Straight News: China-US economic and trade issues have continued to heat up recently, US President Joe Biden has threatened to impose tariffs on China's imports of steel and aluminum products, and the US has also launched the so-called Section 301 investigation into China's shipping, logistics and shipbuilding industries.
Guan Yao: The day before yesterday, Biden unleashed the "big stick of tariffs" against China in Pittsburgh, the steel capital of the United States, accompanied by industrial workers. EVEN BEHIND HIM, THERE ARE MANY PEOPLE HOLDING PLACARDS WITH STANDING WITH WORKERS, WHICH IS ALSO A KEY SCENE OF BIDEN'S CAMPAIGN CANVASSING, WHICH IS THE THEME MESSAGE HE FOCUSES ON RELEASING TO VOTERS IN SWING STATES.
In the political map of this year's U.S. election, Pittsburgh's Pennsylvania, where Pittsburgh is located, is one of the seven traditional swing states, and it is in these states that Biden's approval rating has been lagging behind Trump's polls. So, when Biden shouts at the camera, what is his nemesis Trump doing? That's right, he is appearing in court in New York as a defendant in the "star hush money" case and as the first former US president to be criminally prosecuted. What is the biggest resource for a presidential candidate in an election year? In the weeks when Trump was trapped in the courtroom and unable to get out of canvassing, the Biden campaign decided that it had ushered in a window of time to fight the battle of public opinion. So Biden stayed in Pennsylvania for three days, and while talking about additional tariffs, he also made all kinds of over-the-top remarks about China. Previously, at a campaign rally, Hu sprayed China's economy as a "ticking time bomb", and this time, he has buttoned the big hat of "xenophobia" to the Chinese side, threatening that "there is a real problem" and so on. Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian ridiculed yesterday when answering a question, and wanted to ask the US side: Are these remarks about China or the United States itself?
It should be said that the spokesman of the Chinese Foreign Ministry has no shortage of confidants on the other side of the ocean. No, some major American newspaper writers are using candidate Biden's remarks to question President Biden's current rhetoric. Columnist Catherina M. In his latest column in the Washington Post, LaBelle specifically quoted a public statement from Biden's candidacy in the last election, in which he launched a fierce attack on then-President Donald Trump's misuse of the tariff weapon: "Trump thought he was showing toughness on China, but the actual consequences were shared by American farmers, manufacturers and consumers, and they paid a greater price." "One of the main slogans of the Biden campaign's last election was: Trump tariff war, burying hundreds of thousands of American jobs. The headline of Katherina's op-ed says Biden has learned a terrible lesson from Trump's trade policy, the terrible lesson, or "tariff weapons." Therefore, the female columnist suggested that President Biden should consult with Biden, the presidential candidate of the year, to learn something real and learn real lessons.
Straight News: In response to a reporter's question, Biden claimed that there will be no trade war, so what does this mean for Sino-US trade relations?
Guan Yao, Special Commentator: Biden does not want a full-scale trade war, which is one of the cards of his China policy, just as he has repeatedly stressed that he does not seek "economic decoupling" and must manage competition when he meets with Chinese leaders or communicates on the phone. However, it is undeniable that in the extreme political atmosphere of "everything is crazy, everything is excessive" in the US election year, showing toughness on China is like the greatest political correctness, and it is also the greatest common divisor for the candidates of the two parties to canvass for votes. It is not difficult to judge that Sino-US relations will continue to be under pressure in the election year, and the economic and trade fields will also be the biggest stressor. Today, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian once again refuted that the so-called "overcapacity" theory of China by the US side is naked economic coercion and bullying. Contacting senior US officials to forcibly create an "overcapacity" agenda, combined with Biden's latest statement, and relaunching the so-called 301 investigation, etc., are all sending a clear signal about this.
But if you want to say that the US will play the tariff card again and manipulate the economic issue again, how much real impact will it have? I think the answer is clear: NO. Some observers have long noticed that the market share of steel and aluminum products imported by the United States last year was only 2 percentage points, and the largest sources of imports from the United States were actually Canada and Mexico. What's more, steel and aluminum products as raw materials, widely used in the middle and downstream industries, statistics show that the ratio of jobs in the United States steel manufacturing industry to the downstream application industry of steel products is 1:75 to 80. Take the shipbuilding industry involved in the latest US 301 investigation as an example, it is also a major importer of steel and aluminum materials, you have raised tariffs significantly, and the shipbuilding industry is not painful? Is it important as 1 steel industry, or is it important as a larger-scale middle and downstream industry in the past 80 The buzz of placards is a strategic offensive against swing states and popular voters.
As for Blinken's visit to China, although Lin Jian did not respond positively, he said that China welcomes it and has released a clear message in this regard. Blinken's area of expertise is not related to economic and trade relations, and the economic and trade agenda will not be the focus of the visit, but it is still expected that when Chinese officials meet with him, they will once again vigorously reaffirm China's industrial interests and development rights. It should be pointed out that although there are dark clouds in the economic and trade fields between China and the United States, the mechanism for exchanges, dialogues and communication at the high-level and executive levels is still largely unimpeded, and Treasury Secretary Yellen has just concluded her visit to China and has just met with Chinese representatives attending the meeting of the China-US Economic and Financial Working Group in Washington. To paraphrase the US side, manage China-US trade differences and prevent conflict escalation, the existing dialogue and communication mechanism between the two countries can play a constructive role.
Of course, Israel has just launched a military retaliation against Iran, and Blinken's visit to China next week is expected to make the situation in the Middle East and the positions and responses of the two countries become the biggest focus of attention from the outside world.
Straight News: US officials have confirmed that Israel has just carried out retaliatory attacks on targets in Iran, will the military conflict between Israel and Iran escalate in a full-scale manner?
Special Commentator Guan Yao: Regarding Israel's latest military retaliation, today, the news headline of the British "Daily Telegraph" is very vivid and on point: Netanyahu has done what the world warned him not to, the whole world is warning Netanyahu not to act, but Netanyahu still did. Then the next series of questions will become even more urgent: Will Netanyahu pay the price for insisting on going his own way and engaging in military retaliation at any cost? Will it trigger a larger-scale military conflict? Will it drag the United States into the quagmire of war again? Previously, I analyzed in the program that if the follow-up scenario comes true, it will constitute President Biden's biggest nightmare and the biggest obstacle to his re-election. Previously, after dispatching the forces of the U.S. Central Command to intercept 80 drones and missiles launched by Iran, Biden had warned Netanyahu in the phone call to "lock in the victory", but apparently, Biden's exhortation did not work. I also noted that the Pentagon also issued a statement today, saying that the US defense secretary had a phone call on Thursday to discuss Iran and Gaza aid. As everyone knows, before Iran launched a retaliatory attack last Saturday, firing 350 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) allegedly equipped with 60 tons of ammunition at targets on its own territory, cruise missiles, and ballistic guideways, it had already notified several neighboring countries of early warnings.
The trigger for this round of military attacks was the bombing of the Iranian embassy in Syria, which had previously been blamed by the US side, at least in terms of media response, and the US side has always stressed that it did not know about the bombing of the embassy in advance. At a time when the US House of Representatives voted on the long-delayed bill on military aid to Israel and Ukraine on Saturday, this question undoubtedly points to the biggest strategic pain point of the United States and even President Biden himself.
Author丨Guan Yao, special commentator of Shenzhen Satellite TV's "Live Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan".
Editor丨Yang Ying, Editor-in-Chief of Shenzhen Satellite TV Direct News
Typesetting丨Dong Yi, Shenzhen Satellite TV direct news editor