America coerces its allies and adversaries alike

Editor's note: CGTN's First Voice provides instant commentary on breaking stories. The column clarifies emerging issues and better defines the news agenda, offering a Chinese perspective on the latest global events.

In a previous First Voice commentary on the recent interactions between high-level China and U.S. officials, we said that "sincerity is paramount. Interaction and dialogue would be far less effective if the U.S. is conciliatory in talks but suppressing China at every turn in action." Within a day, that sincerity we emphasized was undercut.

Two days after meeting with the Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo accused China of engaging in "economic coercion" by barring Micron Technology's chips in key infrastructure sectors. "We won't tolerate it, nor do we think it will be successful," Raimondo told reporters after a meeting of trade ministers in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF). Bloomberg described her words as the "sharpest language yet to describe Washington's reaction" to the Micron ban.

It is the setting from where her "sharpest" response came from that deserves more attention than the language used. IPEF is an economic initiative started by U.S. President Joe Biden in 2022 that writes "the new rules for the 21st century economy." And it has been seen as a China-focused counterpunch from the United States since its inception.

Secretary Raimondo said before its launch in 2022 that the pact is about "presenting Indo-Pacific countries an alternative to China's approach." CNN ran a headline stating that "Biden unveils his economic plan for countering China in Asia." On April 25 this year, Reuters reported that the U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said the IPEF is "designated to create no conflict with other trade agreements in the region" but "is aimed at countering China's efforts to expand its economic influence in the region."

And the IPEF meeting on May 27 produced the initiative's first-ever agreement on building "sustainable and resilient supply chains focused on strategic items including critical minerals and semiconductors," according to the South China Morning Post.

Claiming to not tolerate China's actions on Micron chips while standing with 13 other countries in the "Indo-Pacific" that had just secured deals on semiconductors is an undeniably intentional ploy to demonstrate the U.S.'s supposed geopolitical strength. It latches the other 13 onto America's warship on its plan to counter and isolate China from the regional and global development.

Forcing other allies into coercion and turning trade into a geopolitical battlefield has already caused great concerns and disruptions to businesses. On May 26, more than 30 prominent business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and Business Roundtable, sent a public letter to the Biden administration saying that these negotiations "were leaving out traditional U.S. trade priorities that could help American exporters," based on New York Times' report.

"We are growing increasingly concerned that the content and direction of the administration's proposals for the talks risk not only failing to deliver meaningful strategic and commercial outcomes but also endangering U.S. trade and economic interests in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond," the letter read. 

Overseas, America's economic coercion has caused businesses to defer from making sensible business moves just to avoid angering the United States. South Korea and China had shown signs of working together on the semiconductor industry. Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao met with South Korean Minister for Trade Ahn Duk-geun last week, agreeing to strengthen dialogue and cooperation on this matter.

However, South Korean companies have been wary of taking up Micron's market in China after its ban. For semiconductor firms like Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc., China is their biggest market and houses their factories. But, according to Bloomberg's report, their licenses of operating in China were granted by Washington D.C. and therefore "giving the U.S. some leverage over Seoul's decisions on how it balances its economic engagement with both countries." A source told Bloomberg that South Korea is wary of taking advantage of the situation because it doesn't want to disrupt its relationship with the United States.

And America's coercive measures have been giving opportunists the chances to bandwagon. Kyodo News reported in February that Japan couldn't wait to join the U.S. in restricting chip exports to China because Japan knows it can't pose a direct threat to China on its own. Ganging up with the U.S. is a "better" choice.

In today's world, America's diplomatic and economic coercion is a main contributor to global trade instability and the tension in China-U.S. relationships. It hurts America's domestic industries, forces multinational firms forsaking profitable moves and leaves room for others to take advantages of.

As said before, warming of relationship with China depends on the sincerity of the United States. China, or any other country seeking normal relations, can't deal with a double-dealing United States that's smiling at one moment and stabbing you the next. If the United States seeks a stable world, it needs only to fix its own behavior and change its own mindset.

Otherwise, chaos and instability will continue.