Blinken’s trip hasn’t interrupted slide toward war

Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Beijing is a ripple on the tide of President Joe Biden’s decisions not to promote dialogue or expert understanding. It has not interrupted the slide toward war.

Under Presidents George W Bush, Barack Obama and, partly, Donald Trump, the two countries had institutionalized large-scale communications, especially through the strategic economic dialogue (Bush), strategic and economic dialogue (Obama), and comprehensive economic dialogue (Trump). Dozens of senior officials regularly met.

Those dialogues could not resolve the great issues like Taiwan or intellectual property, but officials came to understand each other and render differences manageable.

When Donald Trump became President, Xi Jinping was determined to keep communications open and relations constructive. Chinese scholars say the lavish welcome was historically exceptional.

As with other relationships, Trump responded initially with: “President Xi is a brilliant man. If you went all over Hollywood to look for somebody to play the role of President Xi, you couldn’t find it. There’s nobody like that. The look, the brain, the whole thing.” Likewise, at Davos in 2020: “Our relationship with China has now probably never, ever been better…. He’s for China, I’m for the US but, other than that, we love each other.”

But Trump’s mood changed, the dialogue lapsed, and Biden chose to permanently abandon institutionalized dialogue. Blinken’s trip marginally walks back that decision and marginally walks back the coldness Blinken deliberately instilled at his initial meeting with the Chinese in Anchorage.

Lacking expertise, Washington frequently seems clueless about how the world views its China policies. For instance, Blinken and Biden often broadcast versions of Biden’s June 9 statement that China’s Belt and Road Initiative is a “debt and confiscation program.” Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo characterized Belt & Road similarly.

Developing world leaders, who frequently contrast China’s development offers with Washington’s lectures or its omnipresent Special Forces teams, know that is false. Every China specialist knows the study of 1100 Chinese loans that found there was not a single instance of China using debt problems to seize collateral.

Does the US President have no idea what he is talking about or is he systematically spreading disinformation? Either way, developing countries dismiss much of US policy. For instance, many give credence to the argument that the problem in both Europe and Asia is US efforts to encircle and destabilize its adversaries. Hence, all of Latin America, Africa and the Middle East align with China regarding US sanctions on Russia.

In fact, Washington’s hard left and the hard right always despised compromise. The pragmatic center has evaporated for domestic reasons and the self-righteous ideologues rule Congress. No weekend trip, no fog of diplomatic niceties will arrest the resultant reversion to the pre-1972 risk of war.

(China took an equally dangerous turn, also for domestic reasons. Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Canadian hostages, economic war on Australia, and much else are serious issues. But this article is about the US; previous US administrations handled middle-sized issues without sliding toward war.)

Biden was elected by the pragmatic center, but he has no China team, no China policy, no strategic vision. He should be wary of taking even a small risk that history will remember him for the first inadvertent world war of choice. Weekend trips for marginal changes of tone do not address the problem.

“...Biden chose to permanently abandon institutionalized dialogue...”

Oh, there is dialogue, just not at the local level where the people are told and Biden and his gang are not talking.

Chinese investors and firms own a majority of almost 2,400 American companies employing 114,000 people, about the same number as the combined U.S. staffs of Google, Facebook and Tesla, according to data from MacroPolo.

Among these companies are the control of five of the major ports in the US that include Miami, Houston, Long Beach, Los Angeles and Seattle. Basically the left coast. This means they can shut down our supply line any time they wish and the only shipping company not owned by the Chinese is Matson.

They have inside fast track information delivery deals with the USPS, Amazon, DHL, and FEDEX.

China owns roughly 384,000 acres of U.S. agricultural land, according to a 2021 report from the Department of Agriculture. Approximately one quarter of foreign owned land in the US. The rest is owned by Canada, the Netherlands, Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, Portugal, France, Denmark, Luxembourg, and Ireland. Of the Chinese land, 195,000 acres, worth almost $2 billion when purchased, are owned by 85 Chinese investors, which could be individuals, companies or the government. The other 189,000 acres were worth $235 million when purchased and are owned by 62 U.S. corporations with Chinese shareholders.

Since the land is agriculture (?), the Chinese own Smithfield Foods, $4.7 billion, which is the largest pork producer in the world. WH Group, formerly known as Shuanghui, allegedly has received subsidies from the Chinese government. The deal was the largest ever Chinese acquisition of an American company outright.

I can do this all day. The Chinese can shut down our supply lines, our information highway, and a lot of our movement internationally of everything we import or export if they wish. And as mergers and acquisitions have facilitated an even more global food industry, a growing number of seemingly all-American companies are no longer based in the U.S. The consequences of this shift of power and capital overseas include lower taxes on corporations, and a less transparent food system for US consumers and our customers.

This information may be hidden from the people. But you can be assured the Biden administration is aware of it. And some of it they have brokered.

wy69

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