Politico says that it’s “a good sign for the U.S.-China relationship when Beijing starts complimenting Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin’s chopstick skills.”
The Washington Post says that the “breathless state media coverage of her dining choices or dexterity with chopsticks reflects an effort by Beijing to cast Yellen’s visit in a positive light, especially to an increasingly anti-American Chinese public. It underlines how Beijing sees Yellen as perhaps its best hope for improving trade ties with Washington and helping its own ailing economy.”
Biden, Xi, naval personnel, Yellen
Seriously, though, says Politico: “Washington and Beijing have been talking at the highest levels this week, a significant development in a tense relationship. See: President Joe Biden’s call with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Yellen’s visit to the country, and meetings of naval personnel from both countries.”
That something that is happening is “significant” doesn’t mean that the development is good or will produce any good results. “The question,” says Politico, “will be how quickly (if at all) all that chumminess is reflected in actions by either country.”
This seems to cover all the bases. The talks might lead to “actions” (“by either country”) only slowly or to no diplomacy-generated action at all. However, diplomacy itself is an action, as is China’s propaganda about the diplomacy.
The naval meeting…is particularly notable, since it marks the first formal meeting of operational-level U.S. and Chinese naval personnel since 2021.
During the talks, 18 U.S. naval officers and 18 Chinese officers talked about recent incidents involving naval units from the two countries that raised safety concerns. The meeting was launched in 1998 as a way to mitigate the possibility of dangerous encounters between the two militaries in the Indo-Pacific, but they were suspended following then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan in 2022.
The resumption of talks is positive for the U.S., but don’t get too excited yet, said Bonnie Glaser’s, managing director of the German Marshall Fund’s Indo-Pacific program.
“It’s a good thing that after the Pelosi visit…they’re resuming them, but we shouldn’t have high expectations for what’s going to be achieved” in any future rounds of [the naval] talks, she told NatSec Daily.
On the other hand, says Glaser, the talks are “very important. You could cite specific examples in which the absence of regular communications lead China to misperceive our intentions, and I think that can lead to a crisis in and of itself.”
Stability and negativity
Could the talks increase the chances that China will misperceive our intentions? Or that U.S. officials will misperceive Chinese intentions?
What would be an example of the kind of substantive things that the U.S. officers and the Chinese officers could say to each other that would cause something worthwhile to be achieved, like reduction of tension or reduction of China’s chronic harassing of other countries? Perhaps the Americans are saying: “Please stop ramming foreign ships and aiming water cannons at them. These kinds of incidents raise safety concerns.” Perhaps the Chinese are replying: “We’re just defending our sovereignty and territorial rights. Stay out of the way and you won’t get hurt.”
Xi Jinping said, after the recent phone call with Biden: “The China-U.S. relationship is beginning to stabilize,” but “the negative factors of the relationship have also been growing, and this requires attention from both sides.” These vague pseudo-constructive utterances represent Xi in pretending-to-be-reasonable mode, his idea of the carrot. Xi and China will also continue to apply the stick.
What “negative factors” originating in its own policies and conduct will China now seek to ameliorate for the sake of improving international relations?
China won’t stop bullying Taiwan, the Philippines, India, Bhutan. It won’t stop sending giant fishing vessels to grab massive amounts of fish within the exclusive economic zones of other countries on the other side of the world. It won’t stop trying to wipe out the culture, freedom, family life, and/or lives of Uyghurs, Tibetans, Falun Gong, Hongkongers, etc. It won’t stop harassing and kidnapping Chinese nationals who have fled to other countries. It won’t stop the pervasive (and Western-tech-firm-abetted) domestic surveillance and censorship. It won’t stop the cyberattacks. It won’t stop spreading Chinese Communist Party propaganda in every way possible throughout the world, through high schools and colleges and advertorials and radio and TV stations and apps. It won’t stop torturing the innocent people it imprisons.
Back to the Post:
“Overall, Yellen’s visit to China sends a positive signal regarding the economic and trade relations between the two countries,” the state-run Global Times concluded in an editorial on Thursday. On Friday, Yellen met with the Guangdong governor, Wang Weizhong, and said the United States is not seeking to “decouple” or cut itself off from the Chinese economy.
Well, that’s a positive action already. For China. Which further states by way of the Global Times that the United States has really got to get its act together:
However, the key issue lies in the fact that Washington’s actions in recent years, saying one thing and doing another, have severely undermined confidence in China-US relations, to the extent that it is difficult to believe what the US says. If the US truly wants to treat China-US relations “responsibly,” the first thing to do is to implement equality and reciprocity in practice. Only then will China and the US move toward each other.
Yellen stated on Wednesday that it is important for the US and China not to decouple. However, whether it is the US TikTok ban, restrictions on China’s access to high tech, or putting up barriers against China’s exports to the US, what people see is only a severe approach from the US.
Severe: not doing what the totalitarian Chinese state wants. Mild: surrendering.
On the point that U.S. policy should be more consistent, nolo contendere.
Yalkun Uluyol’s family
Will the revived U.S.-China talks help Yalkun Uluyol (shown above), a Uyghur who lost his father and thirty other family members? His father was sentenced to 16 years in prison for having relatives abroad.
Giving evidence to the UK’s Foreign Affairs Committee in February, the 30-year-old Istanbul-based Uyghur exile catalogued his family’s harrowing experiences. [I]n measured tones he ran down the list of thirty family members who had disappeared. In the absence of police reports or court hearings, he discovered his father’s fate only after two years of searching, and he is still receiving news about other family members lost or disappeared. Some have received long prison terms; others are undergoing forced labour while still others have disappeared altogether.
China pretends that its attack on the Uyghurs has not been happening.
But the U.S. and China are talking…
Also see:
StopTheChinazis.org: “Japan to the Rescue in the South China Sea?”
“The Chinese, by contrast, negotiate while militarily asserting their territorial claims via harassment and occasional violence. Given Beijing’s hard line, it would be interesting to know what exactly is being negotiated. Perhaps China is negotiating for a Hong-Kong-type turnover of various islands. Perhaps for the terms under which competing claims will be surrendered.”
