中文
By Hafijur Rahman
A few days earlier, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria, said that the U.S. is "working to put some stability into the relationship [with China], to put a floor under the relationship, to make sure that the competition that we're in doesn't veer into conflict." Pointing to the recent flurry of high-profile U.S. officials' visits to China, including Blinken's own trip in June, he further stated that Washington was "engaged, or about to engage" on problematic issues in bilateral relations and expressed his belief that contemporary diplomatic engagements could "get to a resolution" to those problems.
Last several months, particularly since the United States shifted its rhetoric from "de-coupling" to "de-risking" with respect to its trade and technological ties with China, and U.S. President Joe Biden made remarks during the last G7 summit about expecting a "thaw" in China-U.S. ties, have seen Washington seemingly proffering an olive branch to Beijing. But, just like the previous cases – not walking the talks, the United States has continued to tread confrontational paths toward its relationship with China, consistently disrespecting China's core national interests, increasing attempts to militarize its containment strategy against China, and bombarding demonizing rhetoric about China ad nauseam.
Though not contemporary at all, this U.S. tendency to talk about reconciliation while actually causing conflict has been reinforced by some of the recent actions taken by the United States concerning its relationship with China. Ironically, these actions came immediately after Blinken made statements emphasizing the need for stability with China.
If the United States truly wants to improve its relationship with China and move towards peaceful coexistence, it must respect China's core national interests, particularly with regard to China's Taiwan region. Despite discussing the possibility of reconciliation with China, the United States has continued to violate China's political sovereignty and territorial integrity.
On July 29, the Biden administration announced another $345 million-military-aid package for Taiwan, that will include "defense articles," military education, and training. This is the latest in the string of unceasing U.S. military support to Taiwan, which has witnessed an exponential rise over the last several years, propping up Taiwan's separatist fringes, spiraling the region down to a potential great power confrontation, and eroding confidence to U.S. commitment to improving bilateral ties. Despite China having reiterated its resolve in safeguarding its core national's interests and maintaining that its sovereignty claim over Taiwan is inalienable and an inseparable issue from the wider domain of Sino-U.S. relations, we haven't seen any let-up in the U.S. efforts to increasingly turn the island into a powder keg.
Again, on the issue of the U.S. grand agenda to contain China and undermine its influence and interests in the Asia-Pacific region, the United States, under the fictitiously benign "Indo-Pacific Strategy," has persistently been propelling up its efforts to militarize and nuclearize the "containment policy" against China. On July 27, Blinken said that the door was open for New Zealand to engage with the AUKUS weapons development and procurement project between the United States, the UK and Australia.
Like the Quad+ scheme under which the U.S. is seeking expansion of the China-containment strategic sphere by including more countries into the geopolitical coalition and long coercing other existing members to turn it into a hardcore security arrangement against China, the potential AUKUS+, if it included more countries into the catastrophic project, will further threaten the security and stability of the region. Such destabilizing confrontational endeavors targeting China will only add up to the already-mounting China's distrust of the U.S. and skepticism over its sincerity to improve bilateral ties.
Finally, we have seen no cessation in the U.S. demonization of China and its global outreach programs. On July 26, Antony Blinken, on his visit to the Pacific Island country Tonga as a part of Washington's recently heightened charm offensive efforts towards Pacific Islanders to drag them out of China's influence, called China's behavior in the region "problematic," groundlessly accusing some of China's economic activities as "predatory."
Dominated by powerful vested interests and desperate to keep up its hegemonic global primacy which has growingly been questioned and confronted by rising China and the emerging developing world, the United States is not willing to accept the legitimacy of a non-Caucasian ancient civilization with a different political system and ideology as a partner in sharing global power alongside the U.S.-led Western world. Constantly demonizing China is, in part, related to the white supremacy-induced U.S. national psyche and, to a great extent, influenced by its current geostrategic agenda to undercut China's growing ascendance to global preeminence.
While a direct conflict between two nuclear-armed superpowers could jeopardize humanity's existence, a Sino-U.S. relationship based on peaceful coexistence holds immense potential for the welfare of people and the planet. In addressing the issues of mutual concern and global importance, like food security, clime change and green energy, stability in Sino-U.S. relations engineered and endured by collaboration, compromise and mutual consensus is urgently needed.
Hafijur Rahman, a special commentator on current affairs for CGTN, is a columnist and security and strategic analyst, working in a prominent Strategic Studies Center in Bangladesh.
