Shortly before US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s visit to the People’s Republic, the Communist leadership intensified its rhetoric towards Washington. A State Department spokeswoman blamed the outbreak of war in Ukraine on the United States, saying they were “the ones who started the crisis” and are now “the biggest factor fueling the crisis.”
With that, ruler Xi is once again siding with his dictator friend Vladimir Putin, and the back and forth between support for Putin and appeasement of the free world is entering the next round.
Xi’s and Putin’s bond
Almost exactly a year ago, both dictators hailed their friendship as a bulwark against freedom and democracy. Then Xi was caught off guard by Putin’s attack on Ukraine, and Beijing found itself caught between dictator loyalty and economic interests. Xi then adopted Kremlin language, calling the first war of aggression in Europe after the end of Hitler’s dictatorship a “military special operation.”
At the same time, Beijing has moderated its military support to avoid being hit by sanctions that would have further damaged the Chinese economy, which was already reeling from Xi’s mismanagement.
Beijing spoke out against a nuclear strike by Russia and called for both sides to come together for peace negotiations. The newly elected President of Brazil, Luis Inacio Lula, has made this demand his own. He suggested striving for peace negotiations together with him. At the same time, left-wing politician Lula backed Beijing’s rhetoric, saying “the US doesn’t want real peace” in Ukraine. Beijing comes at a time with this support for one of the world’s largest democracies.
US accused Chinese companies of supporting Russia
A few weeks ago the pendulum swung in a different direction. To repair some of the damage Beijing has caused on the diplomatic scene, Qin Gang, a diplomat who was previously the ambassador to the United States, became China’s foreign minister. In an interview before leaving for his homeland, Qin praised the people of the United States, which was understood as an olive branch that Beijing offered to the United States. Also the replacement of the government spokesman, Zhao Lilian, who also belongs to the “Wolf Warriors” faction. By now, the hard rhetoric against the free world should have calmed down a bit.
But the new escalation blaming the US for the Ukraine war points in the opposite direction. The reason for the escalation is that the US accused Chinese companies of supporting the war against Ukraine. The State Department spoke of “unfounded suspicions” and called on Washington to stop supplying weapons to Ukraine.
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Red Alert: How China’s aggressive foreign policy in the Pacific is leading to a global war
US should respect Chinese sovereignty
In this tense situation, Anthony Blinken travels to the People’s Republic. The on-site talks will again focus on Taiwan, among other things. Beijing regards any friendship that countries have with the island’s democratic republic as interference in the People’s Republic’s more internal affairs. Beijing claims that the free country belongs to the People’s Republic.
The truth is that the Communist Party never ruled the island. The People’s Dailya Communist Party propaganda paper, urged the US to respect China’s sovereignty and not cooperate in the island republic’s “independence” in an editorial Wednesday.
Xi’s war rhetoric drew other states closer to the United States
China’s rulers have tried in recent years to oust the United States from the Pacific region. However, Xi’s saber-rattling and war rhetoric have done the opposite: in addition to Taiwan, the Philippines, South Korea, Japan and Australia have strengthened their alliances with the United States and each other.
India, China’s arch-rival, is also converging on this new Indo-Pacific alliance. The USA therefore has the upper hand in the talks. At the same time, the expectations for Blinken’s visit to China, which US President Biden and Xi Jinping agreed on when they met in Bali last September, are manageable given the mixed situation.
