From Blinken to Kissinger: Chinese Experts React

"Recent back-to-back visits by Blinken, Yellen, and Kerry to China have not yielded any real and substantive results, except perhaps ... to prevent a US-China military conflict" – Prof. Shi Yinhong

Embarrassment is what one prominent international relations scholar in China expressed to his WeChat contacts minutes after hearing about Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang’s demise. But much like Qin’s presence on the PRC’s foreign ministry’s website, his comment was rapidly scrubbed out of existence. Needless to say, Qin’s downfall may well be on many people’s mind in China, but few Chinese intellectuals will be taking the risk to express their views publicly on such a highly sensitive matter.

More prone to expert commentary have been the recent visits to China of senior US officials and, of course, Henry Kissinger. The following excerpts do not really do the content of these pieces justice, so do click on the sources provided below to read these articles in full, with or without the help of an online translator.

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Name: Shi Yinhong (时殷弘)
Year of birth: 1951 (age: 72)
Position: Professor of international relations, chairman of the academic committee of the School of International Studies and director of the Centre for American Studies, Renmin University of China
Research focus: International relations with a particular focus on the U.S.
Education: MA (1981) and PhD (1988) from Nanjing University
Source: Phoenix (20.07.2023)

“As far as a significant and long-lasting easing of US-China rivalry on any of the key issues is concerned, the recent back-to-back visits of Blinken, Yellen, and Kerry to China have not yielded any real and substantive results, except perhaps for the strengthening of both sides' willingness to prevent a US-China military conflict.”

“Since late April 2022, the number one policy priority of the United States towards China has been to ensure the absolute prevention and avoidance of a military conflict between the two countries. But China has continued to resist this absolute guarantee, fearing that it would give the United States a free hand to continue to increase its ever more comprehensive support for Taiwan.”

“China also places the prevention and avoidance of a military conflict with the United States among its top national priorities, but relies more on the relevant experience of the frontline forces from both countries and on Washington's ‘cowardice‘ [‘胆怯’].”

“The Chinese Government accorded Kissinger a particularly high level of courtesy in recognition of his historic and crucial contribution to the normalisation of bilateral relations some 50 years ago. This also demonstrates the importance that the Chinese Government attaches to all past, present, and future American individuals who are committed to improving bilateral relations. At the same time, it is highly unlikely that the Chinese Government would use Kissinger, who has long since left the centre of power, as a key mediator to discuss with the US Government major issues on which China's relevant positions have already been repeatedly and clearly expressed, and on which significant and lasting easing [缓解] has time and again proved elusive.”

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Name: Wang Yong (王勇)
Year of birth: 1966 (age: 56)
Position: Director of the Centre for American Studies and professor at the School of International Studies, Peking University; Professor at the Party School of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Research focus: China’s foreign relations; US-China relations; Global political economy
Education: BA (1987), MA (1990), PhD (1996), Peking University
Source: Aisixiang.com (12.07.2023)

“Yellen's visit, coupled with that of Secretary of State Blinken [a couple of weeks] earlier, marks a certain degree of adjustment in the US’s policy towards China. [However,] the Biden administration's emphasis on pursuing its so-called ‘strategic competition’ with China will not change.”

“Yellen's visit has been conducive to restoring and strengthening the idea that China and the United States still have significant common interests … Yellen is one of the few moderate officials on China within the Biden administration.”

“The Biden administration's current willingness to begin improving US-China relations, including economic relations, is partly an acknowledgement that the US has in fact failed in its tariff and trade war against China. This is because more than 90 per cent of the tariffs imposed by the United States on Chinese exports have ended up being shouldered by American businesses and consumers. At the same time, they have also exacerbated the US’s hard-to-control inflation. More importantly, Yellen recognises that Chinese financial support is indispensable to solving the US's macroeconomic problems, including controlling inflation and the financing of its national debt. Global macroeconomic stability requires cooperation between China and the United States.”

“The Biden administration has now begun to change its strategy towards China, sending senior officials such as Blinken and Yellen to visit China. This is a shift that should be welcomed. However, whether or not the United States is genuinely willing to establish a regular dialogue mechanism to resolve the contradictions and differences that exist between China and the US remains to be seen. Even if the US intends to resume this dialogue mechanism, its strategic misjudgement of China's intentions, as well as its anxiety over, and distrust of, China's rapid development, will remain difficult to change.”

“At present, one can say that before the 2024 US election [race] officially begins, the US-China relationship has a very small ‘window of opportunity’ to improve ties. However, whether Democrats who are currently in office, such as Yellen, will be able to withstand political attacks by China hawks remains an open question.”

“US-China relations will continue to face enormous challenges in the future, and one should not become blindly optimistic [simply] because of the current improvement in US-China exchanges. The main challenge will come from the hardliners in the US who will continue to push for the deterioration of US-China ties, both for the sake of domestic electoral interests and to preserve the US’s [global] hegemony. What's more, interest groups such as those within the US military-industrial complex will continue to create crises and newsworthy events [新闻事件] so as to hijack [绑架: lit. kidnap] the US’s China policy. This China-related political ecology within the United States will be difficult to change. Coupled with the possibility that Trump may win the 2024 election and return with a vengeance, the future of US-China relations will be full of uncertainty.”

“Hope for US-China relations lies in the maintenance and expansion of civilian engagement between both countries .. The three-year epidemic has had too great an impact on exchanges between China and the United States. We must face up to this and take more proactive measures.”

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Name: Huang Jing (黄靖)
Year of birth: 1956 (age: 66/67)
Position: Distinguished professor and director of the Institute for the US and the Pacific at the Shanghai Academy of Global Governance and Area Studies (SAGGAS), Shanghai International Studies University (SISU)
Research focus: International relations and elite politics in China
Education: BA Sichuan University; MA Fudan University; PhD Harvard University (1995)
Source: Phoenix (13.07.2023)

“The United States is now trying very hard to avoid a direct clash between economic and security interests. The Biden administration has therefore been … quietly replacing the association between ‘security and [the whole of] the economy’ with one linking ‘security and high-tech’. It is in this sense that the concept of ‘de-risking’ was put forward.”

“[I would say that] Yellen's visit to China has probably been quite successful … Yellen had ‘substantive, in-depth and constructive’ conversations with our leading officials at various levels.”

“For us, an important achievement of Yellen's visit to China has been the confirmation that China and the United States are willing to, and should, work together to safeguard global financial stability. Factually speaking [实事求是地说], the maintenance of global financial stability is the greatest common interest in the US-China relationship today.”

“[Answering a question about Yellen’s statement that the US is not seeking to decouple from China:] The Biden Administration is indeed quite weak [弱势]. After Biden came to power, the leaders of our two countries met several times. In the communiqués issued after each meeting, the last paragraph always stated that ‘the two heads of State urge their respective sides to implement the agreements reached at the meetings between them’. However, Biden's team has never been able to implement these. In my opinion, this does not necessarily mean that the Biden administration ‘says one thing and does another [说一套做一套]’, but rather that the high degree of division and political polarisation in American society has significantly weakened the ability and willingness of the Biden administration to carry out [such] policies.”

“The United States is now trying very hard to avoid a direct clash between economic and security interests. The Biden administration has therefore been slowly shifting [the country’s] focus to ‘high-tech issues’, quietly replacing the association between ‘security and [the whole of] the economy’ with one linking ‘security and high-tech’. It is in this sense that the concept of ‘de-risking’ was put forward.”

“At the same time, the United States is now basically using its ‘heart’ rather than its ‘head’ when devising its policy towards China. That is to say, U.S. policymaking is being swayed by ‘emotions’. The current anxiety, anger and even panic in the United States about China is mainly due to:

1. [Always needing to be number one]

2. [A sense of what Huang calls having been “cheated” (欺骗) or even “betrayed” (背叛) in that the US helped China develop but not in a way that the US had hoped for, i.e. politically]

3. “The third type of emotion is rather complex and is a mixture of ‘racism’ and ‘religious feelings’. First, the US believed that the Industrial Revolution could only succeed in the Western ‘white’ world and [thus] only they could lead the development of the world. China's rapid development and achievements have caused some American politicians and racists to feel a type of emotion that is difficult to put into words. Second, Christianity is the mainstay of American society and, in the value system of certain politicians and ‘America First’ groups, believing in God is the criterion for judging whether a person is ‘moral or not’. However, Chinese people are not religious [中国人没有宗教信仰], so these Americans believe that Chinese people’s behaviour ‘has no bottom line and is immoral’. Further, these Americans claim to be ‘God's Chosen People’ and the natural masters of the world. When China's development began to get on track to surpass the United States, these ‘chosen people’ began to panic, because the success of the ‘impious’ Chinese severely attacked and even shattered their beliefs and value system.”

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Name: Yu Hongyuan (于宏源)
Year of birth: 1974 (age: 48)
Position: Director of the Institute for Public Policy and Innovation Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS)
Research focus: Climate governance and international relations
Education: MA (2000), Renmin University of China; PhD (2003), Chinese University of Hong Kong
Source: Guancha.cn (21.07.2023)

“High-level climate talks between China and the United States had been frozen for a long time ever since Pelosi's scamper [窜访: a derogatory term for a visit] to Taiwan in August last year. The fact that the two powers can now communicate is a positive signal in itself.”

“[On whether US-China climate cooperation might help improve Beijing’s overall relationship with Washington, Yu remained prudent:] In my opinion, the issue of climate change is different from bilateral issues such as economic ‘decoupling’ and great power rivalry. First of all, it is a global issue. Moreover, China and the US already have a common framework in place, namely, the Paris Climate Agreement, under which [a broad degree of] consensus and many specific arrangements have already been reached. In other fields, however, China and the United States have not yet established such a common framework.”

“Kerry, who is almost 80, can be regarded as a senior US politician. He, at the very least, still has some influence within the Biden administration and over some mainstream politicians. It is noticeable that from last year until today – a period during which US-China relations have been [particularly] volatile – Kerry's statements on Pelosi's scamper to Taiwan, the balloon incident and on several other occasions have been relatively friendly towards China when compared with those made by other public figures in the US. I think we should all realise that China's efforts to nurture [培养] sounder [相对中肯] American politicians like Kerry through the issue of climate change will certainly have a positive effect on US-China relations.”

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