Why China's Foreign Minister Suddenly Wants Stronger Sino-US Relations

San Francisco — 

A Chinese official’s pitch this week for stronger Sino-U.S. relations could indicate that Beijing wants to edge away from Russia and repair economic relations, some analysts say.

In a speech Monday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi urged Washington to “reinstate a reasonable and pragmatic China policy” and “promote putting bilateral ties back on the right track,” the state-run China Daily news website reported.

A breakthrough in Sino-U.S. relations would mark a turning point since the two powers began sparring in 2017 over trade, technology transfers and growing Chinese military might around Asia. U.S. President Joe Biden’s government said in a report Tuesday it still sees China as a competitor that’s “unfair” in trade.

Trade ties, distance from Russia

China has tried to avoid siding openly with Russia on its invasion of Ukraine last week despite a long, deepening friendship with Moscow.

China did not join Russia in vetoing a U.S.-backed U.N. Security Council resolution against the attack, and its U.N. ambassador suggested that Ukraine form a “bridge” between the East and West .

Washington has blasted its former Cold War rival Russia over the invasion.

Wang is “trying to make nice” in view of China’s “increasingly” close ties with Russia, said Sean King, vice president of Park Strategies political consultancy in New York. “These are perilous times when we see who’s who and what’s what,” King said.

Chinese officials are hoping the U.S. side will welcome their appeal for better relations as the United States faces “mounting inflation” among other economic issues, said Oh Ei Sun, senior fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs.

Wang said Monday that China was willing to work with the United States on a G-7-led global infrastructure plan called Build Back Better World and welcomes Washington in its Belt and Road Initiative aimed at opening trade routes by building new infrastructure. Biden happens to be pushing the U.S. Senate for a $2-trillion social spending bill, which also is called Build Back Better.

“Now that the U.S. is embroiled in the confrontation with Russia, the U.S. will need friends and allies, and China has been adopting a rather ambivalent attitude with regards to the Ukraine invasion, so that creates a window of opportunity for the U.S. and China to come closer together,” Oh said.

China could offer the United States “cost effective technology” for railways and prefabricated bridges, said Eduardo Araral, associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s public policy school. But he said Washington may be “too proud” to accept that support.

He said that bickering between the two powers has eased already. “Now it’s either no news or positive news, which is good news,” Araral said. “At least there’s no more shouting match or megaphone diplomacy.”

Momentum from 50 years ago

Wang spoke Monday at a video ceremony marking the 50-year anniversary of the Shanghai Communique. Former Chinese leader Mao Zedong and former U.S. President Richard Nixon signed the statement as a prelude to normalizing two-way relations.

“History tells us that by seeking common ground while reserving differences, we can attain peaceful co-existence between countries with different social systems,” the foreign minister said.

“The older generation of leaders in both countries realized that despite the differences, neither side had the intention to change the other,” he said. “Both sides hoped to see that the two countries could grow in parallel and conduct cooperation based on shared interests.”

No deal yet

The Chinese foreign minister’s comments, however, offer no actual deal. Wang criticized Washington on Monday as not “earnestly complying with the principles and spirit” of the Shanghai Communique, China Daily reported.

“It should abandon its mania for zero-sum games, give up its obsession with encircling and containing China, and break free from the shackles of political correctness,” he told the video ceremony.

Americans continue to worry about China. Some point to China’s growing use of big data analytics and its links to COVID-19. The coronavirus was first reported in China in late 2019.

“Unfortunately, with the virus, everybody blames China, so I don’t think it’s going to change,” said Sylvia Rampi, general manager for an association of mostly Chinese-operated businesses in Oakland, California.

Taiwan Foreign Minister Calls US Help Critical to Deterring War with China

TAIPEI, TAIWAN — 

As Taiwan continues to face a military threat from China, Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said this week the Taiwanese government continues to focus on its “asymmetric defense” capability — including U.S. assistance — to make it an unattractive target, despite its limited military power.

Taiwan’s current strategy is to make certain “China will understand it will pay a very heavy price if it initiates conflict against Taiwan,” Wu said during a virtual event hosted by the McCain Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State University.

Speaking with former U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, Wu argued for continued U.S. support of Taiwan through arms sales, military exchanges, shared intelligence, and freedom of navigation exercises in the Taiwan Strait.

FILE – Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu holds a speech during his visit to Czech Senate in Prague, Czech Republic, Oct. 27, 2021.

“We want the people here in Taiwan to be able to defend themselves if China is going to launch a war against Taiwan,” Wu said.

Taiwan has lived under the threat of military action by China since China’s Nationalist Party, the Kuomintang fled the mainland after losing the Chinese civil war in 1949. While the conflict has remained largely a stalemate since then — with Beijing continuing to claim Taiwan as a province — an aggressive military modernization campaign by China means it could be able to attack Taiwan as early as 2027, according to the U.S. Defense Department.

Wu said China could have the potential to attack targets other than Taiwan in the future.

“China has made so much investment and have modernized their military capable of not only striking at Taiwan but go beyond the first island chain, so we need to develop our asymmetric warfare so that Taiwan is able to defend itself,” he said, referring to the name of the defensive barrier of Taiwan, Japan, Okinawa, and the northern Philippines.

Similar concerns have led the United States as well as France, Japan, Australia, India, South Korea, the Philippines, and the European Union to become more vocal about the future of Indo-Pacific security in the face of a rising China. Earlier this month, Washington released its latest Indo-Pacific strategy, which called for greater cooperation with regional partners.

Wu said Taiwan must be “very careful” to not provoke China and trigger a conflict. The most recent incident occurred in 1995 and 1996, when China fired missiles toward Taiwan ahead of its first democratic elections. Future triggers could include a formal declaration of independence by Taiwan from China, which is why leaders such as President Tsai Ing-wen are extremely careful when they discuss Taiwan’s political status.

Wu said domestic problems could also force Beijing’s hand if it needed to unite China against a common enemy. “We also need to watch out for this classical theory about authoritarian countries. They like to divert domestic attention by initiating external conflict. If something is happening in China, inside their country, for example, economic slowdown, unemployment, or major disasters, things like that, that might be the time that we need to watch very carefully,” he said.

In the meantime, Taiwan continues to face Chinese efforts to sway public opinion and destroy morale from within Taiwan by convincing civilians “democracy is doomed.” Tactics have included more than 1,000 Chinese People’s Liberation Army air sorties toward Taiwan last year, Wu said, as well as disinformation campaigns and political infiltration.

Wu said these tactics are “below the thresholds of a military conflict” but still require Taiwan and allies such as the United States to keep pushing back.

Events like Wu’s talk at the McCain Institute are part of Taiwan’s greater public relations strategy to remain a central concern for both the U.S. government and the U.S. public, said Kitsch Liao Yen-fan, a cyber and military affairs consultant at the Taiwanese civil society group Doublethink Lab.

Liao said this was a particular concern for Taiwan after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan last year, as the U.S. public may not want to see its military send troops to another foreign conflict. While the United States is not formally committed to defending Taiwan if it were attacked, under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act it has pledged to help it defend itself.

Whether this would ever extend to sending U.S. personnel to Taiwan in a wartime scenario, however, is still a topic of debate — and a decision that Taipei hopes to influence.

Talks like those by Wu, however, “create sufficient momentum to tip public opinion on Taiwan’s side, and on the political side of the United States to reach a tipping point where the willingness to actually send the military into the next conflict will be reversed again,” said Liao.

Foreign Minister Says Iran Eager to Revive Nuclear Deal if Interests Secured

Iran is “in a hurry” to strike a new nuclear accord as long as its national interests are protected, its foreign minister said on Monday as Tehran and the United States resumed indirect talks on salvaging Tehran’s 2015 agreement with world powers.

The talks, with European intermediaries shuttling between the two, have been held in Vienna since April amid growing Western fears about Tehran’s accelerating nuclear advances, seen by Western powers as irreversible unless a deal is struck soon.

The 2015 deal limited Iran’s enrichment of uranium to make it harder for Tehran to develop material for nuclear weapons, in return for a lifting of international sanctions against Tehran.

But it has eroded since 2018 when then-President Donald Trump withdrew the United States and reimposed far-reaching sanctions on Iran. The Islamic Republic has since breached the deal’s limits and gone well beyond, rebuilding stockpiles of enriched uranium, refining it to higher fissile purity and installing advanced centrifuges to speed up output.

“Iran is in a hurry to reach agreement in Vienna…, but this should be within the framework of our national interest,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian told a news conference in Tehran.

He urged Western powers to stop “playing with time.”

Western leaders say time is running out for a viable accord and have accusing Iran of stalling to increase its leverage.

Parties involved in the talks, which resumed last week after a 10-day break, have voiced hope about restoring the pact despite what Tehran has said are “key outstanding issues that require political decisions by the West.”

“Talks are not at a dead end…Iran has already taken its political decision by staying in the deal despite the U.S. withdrawal,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said.

Remaining gaps

A senior Iranian official told Reuters that “some 30% of difficult issues remain to be resolved but it is possible to reach a deal by early March.” A Western diplomat said “reaching a deal is possible around early March, if all goes well.”

After eight rounds of talks, key bones of contention include Iran’s demand for a U.S. guarantee of no more sanctions or other punitive steps in future, and how and when to restore verifiable restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activity.

A second Iranian official said Tehran was also insisting on being able to seal and store its advanced centrifuges inside Iran, rather than dismantling and sending them abroad, as Western powers have called for.

He said Iran further wants the removal of some 300 extra sanctions on Iranian entities and individuals not related to the nuclear deal.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has said it will remove curbs inconsistent with the 2015 pact if Iran resumes compliance with it, implying Washington would leave in place sanctions imposed under terrorism or human rights measures.

U.S. officials have said the Biden administration cannot guarantee that a U.S. government would never renege on the agreement because it is classified as a non-binding political understanding, not a legally binding treaty.

Attack in Granada, Meta: Minister Diego Molano rejects the attack on the Battalion - Other Cities - Colombia

Defense Minister, diego molanomoved to the 21 Pantano de Vargas Infantry Battalion, in the municipality of Granada, Meta, where an attack took place on Wednesday afternoon.

The attack caused the death of the soldier Yover Rojas Gonzalez and the driver of the motorcycle in which the explosives were transported.

(You can read: The soldier Yover Rojas González was the victim of the attack in Granada).

Minister Molano arrived at the scene of the events to verify the situation. In addition, he visited the six soldiers who were injured in the hospital and sent a message of condolences to the family of the deceased soldier.

“We will not rest for a minute until we find the culprits of this cowardly terrorist attack,” he wrote on his Twitter account.

(We recommend: The strong images left by the explosion in Battalion 21 of Granada, Meta).

In #GrenadeMeta, we visited the 6 wounded soldiers in yesterday’s cowardly attack on Battalion #21 Vargas. Heroes of the Homeland who have the support of all Colombians. Admiration and gratitude. To the family of the late hero Yover Rojas, our condolences. pic.twitter.com/LkxruQIAe5

– Diego Molano Aponte (@Diego_Molano) February 10, 2022

He described as ‘cowardly terrorists’ the authors of the attacking and emphasized that they will initiate the corresponding actions to identify them and find their whereabouts.

“The entire Colombia must surround its soldiers and police. We are here with a clear and categorical message for those terrorist groups that seek to affect the integrity of our uniformed officers. We are going to capture and prosecute them,” he specified in a video.

He also said that illegal groups should not be allowed to act for ‘”political purposes to influence and destabilize.”

The Minister of Defense announced that an operational council will be held with members of the Armed Forces to evaluate the situation and a Security Council with local authorities.

(Keep reading: What is known about the attack against a battalion in Meta that left two dead).

The whole of Colombia must surround its @ForcesMilCol. The message is clear and categorical: we are going to capture and prosecute those responsible for the terrorist attack in Granada, Meta. We will make a security council with local authorities to intensify operations in the area. pic.twitter.com/A3Wx7bxS2r

– Diego Molano Aponte (@Diego_Molano) February 10, 2022

Due to the attack, Granada had a curfew from 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday until 5:00 a.m. this Thursday. The mayor’s office of the municipality made the decision “for the safety of all Granadans,” according to what they said on their social networks.

“We want to tell the citizens to be calm and tranquil,” the mayor concluded. Freddy Hernan Perez.

For the time being, no armed group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

TIME

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