WorlPosted at: Mar 18 2021 8:00PM Top US-Chinese officials meet in Alaska amid shift in policy
Washington, Mar 18 (UNI) Top US and Chinese officials are meeting in Alaska on Thursday as President Biden makes a dramatic change of course in his country's policy toward China, which is focused more on countering Beijing’s coercive diplomacy and becoming more competitive in critical technologies.
President Biden is working to get US' allies on the same boat against China to counter Beijing’s coercive diplomacy around the world and ensuring that China does not gain a permanent advantage in critical technologies, The New York Times reported.
Secretary of State Antony J Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, will meet their Chinese counterparts on Thursday in Anchorage in what is expected to be a very tense meeting. This meeting had been delayed until US and its allies, notably Japan, South Korea, India and Australia reached an agreement on a common strategy. The allies had insisted that the meeting take place on American soil.
At first glance, the Biden administration’s policy shift seems like a continuation of much of his predecessor Donald Trump's conviction that the world’s two biggest powers are veering dangerously toward confrontation, a huge departure from the Obama years.
But the new emerging strategy more directly repudiates the prevailing view of the last quarter century that deep economic interdependence could be counted on to temper fundamental conflicts on issues like China’s military buildup, its territorial ambitions and its human rights record.
The new strategy aims to be more aggressive with Beijing with regards to technologies which the US sees as being vital to long-term economic and military power, through increased government investment in research and technologies like semiconductors, artificial intelligence and energy, after concluding that President Donald J Trump’s approach — a mix of expensive tariffs, efforts to ban Huawei and TikTok, and accusations about sending the “China virus” to American shores, had failed to make a dent in the course adopted by President Xi Jinping.
The meeting in Anchorage is also being seen as the first demonstration by Beijing of it's determination to stand up to the new administration, and what China calls Washington's interference in China’s internal affairs, notably the Uyghur issue and the Chinese stand regarding Hong-Kong and the South China Sea.
The United States imposed sanctions on 24 Chinese officials on Wednesday for undermining Hong Kong’s democratic freedoms, terminate Hong Kong’s autonomy, intimidate Australia and Taiwan, and move ahead, despite international condemnation, with what Mr Blinken termed as a genocide aimed at China’s Uyghur minority.
Meanwhile, Chinese Ambassador Cui Tiankai said that Beijing does not have high expectations from the first high-level meeting between top Chinese and US officials.
"Obviously, we do not expect one meeting to resolve all the issues between China and the United States. That's why we don't have overly high expectations or fantasies about this meeting," Cui told reporters during a video interview.
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