U.S. dashes hopes after China meeting

Positive outcomes of a recent meeting between China and the U.S. were dissolved by aggression and warmongering from the American media, writes Dr William Briggs.

THE MEETING in Beijing between Chinese President Xi Jinping and United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken was broadly pitched as a positive event. Some see, in this meeting, the pathway to a more responsible approach from the USA in bilateral relations. If this were so, then the world might begin to feel a little more optimistic about the future. It is more likely to be a false hope.

Xi stressed in their meeting that the world needs a stable China-U.S. relationship. He made it clear that how the two countries manage their relationship will have a fundamental bearing on the future of humanity. A Chinese report of the meeting described how ‘the common interests of the two countries should be valued, and their respective success is an opportunity and not a threat to each other’. Xi talked of how ‘the two countries should act with a sense of responsibility for history, for the people and for the world, and handle China-U.S. relations properly’.

The Chinese leader also made the point that great power competition cannot resolve America’s problems and that China is not seeking to ‘challenge or displace’ the USA, but the U.S. needs to respect China and its legitimate rights and interests.

U.S. 'coercion' and stage-managed democracy summits

The belligerent demand of the United States that it must remain the world’s unquestioned and dominating force has once more been on display.

All of this is reasonable and responsible. The cloud of optimism, however, quickly evaporated.

The U.S. State Department’s response to Blinken’s meetings in China and the 35-minute discussion he had with Xi is revealing. A press release from the U.S. State Department described how Blinken raised China’s ‘unfair and nonmarket economic practices’, its ‘human rights violations’ in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong, and ‘peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait’.

The statement also spoke of Russia’s ‘war of aggression against Ukraine’, of ‘provocative’ actions by North Korea and expressed U.S. ‘concerns’ about Chinese intelligence activities in Cuba. All of this seems designed to make sure that any smoothing out of differences was rather low on the real agenda of the United States.

Our media has predictably downplayed the negative aspects of Blinken’s visit and of the approach taken by the state department’s coverage. There is, of course, an unwavering acceptance that all that flows from the mouth or pen of the U.S. Government or media is, of necessity, gospel truth.

The Chinese “spy base” in Cuba that Blinken raised is a case in point. A statement is made, the Wall Street Journal runs a dubious story that has more to do with validating the ongoing and unjustifiable U.S. blockade of Cuba and the same dubious story becomes fact. The fact becomes almost universally accepted and Blinken cites it in an attack on the Chinese during his visit.

Graham Greene, in 1958, mocked the world of espionage in Our Man in Havana. Journalists sometimes seem to envy or even channel fiction writers. Reuters' approach to the “spy base” had more to do with creative writing than with the more prosaic world of journalism.

U.S.-China relations sink further after naval near-miss

A recent close call with a Chinese warship during a U.S.-Canada military exercise in the South China Sea has been called out by China as a 'provocation' by America.

The Reuters report

‘...saw large parabolic antennas high on a ridge above town, partially obscured by a hillside of royal palms. A rusted white metal dome, of the type that houses antennas, hovered over dark jungle, decorated on its flanks with cryptic black triangles, some inverted. Unidentified men on motorcycles, dressed in civilian clothes, photographed reporters as they worked.’

Nice prose, but really!

The Cuban spy base confection has a range of purposes. It allows the U.S. to boost its anti-China case at home and play up a fictitious direct threat to its own sovereignty. It allows for the anti-China rhetoric to cross hemispheres, thus making the threat of war even greater. It also plays a part in validating and vindicating its criminal sanctions regime against Cuba. The chairperson of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Menendez, has been spinning the yarn that the “facility” is a “direct assault” on the United States.

There are America-wide solidarity actions planned for late June which have been garnering support. Linking China and Cuba as some two-pronged enemy of freedom has been seen by some as another motivation for the hyperbolic behaviour of the U.S. media and Government. It may well weaken the growing pro-Cuban solidarity movement. We have a two-for-one deal that serves U.S. interests but nobody else’s.

The fact that the spy base is scandalous ought to have gained some traction. Some dissenting voices in mainstream media might have been expected but living, as we do, in a world where the propagandist takes pride of place, it is little wonder that other voices are not being heard. A Cuban Foreign Ministry spokesperson dismissed the reports as “slander” but that he was well acquainted with such slander. He also reminded anyone prepared to listen that Cuba rejects all foreign military presence in the region.

'Red Alerts', the spectre of communism and the cold winds of war

A potential new Cold War is being framed as a good-versus-evil conflict, but it is a rivalry driven by commercial and military competition between heavily-armed superpowers.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin was asked about the spy facility. His short answer was that he was unaware of the allegation but was happy to discuss the extensive list of American interventionist activities in all parts of the world. The Chinese embassy in Washington reminded us all that the United States was “the most powerful hacker empire in the world”.

The USA, with the assistance of such a propaganda army, continues to malign China and, by implication, its allies. The USA by word and deed actually does threaten the world and for the express purpose of maintaining economic power.

Xi Jinping was right to say that China and the U.S. ‘should act with a sense of responsibility for history, for the people and for the world, and handle China-US relations properly’. To do otherwise is to lead us to war. We would do well to remember that, even as Ross Babbage, writing for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, urges us to think otherwise.

He writes:

‘The U.S., Japan, Taiwan and South Korea appreciate the risk of major war and are already taking big steps to bring strategic manufacturing home or transfer it to fully trusted security partners. If Australians want to maintain their security and independence, we need to move quickly to do the same.’

Such is the nihilistic view of the warmongers. Or we could take a leaf out of Xi’s book and remember that ‘great power competition cannot resolve America’s problems’. Mutual respect and an acceptance that China will not simply go away is a good starting point but the view from Washington and therefore from Canberra is quite a different thing.

Dr William Briggs is a political economist. His special areas of interest lie in political theory and international political economy. He has been, variously, a teacher, journalist and political activist.