Sino-US Dialogue in Alaska: Outcomes.

March 23, 2021

by Zamir Awan for the Saker Blog

The first direct, high-level dialogue, under Joe Biden Administration, was held on 18-189 March 2021 in Anchorage, Alaska, USA. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Chinese Director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi attended the dialogue.

After welcoming the Chinese guests, Secretary of state Mr. Blinken accused China of many issues, including Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyberattacks on the United States, and economic coercion toward our allies. Each of these actions threatens the rules-based order that maintains global stability.

Director Yang responded that “What China and the international community follow or uphold is the United Nations-centered international system and the international order underpinned by international law, not what is advocated by a small number of countries of the so-called rules-based international order. And the United States has its style — United States-style democracy –and China has the Chinese-style democracy. It is not just up to the American people, but also the people of the World, to evaluate how the United States has advanced its own democracy. After decades of reform and opening up in China’s case, we have come a long way in various fields. In particular, we have engaged in tireless efforts to contribute to the peace and development of the World and to upholding the purposes and principles of the U.N. Charter.”

“The wars in this World are launched by some other countries, which have resulted in massive casualties. But for China, what we have asked for, for other countries, is to follow a path of peaceful development, which is the purpose of our foreign policy. We do not believe in invading through the use of force, in toppling other regimes through various means, or massacring other countries’ people because all of those would only cause turmoil and instability in this World. And at the end of the day, all of those would not serve the United States well. So we believe that it is important for the United States to change its own image and stop advancing its own democracy in the rest of the World. Many people within the United States actually have little confidence in the democracy of the United States, and they have various views regarding the government of the United States. In China, according to opinion polls, China’s leaders have the wide support of the Chinese people. So no attempt to — the opinion polls conducted in the United States show that China’s leaders have the support of the Chinese people. No attempt to smear China’s social system would get anywhere. Facts have shown that such practices would only lead the Chinese people to rally more closely around the Communist Party of China and work steadily towards the goals that we have set for ourselves.”

“Xinjiang, Tibet, and Taiwan are an inalienable part of China’s territory. China is firmly opposed to U.S. interference in China’s internal affairs. We have expressed our staunch opposition to such interference, and we will take firm actions in response. On human rights, we hope that the United States will do better on human rights. China has made steady progress in human rights, and the fact is that there are many problems within the United States regarding human rights, which is admitted by the U.S. itself as well. The United States has also said that countries can’t rely on force in today’s World to resolve the challenges we face. And it is a failure to use various means to topple the so-called authoritarian states. And the challenges facing the United States in human rights are deep-seated. They did not just emerge over the past four years, such as Black Lives Matter. It did not come up only recently. So we do hope that for our two countries, it’s important that we manage our respective affairs well instead of deflecting the blame on somebody else in this World. We’ve had a confrontation in the past, and the result did not serve the United States well. China will pull through and has pulled through such confrontation.”

Outcomes:

China availing this opportunity has conveyed that China will not accept U.S. supremacy and will not accept dictation. China will not allow any country to interfere in its domestic issues. Generally speaking, the Chinese are well-mannered, polite, submissive, and friendly people. It seems that the U.S. has crossed all the limits where China have to take a firm and blunt stand and express their point of view so clearly. It is up to the U.S. administration to analyze the Chinese response and do their homework before meeting them again.

The World has conceived well that the U.S. can not sustain its hegemony anymore. It is no longer a unipolar world, and the U.S. is no longer a unique superpower. The U.S. needs to understand the emerging geopolitics and have to accept realities. It might need to share power with other rising nations and respect them. The U.S. must keep in mind the existence of other emerging nations’ potential while making any decision.

It is an established fact that the U.S., after enjoying the global leadership role for seven decades, may not sustain this status anymore. The U.S. is on the decline and, with every passing day, may decline further. Whereas China is a rising power and, with the passage of each day, may grow further. The time is on the Chinese side. If Americans are wise, they might give up confronting China and extend cooperation to be the beneficiary of Chinse rise. There exists enormous goodwill about America among the general public in China.

The American claim of promoting democracy and the law-based rule is no more trusted as the Americans are a supporter of all dictators in the oil-rich Gulf countries in the Middle-East. The U.S. was behind the toppling of the democratically elected legitimate Government of Mr. Adil Morsey in Egypt. Again, it was the U.S. who was among the first nations to support the dictator General Sissi in Egypt. American history is full of supporting dictators around the globe. Regarding law-based rule, it is just a joke. It was the U.S. that destroyed Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, etc.

Under the Trump Administration, America was deteriorated in respect of human rights violations, hate among various ethnicities in America. And official discriminatory laws were introduced against Muslims; immigration laws were biased. The pandemic was mismanaged, the economy was collapsed. President Trump harmed America so severely that it might take several decades to recover such losses. President Trump has offended some of his close allies too.

President Joe Biden’s remarks about President Putin were misconceived and may spoil the geopolitics further. More tensions between Russia and the U.S. are predictable visibly. It may cement China-Russia relations further.

Author: Prof. Engr. Zamir Ahmed Awan, Sinologist (ex-Diplomat), Editor, Analyst, Non-Resident Fellow of CCG (Center for China and Globalization), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan. (E-mail: awanzamir@yahoo.com).

Tense U.S.-China Talks End With No Breakthroughs “نيويورك تايمز”: قضايا صعبة في المحادثات الأميركية الصينية

The negotiations, held in Alaska, featured rocky exchanges between Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and his Chinese counterpart. A former Green Beret was charged with attacking multiple officers during the Capitol riot.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, left, said that U.S. officials had raised numerous issues with their Chinese counterparts.Credit…Pool photo by Frederic J. Brown

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — American diplomats ended a fraught round of high-level talks with Chinese officials in Alaska on Friday with no major diplomatic breakthroughs, and acknowledged that a tense relationship lies ahead for Washington and Beijing.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said that U.S. officials had raised numerous issues with their Chinese counterparts — including human rights in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, the status of Tibet and Taiwan, and cybersecurity — which caused tension.

“We certainly know, and knew going in, that there are a number of areas where we are fundamentally at odds,” Mr. Blinken said, adding that “it’s no surprise that when we raised those issues,” U.S. officials “got a defensive response.”

Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, said that American officials had expected the talks to be difficult, and that the delegation had laid out its priorities for how the Biden administration would approach diplomatic relations with Beijing.

“We were cleareyed coming in, we’re cleareyed coming out,” Mr. Sullivan said, “and we will go back to Washington to take stock of where we are.”

In setting up the two days of discussions, the Biden administration had sought to build a baseline for its approach to China, one that officials have said would be grounded in competition but leave space for cooperation or confrontation with Beijing when necessary.

But they kicked off Thursday afternoon with more than an hour of heated accusations passing between Mr. Blinken and his Chinese counterpart, a rocky exchange that played out in front of TV cameras and threw into doubt any prospect of their geopolitical rivalry softening.

Yang Jiechi, China’s top diplomat, accused the United States of taking a “condescending” approach to the talks and said the American delegation had no right to accuse Beijing of human rights abuses or give lectures on the merits of democracy.

At one point, he said the United States would do well to repair its own “deep seated” problems, specifically pointing to the Black Lives Matter movement against American racism. At another, after it looked as if the opening remarks had concluded and journalists were initially told to leave the room to let the deeper discussions begin, Mr. Yang accused the United States of being inconsistent in its championing of a free press.

Mr. Blinken appeared taken aback but tried to keep the discussion on an even keel. He had opened the talks by asserting a goal to “strengthen the rules-based international order.”

It is now unclear how much cooperation between the two nations will be possible, although that will be necessary to achieve a host of shared goals, including controlling the pandemic, combating climate change, and limiting Iran’s nuclear program and North Korea’s weapons systems.

— Lara Jakes and Pranshu Verma

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“نيويورك تايمز”: قضايا صعبة في المحادثات الأميركية الصينية

لارا جاكس

المصدر: نيويورك تايمز

19 آذار 11:15

تنتقل واشنطن إلى موقف أكثر تنافسية مع الصين، لمواجهة دبلوماسيتها حول العالم وضمان عدم حصول بكين على ميزة دائمة في التكنولوجيا الحيوية.

بلينكن يتلقي مسؤولين صينيين لمحاولة تحسين العلاقات الثنائية المتوترة.

قالت صحيفة “نيويورك تايمز” الأميركية إن التحول الحاد للرئيس الأميركي جو بايدن في سياسة الولايات المتحدة تجاه الصين يطرح قضايا صعبة على الطاولة اليوم في أول اجتماع كبير بين كبار المسؤولين من إدارته ونظرائهم الصينيين.

وأضافت الصحيفة أن وزير الخارجية الأميركي أنطوني بلينكين ومستشار الأمن القومي الأميركي جيك سوليفان سيلتقيان اليوم مع اثنين من كبار الدبلوماسيين الصينيين، عضو مجلس الدولة وانغ يي ورئيس الشؤون الخارجية للحزب الشيوعي الصيني يانغ جيتشي، في مدينة أنكوريج في ألاسكا، حيث من المحتمل أن تتمحور محادثاتهم حول هونغ كونغ، ووضع تايوان ومزاعم قمع الصين للمسلمين الأويغور.

وأوضحت الصحيفة أن الولايات المتحدة إلى تنتقل إلى موقف أكثر تنافسية مع الصين، لمواجهة دبلوماسيتها حول العالم وضمان عدم حصول بكين على ميزة دائمة في التكنولوجيا الحيوية.

وأشارت “نيويورك تايمز” إلى أن إدارة بايدن تعمل على جمع الحلفاء، ولا سيما اليابان وكوريا الجنوبية والهند وأستراليا، لصياغة استراتيجية مشتركة في آسيا.

فمن وجهة نظر الصين، سيكون الاجتماع أول دليل على عزم بكين على الوقوف في وجه الإدارة الجديدة. وكان المسؤولون الصينيون يركزون على تعزيز قوة بلادهم، حيث يبتعد الزعيم الصيني، شي جينبينغ، بشكل متزايد عن الاعتماد على الآخرين.

وأبلغ سفير الصين لدى الولايات المتحدة كوي تيانكاي وسائل الإعلام الصينية أن بلاده “لا تتوقع حواراً واحداً لحل جميع القضايا بين الجانبين”، لكنه يأمل أن يؤدي ذلك إلى بدء حوار بناء.

وقالت وكالة شينخوا الصينية إن الصين والولايات المتحدة تعقدان حواراً استراتيجياً رفيع المستوى يومي الخميس والجمعة في مدينة أنكوراج بولاية ألاسكا الأميركية، معتبرة أنها ستكون هذه أول محادثات مباشرة بين كبار الدبلوماسيين الصينيين والأميركيين منذ تولي الرئيس جو بايدن رئاسة الولايات المتحدة.

ونقلت الوكالة عن الخبراء قولهم إن أحد أسباب عقد الاجتماع في ألاسكا هو موقعها. إذ تقع ألاسكا في منتصف الطريق بين بكين وواشنطن العاصمة، وهذا يعني حرفياً أن الجانبين يلتقيان في منتصف الطريق.

نقله إلى العربية: الميادين نت

Trump’s Surprising Alaska-Canada Rail Announcement: Might America Join the Polar Silk Road?

By Matthew Ehret for the Saker Blog

On September 26, President Trump announced that a long-overdue project would receive Federal support which involves connecting Alaska for the first time with Canada and the lower 48 states via a 2570 km railway.

In his Tweet announcing the project, Trump said:

Ever since the days of the sale of Alaska from Russia to the USA in 1867, it was understood by leading statesmen of both nations that an inevitable next phase in human society’s evolution would involve extending the U.S. Trans Continental Railway through Canada, into Alaska and thence into Russia and Asia via the Bering Strait rail tunnel. This project had received fervent support from such figures as Russian Prime Minister Sergei Witte, Colorado’s Governor William Gilpin and even Czar Nicholas II who commissioned American engineers to conduct a feasibility study in 1906. These stories were told in full in my recent reports The Missed Chance of 1867, and The Real Story Behind the Alaska Purchase.

By the mid 20^th century, the project to connect Alaska with Canada and the rest of the continent while opening the Arctic for development found its champions in the forms of Vice President Henry Wallace (1941-1945), President John F Kennedy (1961-63) and in Canada B.C. Premier W.A.C. Bennett (1952-72) and Prime Minister John Diefenbaker (1957-1963).

During Bennett’s 20 year role as Premier (from 1952-1972), the Province was pulled quickly into the 20th century becoming an international hub of hydroelectric power, industrial growth and water management. As the story was told in Forgotten Battles Against the Deep State: W.A.C. Bennett vs the Malthusians, Bennett’s growth program never occurred without vicious battles pitting high level anti-development Rhodes Scholars operating within both Ottawa and his own Provincial administration against him and his small team of nation builders. Unfortunately for Bennett who always intended his northern rail programs to connect with Alaska, his key ally in Ottawa was taken out of power during a Rhodes Scholar-driven coup in 1963 and John F Kennedy, who met Bennett and supported many of infrastructure initiatives fell earlier that same year.

With the fall of these statesmen, a new paradigm took hold of western society premised on living in the moment, rejecting ideas like “the nuclear family”, belief in scientific and technological progress”, or the study of “dead white European males” in universities.

The era of building things was choked off and an era of monetary growth was unleashed like a cancerous tumor under globalization.

Today, with the immanent breakdown of the post-1971 de-regulated order, a new order is emerging and it remains to be seen who will benefit.

For all of his limitations, President Trump has displayed a rare and invaluable quality unseen in an American president for decades: Humanity and genuine patriotism. While neocons and technocrats attempt to gain the upper hand amidst the impending blowout of the $1.5 quadrillion derivatives bubble called the western economy, a new epoch of serious nation building has emerged with the Russia-China alliance and Belt and Road Initiative, which has extended development corridors, industrial zones and mass infrastructure led by rail throughout Asia, Africa and increasingly into the Russian Arctic under the Polar Silk Road.

In its essential character, this Multipolar alliance represents a form of thinking and action which are much more in alignment with discoverable principles of natural law (premised not on “Might Makes Right but rather “Right makes Might” as enunciated famously by the great Chinese President and revolutionary in his Three Principles of the People (modelled on his studies of Lincoln’s principles of government) where he said: “The rule of Right respects benevolence and virtue, while the rule of Might only respects force and utilitarianism. The rule of Right always influences people with justice and reason, while the rule of Might always oppresses people with brute force and military measures.”

Todays potential re-emergence of the Alaska-Canada Railway which would be driven under a pro-Pacific and pro-Arctic development model represents the first genuine display of this paradigm in North America in decades.

If it survives the oncoming Environmental Impact Assessments and Federal Government of Canada (which is currently run by anti-development Rhodes Scholars and technocrats committed to depopulation and world government), then it will not only upon up bountiful resources locked up in the inaccessible Arctic, create tens of thousands of much needed jobs directly and millions of jobs indirectly and vector North America’s economic destiny with the ever-growing Asian markets led by China. Most importantly, it will do much to break the west free of the two-fold trap of anti-development versions of environmentalism on the one side and pro-militarization right wing views on the other side- bringing us into a policy of win-win cooperation with our Eurasian partners.

The Alaska-Alberta Railway Development Corporation (tasked by Trump with the job of building and managing this $17 billion project), features on its website programs to tie North America into the Asian market as well as help integrate a North American transport system whose once proud rail system have fallen derelict since WWII and the age of “highways and cars” took over.

A2A CEO Sean McCoshen stated as much this year when he said: “This is a world-class infrastructure project that will generate more than 18,000 jobs for Canadian workers at a time when they are most needed, provide a new, more efficient route for trans-Pacific shipping and thereby link Alberta to world markets.”

Whether or not such programs which may now occur since Globalizated monsters like NAFTA and the TPP have been jettisoned giving nation states the authority to exercise a dirigistic role in long term economic planning remains to be seen.

Matthew Ehret is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Patriot Review , a BRI Expert on Tactical talk, and has authored 3 volumes of ‘Untold History of Canada’ book series. In 2019 he co-founded the Montreal-based Rising Tide Foundation