Blinken warns China, Xi warns US
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to China has been marred by tension in contrast to recent bilateral visits between the superpowers where relations seemed to be thawing.
The purpose of Blinken’s visit was to warn Beijing about aiding Russia’s war in Ukraine. China has refrained from giving any weapons directly to Russia, a country it has a “no limits” partnership with, but the US is concerned that Chinese manufactured parts are making their way to Russia and are “having a material effect in Ukraine”.
Over five-and-a-half hours of talks with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi, Blinken told reporters: “I reiterated our serious concern about the PRC providing components that are powering Russia’s brutal war of aggression against Ukraine.”
“China is the top supplier of machine tools, microelectronics, nitrocellulose, which is critical to making munitions and rocket propellants, and other dual-use items that Moscow is using to ramp up its defence industrial base.”
China has said it is “not a producer of or party involved in the Ukraine crisis.” Blinken disagrees. He said: “Russia would struggle to sustain its assault on Ukraine without China’s support.”
This moment of tension comes after a recent thawing in relations between the mutually nervous superpowers. “Planet Earth is big enough for both our countries to succeed”, Chinese leader Xi Jinping proclaimed back in November on a visit to San Francisco. Prior to that, Joe Biden’s visit to China last June was also positive. “We’re back to direct, open, clear communications,” he declared confidently.
And while relations are still better than they were in early 2023, after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s controversial Taiwan visit and the US shooting down a Chinese spy balloon over its territory, the old reality is back. This was gestured at three weeks ago when US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen blamed Chinese manufacturers for flooding the world’s markets with cheap goods.
But it wasn’t just Blinken doing the warning. Wang and Xi were clear that the US must not step on “red lines”, a clear reference to Taiwan, which China sees as its own. Just days ago, the US Senate passed a $95bn bill providing defence aid for Taiwan and Ukraine. It also included $8bn to counter China’s military might.
China is also frustrated at what it sees as America’s economic suppression of its development. China is facing large economic problems (a property crisis combined with a demography crisis) that it is hoping to fix through an export-led recovery. As a result, the White House’s Chips Act, aimed at reducing its reliance on China for semiconductors by bolstering US production, has angered the Chinese government.
With regards to the US stifling China’s economic recovery, Xi said: “This is a fundamental issue that must be addressed, just like the first button of a shirt that must be put right, in order for the China-U.S. relationship to truly stabilise, improve and move forward.”
When asked about the matter, Blinken said: “We want China’s economy to grow, [but] the way China grows matters. That means fostering a healthy economic relationship where American workers and firms are treated equally and fairly.”
By recent standards Sino-American relations are better than they have been since Donald Trump after his election in 2016 made US policy more robust, in the process creating a bipartisan US consensus that China was a threat rather than an economic opportunity.
The US is still concerned about Fentanyl from China exacerbating the American opioid crisis and, as Blinken’s visit has shown, its indirect aid to Russia. Conversely, China is vexed at America’s industrial policy scuppering the competitiveness of its vital exports. The countries will hold initial talks on artificial intelligence in the coming weeks.
But the tone of Blinken’s visit suggests that Biden and Xi’s chummy San Fran honeymoon was an aberration, not the rule.
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