Asia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said tough statements from both sides in the run-up to the meeting had created a risk that it would devolve into an exchange of accusations and demands.
“Neither side benefits from this meeting being judged a total failure,” Glaser said.
Powerful governments all over the world are only concerned about their share of the “global pie”. Their talk on human rights, religious freedom and rights of “minorities” are only tools used to achieve their goal. These talks lack any moral obligation or sympathy for the suffering people. Human rights, religious freedom and minority rights – words just bandied around like a ball. And the worse offender, China brazenly claims them as “Internal affairs”. How sadistically moronic!
I believe America is back as President Biden declared. The long cultivated American allies in Europe and Asia have once again come together to face the new challenge of a growing menace from communist China. This regime is the equivalent of Nazi Germany – a regime bent on committing genocide. It has murdered more people than any other regime in history.
Under the leadership of Joe Biden, apart from the traditional allies of the US, it has also roped in India, a country that once frowned upon aligning itself to any power. The Quad is born with a united front against a totalitarian outfit that despises democracy. Other powerful democracies will join in due time.
This has made the US the most powerful nation that commands the respect and allegiance of these allies in Europe and Asia. When you fight a bully, one must have friends to stand by you. America has secured this friendship under Joe Biden.
The world is definitely a safer place now because the bully knows it can’t challenge the might of America and its allies. It will discourage its ambitions to take Taiwan and ride rough shod over conquered people like the Tibetans.
N Korea is a spent force and Kim’s health is a real concern. The Mexican floodgate of economic migration is a problem. It’s not something that can be solved by building walls. It’s also a humanitarian crises since these people are escaping poverty.
The world’s richest country obviously can’t turn its back on these desperate people. It needs a policy of treating them humanely and at the same time a policy that would improve the quality of life in their own country so they don’t migrate to the US.
We have to remember that migration is as old as human history. The world was populated through migration including America. Nothing…
What’s been going on in the last six weeks is that America is on her knees. Every major thing that has taken place, the present regime has brought the country to its knees. Right from the border crisis to billions of dollars in debt heaped upon the next generation to North Korea threatening Biden and now this summit with China where America is being thrashed. We all know Joe Biden is not running the govt. Even CNN says things like Biden wonders around, stops into people’s office, check in on them, likes to make fires and then he goes to bed with a bowl of ice cream. So, who is running the day to day affairs? Kamala Harris is a neophyte on foreign policy and its going to take some time for her to catch up. So the question is who is in charge? America is being thrashed left, right and center and becoming a laughing stock. Even Putin has challenged Biden to a debate as Biden like a true democrat focuses on Russia to divert from China and calling him a ‘killer” to which Putin retorted that “it takes one to know one”. Putin then went on to wish him health adding “I say this without irony or joke”.
Watch the youtube video by TFIglobal – “The world dearly misses Trump as China thrashes a feeble Biden admin in Alaska talks”. Watch this and weep.