ដំណើរទស្សនកិច្ចនៅប្រទេសចិនរបស់ Sherman គឺជាគ្រោះមហន្តរាយស្ងប់ស្ងាត់
US Deputy Secretary of State, Wendy Sherman, had high hopes for the meeting in China. At first, the Chinese side did not agree to hold the meeting at all. The reaction had obvious reasons: Antony Blinken’s fiasco in Alaska left the Chinese disrespected and visibly irritated. This is not why they travelled all the way.
So then the State Department had the idea of sending Wendy Sherman instead. The US government actually needs China more than China needs the US. Sherman was in China to actually prepare the ground for Biden and a meeting between the two presidents, expecting a red carpet roll for Biden as if it’s still the 2000s — the time when it didn’t matter how the US behaved. Things did not go as expected.
Instead of red carpet talk, Sherman heard Dua Lipa’s “I got new rules”.
That’s right — the Chinese side outlined three bottom lines warning the US to respect its system, development and sovereignty and territorial integrity. In other words, China wants to be left alone.
The bottom lines were not phrased as red lines. This was not a military conflict warning. This was China’s message that if any future dialogue was to take place, China needs to be left alone. China accused the US of creating an “imaginary enemy”. I have written about it before — the US is looking for a new Cold War but it doesn’t know how to start and the problem is that the other side actually holds all the cards.
That’s why the US relies on good old militarism with an expansion into the Indo-Pacific, while aligning everyone against China but expecting the red carpet and wanting all else in the financial and economic domains to stay the same. The problem is that the US can no longer sell this because there are no buyers. Europeans also don’t want to play along.
The headlines on the meeting in the US press are less flattering than usual. If the US is serious about China policy it has to be prepared to listen to much more of that in the future. And perhaps to, yes, sit down and be humble.
Sherman’s China Visit Was a Quiet Disaster
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman met last week with senior Chinese diplomats and it did not go well.
When Sherman met with Xie, he castigated the United States, blamed Washington for the “stalemate” in relations, and accused the United States of "demonizing" China.
If the United States and China are to have improved relations, or any prospect of cooperation, Beijing expects Washington to make the concessions.
Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman met last week with senior Chinese diplomats. The meeting, White House and State Department spin notwithstanding, did not go well. This seems to have been a surprise only to the U.S. side.
The visit ran into problems even before it began. The initial itinerary and announcements indicated that Sherman would be visiting South Korea, Japan, and Mongolia but not China. There was no reason why this should be problematic; after all, the Biden administration has emphasized that it would be rebuilding U.S. alliances and upgrading friendships.
But reports revealed that the trip was supposed to include a visit to China. And when the State Department was visibly disappointed and miffed that the Chinese were not offering Sherman a suitable counterpart for the meeting, it became clear that the trip was as much about talking with China as it was about reassuring U.S. allies and friends.
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