On the eve of Blinken's visit to China, China and the United States handed over a "list" to each other, and after striking the Russia-Ukraine issue, Biden focused on the East to force China to make concessions.
Prior to Blinken's April 24-26 visit, the foreign affairs departments of both China and the United States announced the diplomatic expectations and priorities of the event through a briefing, and the Chinese side put forward "five goals": to establish a correct understanding of bilateral relations, strengthen dialogue, effectively manage differences, promote mutually beneficial cooperation, and jointly shoulder the responsibilities of major countries. However, the expectation of the US meeting is relatively simple and direct, that is, to sow discord between China and Russia.
The statement of the Chinese Foreign Ministry at the media briefing pointed out that establishing a correct understanding is the "first button" of bilateral relations, and whether they are mutual partners or competitors is the primary issue that determines relations. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterated China's consistent position of opposing competition among major countries and emphasizing win-win cooperation. On this basis, China hopes that Blinken's visit to China will help strengthen diplomatic dialogue between the two countries, manage bilateral differences, promote traditional cooperation in areas such as climate change and counter-narcotics, jointly shoulder the common responsibility of safeguarding the international community, and play a positive role in regional hotspot issues.
Regardless of the specific diplomatic goals and aspirations, China's statement first conveyed positive expectations for bilateral relations, at least hoping to stabilize relations, eliminate risks and avoid conflicts.
However, the US side did not express any views on the relationship between the two countries based on positive expectations, and at the same time put forward a diplomatic appeal very bluntly: "With China's support and help, Russia's military industrial capacity is gradually returning to the highest level since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and China should stop providing support for Russia's military industry through bilateral trade." There is also news that the Biden administration is considering expanding trade sanctions against China to exert pressure, but they did not mention the possibility that the United States is willing to make any concessions for the relationship.
The timing of Blinken's visit to China is indeed very delicate, ostensibly to "implement the consensus of the meeting between the two heads of state" and serve to manage differences and maintain dialogue, but in fact, it is on the eve of Biden's completion of a series of drastic operations, which is about to strike hard in the two hot spots of Palestine and Israel, Russia and Ukraine.
In mid-April, due to the split within the Republican Party and the "defection" of many congressmen, Biden was able to smoothly promote the passage of a $60 billion military aid bill to Ukraine, but Biden was not satisfied with this, they know very well that the current situation in Russia and Ukraine has long been eroded, and it is impossible to win the war only by relying on US military aid, let alone against Russia.
Biden's eyes are focused on China, the US media said that "preventing Sino-Russian trade is the primary goal of Blinken's visit to China", a very important reason is that the United States is no longer able to directly sanction Russia, in the first year of the war, the United States used all available sanctions, and now the only area that can sanction Russia is to restrict its energy exports, but the United States does not dare to do so, because it will greatly push up global oil prices and deal a head-on blow to the US economy.
Therefore, now the Biden administration wants to sanction Russia only by indirect means, smashing China to force China to ban the sale of any goods to Russia that may be used for military purposes.
The US media said that "Russia has bought machine tools, jet engines, electronic components, chemical raw materials for making explosives, and even finished drones from China, which is an important pillar of the expansion of Russia's military production capacity", and they even believe that Russia's current military production capacity has returned to the highest level after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
U.S. government officials said that "military support for Russia is not in China's interests, especially in Europe," and he hinted that if Sino-Russian trade remains the status quo, then the United States will pressure the European Union to threaten China to comply by restricting Sino-European trade.
In recent years, the growth rate of Sino-Russian trade volume has reached a new high, reaching 240.1 billion US dollars in 2023, which is close to the total trade volume between China and South Korea in the same year, and in the first quarter of 2024, the Sino-Russian trade volume also increased by 5.2% year-on-year, which is an important trade interest for China today. Mineral resources and other bulk commodities, at the same time they buy high value-added products produced in China, while the United States has chosen a complete blockade policy against China in such markets, Russia has become one of the few countries that has almost no restrictions on China in the field of high value-added products, which has greatly alleviated the financial pressure on China's industrial upgrading.
In fact, if the United States is willing to lift sanctions on Chinese high-tech companies, China will be very satisfied, but obviously it is impossible for them to do so, and there are still bargaining chips but they cannot use them.
After all, generally speaking, American elites believe that among the many imaginary enemy countries in the United States, China is a relatively easy country to deal with, and Russia, Iran and others don't even bother to talk to them, so they can only come up and smash China.
On the other hand, the Biden administration may also want to seize what may now be the last containment, Destroy the opportunity for the development of Sino-Russian trade, because the growth rate of total Sino-Russian trade has slowed down, which is mainly due to the restrictions on the level of infrastructure at the border ports between the two countries, the development of Sino-Russian trade has been tepid in the past, so the level of supporting infrastructure is not high, and now with the long-term trend of rapid development of trade between the two countries, a series of investments have been added, and the rapid growth of Sino-Russian trade volume in the future will become an irreversible trend, and it is too late for them to say anything at that time.
But in any case, Blinken is still facing a dilemma: the White House has set too high goals and too many requirements, but the president is willing to give too few bargaining chips, almost letting Blinken rely on his mouth to cover the white wolf, not to mention that just a few days ago they also deployed medium-range missiles against China in the Philippines, without any souvenirs, not so much to visit, but to show off Blinken's military might this time.