WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th March, 2021) US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan will test the waters on Thursday with their Chinese counterparts as both nations' rivalry continues unabated under the new American administration.
The meeting with Chinese State Councilor Wang Yi and Director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi in Anchorage, Alaska, is seen in the United States as an opportunity for both sides to get acquainted, lay out mutual concerns and expectations.
"The conversations in Anchorage are very much intended as an initial discussion to understand... our interests, intentions, and priorities, and frankly, to get a bit of an understanding of where the Chinese are at," a senior US official told reporters ahead of the meeting.
The Joe Biden administration has officially defined its relationship with China as the biggest geopolitical test for US in the twenty-first century, the one that needs to be addressed from a position of strength, and listed it among its eight foreign policy priorities - together with defeating the coronavirus pandemic, rebuilding the global economy, crafting a humane and effective immigration system, revitalizing alliances, tackling the climate crisis, ensuring American technological leadership and supporting democracies around the world.
Blinken in a foreign policy speech earlier in March said China is the only nation with the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to seriously challenge "the stable and open international system, all the rules, values and relationships, that make the world work the way we want it to." Blinken vowed to make the relationship with China "competitive when it should be, collaborative when it can be, and adversarial when it must be."
At the Alaska meeting the US delegation plans to reinforce its already well-known concerns about China's human rights violations, including in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, its economic coercion and political intimidation of foreign countries, malign cyberactivities and military buildup. China routinely rejects American allegations as an unacceptable interference in its internal affairs.
"We will absolutely make those points very clear... We know that sometimes there is a sense, potentially a perception, or maybe it's a hope, in Beijing that our public message is somehow different than our private message. And we think it's really important that we dispel that idea very early," the official said.
He added the meeting will be a one-off event rather than "the beginning of a dialogue process."
"This is very much about sitting down, getting an understanding of each other, and then taking that back and taking stock... So without raising expectations unduly, I think we're looking to have a nice, robust, and very frank conversation with a power that is going to be a major competitor of ours," the official said.
He said that the meeting was arranged after the United States had taken a series of steps to strengthen itself both domestically and internationally.
"We also felt it was really important that we host the meeting on US soil. We just felt for a variety of reasons that being on our own territory was extremely important for this meeting and of not attempting to meet in China," the official added without offering much explanation.
Alaska proves a logistically convenient venue for both the guests and Blinken who is returning from his tour of Japan and South Korea with China high on the agenda. In Tokyo and Seoul Blinken was accompanied by the US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who is on his way to India.
The first high-level engagement with the Chinese under the new US administration was also preceded by the Quad summit - Biden's virtual meeting with leaders of Australia, Japan and India.
Ahead of the Alaska consultations, Blinken identified another 24 Chinese officials, whose actions, according to his determination, "have reduced Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy." Foreign financial institutions that knowingly conduct significant transactions with them are now subject to sanctions, the State Department said. In yet another high-profile step, the US Commerce Department issued subpoenas to multiple Chinese technological suppliers as it seeks information for possible action against them.
