U.S. Ramps Up Anti-China Rhetoric
- Nick Lin and Philip Fernandez - 
Demonstration in San
Francisco July 22, 2021 demands end to targeting of China.
The U.S. is ramping up its anti-China rhetoric as well as its
military and political efforts to show China and Russia that the U.S.
is top dog, the indispensable nation that sets and interprets its
so-called rules-based international order according to its interests at
any given time, and that it will brook no opposition. To
make this point, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman travelled
to China for meetings with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and other
state officials at the port city of Tianjin in July 2021. Sherman was the
highest ranking U.S. diplomat to visit China after the Biden
administration took power six months earlier. Sherman said that the
U.S. still upholds a one-China policy. Despite this, the U.S. Senate
was passing legislation in support of Taiwan's participation as a
member of the World Health Organization. Chinese
Foreign Minister Wang Yi made it clear China has no intention of living
under a "rules-based international order" where the U.S. makes and acts
as the global enforcer of "the rules." Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng
said, "the so-called rules-based international order put forward by the
U.S. is a disguise that packages rules set up by a few Western
countries. It is the U.S. version of the 'law of the jungle' where it
abandons the widely accepted international law and tramples on the
international system, so that it can profit and bully others."
According to China, the fundamental reason for the deadlock in
China-U.S. relations is that some in the U.S. portray China as an
"imagined enemy." Minister Wang Yi plainly stated that China is not
seeking hegemony, and is willing to realize common development and
prosperity with all countries, including the United States. He said
that China was one of the founders and has been one of the
beneficiaries of the international order since the Second World War and
that it would work to "safeguard the international system with the
United Nations at its core, uphold the international order underpinned
by international law, and defend the basic norms governing
international relations based on the purposes and principles of the UN
Charter." China put forward three specific demands
to Deputy Secretary of State Sherman to prevent further deterioration
of China-U.S. relations. First the U.S. must not challenge, slander or
attempt to subvert the path and social system the Chinese people have
chosen for themselves. These are matters for the 1.4 billion Chinese
people to decide for themselves, he said. Second, the U.S. must lift
all unilateral sanctions, technology blockades, etc. intended to block
China's development and the right of the Chinese people to
modernization. Third, the U.S. must stop interfering in China's
internal affairs, its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Minister
Wang Yi expressed a commitment from China to find a way for the two
major countries with different systems, cultures and stages of
development to coexist peacefully on this planet through dialogue. He
said it would be even better if it could be mutually beneficial.
 U.S. Deputy
Secretary of State Sherman for her part once again played the U.S.
cards of "human rights" and "western liberal democratic values." She
reiterated President Biden's position holding Beijing responsible for
cyber threats and alleged human rights violations in Xinjiang, Tibet
and Hong Kong and what the U.S. calls actions across the Taiwan Strait
and in the East and South China Seas.
Immediately
following Sherman's visit to China, U.S. Secretary of State Antony
Blinken and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin travelled to India and countries
of Southeast Asia. Their aim was to strengthen military and diplomatic
arrangements aimed at containment of China. While this was going on,
the U.S. again sent a warship through the Taiwan Strait -- the seventh
such provocative transit in the first six months of 2021 -- while
holding a separate military exercise in the South China Sea. At the
same time, the UK Carrier Strike Group's HMS Queen Elizabeth entered
the South China Sea proclaiming its intent to challenge China's
territorial waters in defence of "freedom of navigation." Speaking
at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on July 27,
President Joe Biden used the matter of cyber security to say war is a
real possibility. Without directly naming China he said, "I can't
guarantee this, and you're as informed as I am, but I think it's more
likely we're going to end up -- well, if we end up in a war, a real
shooting war with a major power, it's going to be as a consequence of a
cyber breach of great consequence." The question
immediately arose of Biden's aim in speaking in this manner. Discussion
is usually considered to be talking or writing about something, in
order to solve a problem or resolve a question. When the President of
the United States can so cavalierly say he sees "a real shooting war
with a major power" down the road, and top U.S. diplomats keep
repeating that the whole world is to be governed by "our values," that
is not discussion. It is the U.S. asserting itself as the indispensable
power and arbiter of an international order based on its own rules.
China, as is also the case with Russia, is having none of it.
This article was published in
Volume 52 Number 1 - January 9, 2022
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2022/Articles/MS52015.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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