In the first year of the year, the "routine" of high-ranking US officials visiting China has undergone a big change, and the abnormal behavior is somewhat intriguing.
When visiting a foreign country, the normal logic is to be the first to release a little goodwill and create a harmonious atmosphere, in the hope that a good result can be achieved in the end. If someone unexpectedly creates some incidents first, the atmosphere is awkward, and whether the other side is willing to negotiate becomes a question, and this seemingly clumsy game is played out in turn by senior US officials.
Let's first look at US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, before her visit to China, she raised the so-called "overcapacity in China" issue, and during her visit to China, she also expressed concern about "overcapacity" in public.
If only Yellen doesn't follow the routine, forget it, and the next operation of US Secretary of State Blinken makes people call the routine almost identical, and they don't even bother to change the punctuation marks when they copy the homework.
Blinken expressed another U.S. concern------ China "helping to strengthen Russia's defense industry" and finding a good reason to visit China.
To put it bluntly, whether it is Yellen or Blinken, the two questions raised by the two are probably not even topics, so why carefully concoct such a topic?
Let's first look at the official report, the results of Yellen's visit to China are: exchanges on the balanced growth of the two countries and the global economy under the framework of the China-US Economic Working Group, and continuous exchanges on financial stability, sustainable finance, anti-money laundering and other issues under the framework of the Financial Working Group.
On April 16, Yellen met with the Chinese delegation of the China-US Financial Working Group on Finance at its fourth meeting in Washington, D.C.
It is worth noting that in order to implement the Bali Consensus in November 2022, before the APEC summit in San Francisco in November 2023, the first meeting of the China-US Financial Working Group was held in October 2023 via video, and the second meeting was held in San Francisco in November.
The third meeting is in January 2024, the fourth meeting is the longest interval, and it is held after Yellen's visit to China, which can be seen that the United States is more urgent.
You know, on April 17, the second day of the fourth meeting of the Sino-US financial working group, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's attitude suddenly turned hawkish, pointing out that the Fed could keep interest rates unchanged for "as long as necessary".
As we all know, the United States has maintained high interest rates for a long time, and the greatest pressure is not on the Federal Reserve, but on the US federal government.
There are all kinds of indications that Yellen's overcapacity in China is not the focus of her attention at all. Extrapolating from this logic, the issue of "helping to strengthen the Russian defense industry" is also not the focus of US Secretary of State Blinken.
Just after Yellen's visit to China, on April 11, the leaders of the United States, Japan, and the Philippines held a meeting in Washington, D.C., and announced that they would introduce a number of measures in defense and other fields.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who is backed by the United States, threatened on April 15 that he would invoke the "U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty" if Philippine troops die in attacks by foreign troops. In the past few days, the Philippines has made frequent moves on the South China Sea issue, and I am afraid that someone has instructed it.
We have reason to believe that Blinken's next visit to China will definitely not discuss the issue of China's help to the Russian defense industry, but the "responsible control" he mentioned earlier.
That is, while the United States continues to establish regional deterrence, it does not want a situation beyond the control of the United States, and the development of events will allow Americans to dominate the situation in the future.
Of course, Yellen's desire for China on the one hand, and Blinken's desire to stabilize the regional situation while consolidating the power of allies is a great contradiction for the United States, and at the same time, they also hope to achieve the goal of "America First" in the end.
As for why Yellen and Blinken "made up" excuses for visiting China, it is likely to be related to the US presidential election this year.