TikTok, fentanyl, Taiwan, Gaza, Iran, Ukraine… The second visit of the American Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, to China this week had a broad agenda of issues that concern both countries and the world, but it was the trade of military components with Russia which captured their attention this Friday.
Blinken believes that without the help provided by Beijing, “Moscow would find it difficult to sustain its assault on Ukraine,” he said at a press conference. It made it easy for the Asian giant to accuse it of “hypocrisy,” as a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said, by making this accusation just two days after President Biden signed the law that provides more than $60 billion in military aid. to kyiv. According to national security advisor Jake Sullivan, this shipment of weapons and ammunition was put into motion “in a matter of hours.”
Washington also claims to speak on behalf of its European allies, who, according to Blinken, conveyed their concerns to it at the beginning of the month during the NATO meetings and just last week during the G7 meeting. “I always hear the same message: fueling the Russian defense industrial base is not only a threat to Ukrainian security, it is also a threat to European security,” she shared. «Beijing cannot achieve the improvement of European relations, as it seeks, if at the same time it is supporting the greatest threat to Europe's security since the end of the Cold War. “That's what I told you.”
Blinken, who described the conversations as “direct, candid and constructive,” met with the president, Xi Jinping, as well as his counterpart, Wang Yi, and the head of Public Security, Wang Xiaohong. In his opinion, providing Ukraine with weapons to defend itself is not the same as being the main supplier of critical components for the manufacture of ammunition, rockets, tanks and other military weapons with tools, microelectronics and nitrocellulose. With this, Moscow would be modernizing and fine-tuning its industrial defense, which it can use to invade any country.
Washington also wants to convince China to use its influence to stop Iran in the Middle East. Its intention is to ensure that China becomes a facilitator of global peace, in accordance with the geopolitical interests of the United States and its NATO allies, through the 'carrots and sticks' policy. If he does not face the problem of selling components to Russia, “we will do it,” he threatened. Asked later about the details of that threat, the Secretary of State did not want to be specific, but recalled that his Government has already applied sanctions to hundreds of entities. “And there are other measures that we are totally ready for,” he said.
Chinese overproduction is another thing that worries him. Beijing is responsible for a third of global production, but only represents a tenth of demand, “and it is clear that this is a bad fit,” he warned. This production is highly subsidized and supported, in a way that allows these products to be sold at lower prices than what can be manufactured in Western countries, which leaves the local industry out of the game. “It is not about stopping trade or investment, but about proceeding in a fair way so that it does not have these unfair effects,” Blinken clarified.
Election campaign
Among the sensitive issues was also the possible Chinese interference in the US electoral campaign through social networks, which US intelligence says it has already detected, although the Secretary of State assures that the veto of the TikTok application did not come up in the conversation. . What worries the Asian giant most are the progress of the United States in Asia to defend countries like Taiwan or the Philippines, where Blinken reiterated his “iron” commitment.
Uncomfortable topics to talk about publicly at home in the host country, softened by the progress in actions agreed during the last meeting between Biden and Xi in San Francisco at the end of last year. True to its word, China has taken action against companies that produce precursors to fentanyl and other synthetic drugs, in addition to providing information to international agencies to intercept the drug and helping governments close financial loopholes that allow traffickers launder income.
Military talks have also opened at multiple levels, including last week the first video conference between Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Chinese counterpart, Dog Dun. The objective is to ensure the interactions of both countries, defining “critical lines of communication to avoid miscalculations.” Artificial intelligence has also been on the table, with the agreement to hold the first talks between both countries in the coming weeks and the safeguards that can be put in place to better manage them.
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