Recently, the United States unilaterally announced that Blinken will visit China in the near future. Prior to this, US Assistant Secretary of State Conda and his entourage had just visited China. And Blinken's visit to China last year was also such a paving step. So, does this mean that China and the United States have already negotiated Blinken's visit to China? #军史观察团#
According to the information previously introduced by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, after the talks between Chinese officials and Kangda and his delegation, the two sides agreed that the stability and development of China-US relations is of paramount importance, and agreed to continue to maintain communication at all levels. In a statement issued by the US State Department, the US side also pointed out that the basis of the visit was based on high-level diplomatic contacts between China and the United States. Taken together, Kangda and his entourage came to China to pave the way for Blinken's visit to China, and China is open to it.
However, considering that US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has been hyping up issues such as "generating excess" before and after her visit to China, the differences between China and the United States are by no means something that can be negotiated by one or two high-level dialogues between the two sides. And, in a sense, it is not so much that US officials are here to solve problems, but rather that they are here to continue to test China's bottom line.
Similar to Yellen's visit to China, the US side made some unreasonable demands in advance before the Blinken people came to China.
According to U.S. State Department spokesman Miller, Blinken will talk to China in person about Sino-Russian relations during his visit to China. Miller hyped that the United States found that Russia is using some materials from China to rebuild its defense industry, and some of the weapons that the Russian army has put into the battlefield in Ukraine are produced from these materials. The US side is very worried about this. The implication is that the Chinese side should give an explanation to the US side by restricting cooperation with Russia, so as to dispel the latter's concerns about China's "support for Russia".
In addition, considering that Blinken had previously called Foreign Minister Wang Yi specifically to discuss the tense relations between Iran and Israel, and urged the Chinese side to advise Iran not to escalate the situation. Then, given the ongoing tensions between Iran and Israel, it is likely that Blinken will make similar unreasonable demands on China on the Iranian issue during his visit to China.
It is worth mentioning that before the US State Department conducted a so-called "briefing" on Blinken's upcoming visit to China, the US House of Representatives took action against China on the Iran issue. They overwhelmingly passed a bill trying to stop China from buying oil from Iran. After the law goes into effect, the United States will sanction Chinese institutions that continue to buy oil from Iran.
From the perspective of time, the US move coincided with a phone call between the Chinese and Iranian foreign ministers. During the call, the Chinese side endorsed Iran's description of its counterattack against Israel as an exercise of its right to self-defense, and condemned Israel's previous attack on the Iranian embassy. Obviously, although the Chinese side is only stating a fact, this is not the position that the United States wants to see.
To put it simply, in the recent confrontation between Iran and Israel, the United States has always been pulling the strings. Before Iran counterattacked Israel, Blinken called Wang Yi mainly to hope that China would persuade Iran to stop. Then, in the case of Iran's counterattack and Israel has said that it will respond, Blinken's visit to China cannot rule out that he will ask China to persuade Iran not to counterattack twice, even if Israel responds in some way.
Based on this situation, the US announcement of the bill to prevent China from buying Iranian oil should be a warning to the Chinese and Iranian foreign ministers on the one hand, and use it as a bargaining chip on the other hand, in an attempt to force China to make concessions on the Iranian issue. If we had not exerted so-called influence on Iran, as the United States demanded, the bill could have gone into effect soon.
However, it is clear that even if Blinken exerts pressure in person during his visit to China, China will not be able to make concessions on the two matters of cooperation with Russia and Iran. The reason is very simple: these cooperation belong to normal trade cooperation between China and Russia and Iran, and these unreasonable demands of the US side have directly harmed China's interests, which is impossible for us to accept. Once the US uses sanctions and other means to further pressure China, we will resolutely fight back.
After Iran hit back at Israel, Saudi Arabia called China, saying that it fully trusted China. As for the issue of Russia and Ukraine, Italy, as an ally of the United States, also frankly said that it would not work without China. We can intuitively feel that whether it is the conflict between Russia and Ukraine or the situation in the Middle East, all parties have affirmed and supported China's proposition and constructive role. So, if Blinken really wants to discuss these issues with China during his visit, the first thing he should do is to listen carefully to China's voice, instead of making a bunch of unreasonable demands on the Chinese side as soon as he comes.
In short, although dialogue between China and the United States is better than no dialogue, we still have Blinken able to come to China with sincerity. Otherwise, in addition to not being able to reach agreement on these regional and international issues, China and the United States will probably face even greater obstacles to the development of Sino-US relations.