I was still surprised, I already knew that US Secretary of State Blinken was coming, but I only heard today that Foreign Minister Wang Yi invited him to come, and last year it was "agreed by both sides", so how could he be "invited" this time?
In fact, the specific time of Blinken's visit to China was only set in the past few days, and he did not care about the conflict between Iran and Israel a few days ago.
Now, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has confirmed that Blinken will visit Beijing and Shanghai from April 24 to 26. The U.S. Department of State's website also publishes information about the size of the delegation and the goals of the visit, as well as bilateral and regional issues.
The topics covered are relatively broad, covering almost all of the current international hot topics and sensitive topics between China and the United States. However, based on the issues raised by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and others during previous visits, we can basically infer the core issues.
first, to warn China not to "help the Russian military industry";
second, persuade the mainland not to overreact when Lai Qingde takes office;
Perhaps, what is on the surface is a cover-up, Blinken's preset political, military and other pretexts are all excuses, and the economy and finance are the biggest crises in the United States at present.
None of the other issues can be resolved in a moment, and it is enough to keep talking and engagement, and there will be no substantive results. It is also a top priority for the United States to continue to sell U.S. bonds, but we will most likely not buy them again, and it will still be very face-saving if we don't sell them.
So, since we are "invited", we still have to talk about what we should talk about, and it is necessary to get to the bottom of the matter, explain our position, and draw red lines. In fact, this is also part of the spirit of the "San Francisco Meeting," and it is only a matter of implementing and implementing it now.
Before Blinken's arrival, it was also the time when the United States launched the most fierce "general offensive" to exert maximum pressure, but these are not the mainstream of Sino-US competition, and the real core is still the "Taiwan Strait issue".
Please note that the timing of Blinken's visit coincided with the U.S.-Philippine "shoulder-to-shoulder" military exercises, and also happened when the U.S. House of Representatives had just passed a total of $95 billion in foreign aid packages, including about $8 billion in allocation to Asia-Pacific allies (mainly Taiwan Province of $1.9 billion), and the bill that "requires ByteDance to spin off TikTok for an extension" that was shoehorned in.
First the maximum pressure, then the conditions. This is what the United States is used to, especially in election years, to do everything. Therefore, even if Blinken carefully chooses the time of his visit, and even if the two sides talk about many issues, the Chinese side is unlikely to make concessions on the core issue.
In a word, the United States cannot give what China wants, and China cannot give what the United States wants. You can only maintain communication to avoid misjudgment and lead to hard work.
Just like the last time Blinken came, the author still has the same opinion: this person is here to "check in", or leave a sentence "Blinken is here to visit".
"Accepting invitations" is China's sincerity, and the most basic driving force behind China-US relations is that the US side does not say one thing and does another.
After reading a lot of experts and media analysis, the author suddenly remembered a passage: "How long is the time to fight, I say that we don't have to make a decision." It was up to Truman in the past, Eisenhower in the future, or the future president of the United States, to decide. “
In a sense, "you hit yours, I'll hit mine!" still applies!