{"id":698660,"date":"2024-04-11T16:38:33","date_gmt":"2024-04-11T23:38:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=698660"},"modified":"2024-04-16T19:50:31","modified_gmt":"2024-04-17T02:50:31","slug":"whirlwind-weeks-of-diplomacy-in-beijing-center-on-ukraine-green-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2024\/04\/whirlwind-weeks-of-diplomacy-in-beijing-center-on-ukraine-green-tech\/","title":{"rendered":"Whirlwind Weeks of Diplomacy In Beijing Center On Ukraine, Green Tech, Taiwan"},"content":{"rendered":"
Over a whirlwind two weeks of diplomacy in Beijing, China has sought to strengthen its ties to both the United States and Russia\u2014a difficult balancing act. Xi Jinping took a phone call with U.S. President Joe Biden<\/a> last week which was followed with a four-day trip through China by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen<\/a>. The day after Yellen\u2019s departure, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with Xi Jinping in Beijing in preparation for \u201cupcoming contacts at the highest level<\/a>,\u201d a sign that Russian leader Vladimir Putin may be planning a Beijing trip this calendar year. Soon after, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that Zhao Leji, the third-ranking member of the Politburo Standing Committee, will be leading a Chinese delegation to North Korea<\/a>\u2014the highest-level contact between the two countries since the pandemic. Xi Jinping also met with former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-Jeou<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n At The Wall Street Journal, Michael R. Gordon and Andrew Duehren reported that during their phone call, <\/span>Biden warned Xi against providing lethal aid to Russia to help in the latter\u2019s invasion of Ukraine<\/strong><\/a>:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAs time has gone on, we\u2019ve really seen the PRC start to help to rebuild Russia\u2019s defense industrial base,\u201d a senior Biden administration official said using the acronym for the People\u2019s Republic of China.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n China, the official added, has been helping to \u201cprovide the components that get slowly towards increasing Russia\u2019s capabilities in Ukraine. And that has, of course, longer term impacts on European security.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n […] Ukraine remains a concern. Following Russia\u2019s February 2022 invasion, the U.S. urged Beijing to use its influence in Moscow to dissuade Russian President <\/span>Vladimir Putin<\/span> from considering the use of tactical nuclear weapons.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But the senior administration official contrasted those gains with Beijing\u2019s ongoing effort \u201cto help Russia reconstitute its defense industrial base.\u201d and added that the U.S. and its Western allies were \u201cquite concerned\u201d about where China appeared to be heading on that issue. [<\/span>Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Biden\u2019s warning to China not to sell weapons to Russia was mirrored by both Janet Yellen during her trip to China and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken during a trip to Munich. Yellen <\/span>told journalists in Guangzhou<\/span><\/a> that \u201cwe’ve been clear with China that we see Russia as gaining support from goods that China, Chinese firms are supplying to Russia,\u201d and said there will be \u201csignificant consequences\u201d if such support continues. A day after meeting Chinese foreign secretary Wang Yi at a security conference in Munich, Germany, <\/span>Blinken said<\/span><\/a>: \u201cFor the most part, China has been engaged in providing rhetorical, political, diplomatic support to Russia, but we have information that gives us concern that they are considering providing lethal support to Russia in the war against Ukraine.\u201d Blinken also warned that this would be a serious problem in Sino-American bilateral relations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Biden and Xi also discussed other flashpoints<\/span><\/a>, including Taiwan and Chinese behavior in the South China Sea, where Chinese coast guard vessels have been firing water cannons at Philippine resupply ships. Biden, <\/span>according to the White House<\/span><\/a>, also told Xi Jinping that the United States will continue to place limits on the export of U.S. technologies to China, which Xi holds \u201ccreates risks\u201d in the relationship. Since 2022, the U.S. Department of Commerce has <\/span>placed substantial restrictions<\/span><\/a> on the sale of advanced computer chips to China, as well as the tools to produce them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Biden\u2019s call with Xi was followed by Treasury Secretary Yellen\u2019s trip to China. At The New York Times, Alan Rappeport reported on one of <\/span>Janet Yellen\u2019s diplomatic goals\u2014asking China to reign in its green tech subsidies even as the United States ramps up its own<\/strong><\/a>:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Ms. Yellen lodged a <\/span>direct complaint<\/span>: Cheap Chinese exports of green energy technology are threatening the electric vehicle and solar sectors that the United States has been trying to develop, and the Biden administration is prepared to protect them.<\/span><\/p>\n […] Treasury officials say that they fear that elevated Chinese production targets are causing its firms to produce far more electric vehicles, batteries and solar panels than global markets can absorb, driving prices lower and disrupting production around the world. They fear that these spillovers will hurt businesses that are planning investments in the United States with tax credits and subsidies that were created through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, a law that is pumping more than $2 trillion into clean energy infrastructure.<\/span><\/p>\n […] \u201cIt\u2019s a very tough sell when we\u2019re doing much the same thing,\u201d said <\/span>Scott Lincicome<\/span>, a trade expert at the free-market oriented Cato Institute. \u201cRegardless of whether you think the United States should be pursuing these subsidies, the fact is that the rhetorical and political effect is inevitably going to be undermined when your argument is, do as I say, not as I do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n […] Mary Gallagher, a political science professor at the University of Michigan, argues that China\u2019s embrace of excess industrial capacity is a feature of its central government\u2019s economic plan rather than a \u201cbug\u201d because it has allowed the country to lead the world in green energy technology innovation while local governments grapple with the fiscal fallout. Because of China\u2019s dominance of these industries, and of electric vehicles in particular, she said that the United States now has higher priorities than upholding traditional free trade principles. [<\/span>Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Politics aside, Yellen has become something of a cultural icon online. During a 2023 visit to China, Yellen reportedly ate \u201cmagic mushrooms\u201d at a Yunnanese restaurant in Beijing. (The mushrooms can be rendered non-hallucinogenic by proper cooking.) <\/span>She told CNN<\/span><\/a>: \u201cThere was a delicious mushroom dish. I was not aware that these mushrooms had hallucinogenic properties.\u201d <\/span>Her visit to the restaurant set off a craze<\/span><\/a> for the restaurant and the dish, with other branches of the eatery selling out of the mushroom across the country. During this current trip, there has been \u201cbreathless state media coverage\u201d of Yellen\u2019s chopstick skills and food choices. <\/span>A headline from the state-run broadcaster<\/span><\/a> China Central Television read, \u201cU.S. Treasury Secretary Yellen chooses authentic Cantonese cuisine and uses chopsticks well.\u201d Netizens also focused on <\/span>Yellen\u2019s trip to a brewery in Beijing<\/span><\/a>, where she shared a pint<\/a> with U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns. Premier Li Qiang noted that <\/span>Yellen\u2019s visit<\/span><\/a> has \u201cindeed drawn a lot of attention in society.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s visit to China inspired less social media fanfare but was also of great importance. At The Wall Street Journal, Austin Ramzy and Ann M. Simmons reported on<\/span> Lavrov echoing \u201cthe language of the Cold War\u201d during his trip to Beijing<\/strong><\/a>:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThere is no place for dictatorship, hegemony, neocolonial and colonial practices, which are now being applied by the United States and all the rest of the collective West unquestioningly submitting to the will of Washington,\u201d Lavrov said.<\/span><\/p>\n […Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi] said China \u201chopes to see a cease-fire and an end to the war [in Ukraine] as soon as possible,\u201d while Lavrov said Moscow was \u201cgrateful to our Chinese friends for their objective, balanced position, and for their willingness to play a positive role in the matter of a political and diplomatic settlement.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n […] Xi and Putin declared a friendship with \u201cno limits\u201d between their two countries in early 2022, shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. While Beijing has sought at times to play down that declaration, it has never condemned Putin\u2019s war, or even called it a war, instead describing it as the \u201cUkraine crisis.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The China-Russia relationship is underpinned by close personal ties between Xi and Putin. The two men have met dozens of times over the past decade, and the Chinese leader has called Putin his dear friend. China welcomed Putin for another visit last year, his first major foreign trip after he was accused of war crimes in Ukraine by the International Criminal Court. [<\/span>Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n At Foreign Affairs, Alexander Gabuev wrote on<\/span> \u201cPutin and Xi\u2019s unholy alliance,\u201d explaining how the tightening alignment between Russia and Ukraine is among the most important geopolitical outcomes of the war in Ukraine<\/strong><\/a>:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n China and Russia have grown notably closer in the critical area of security and military cooperation. Even amid Russia\u2019s war of aggression, China\u2019s People\u2019s Liberation Army has increased the number of joint activities it performs with the Russian military. In September 2022, despite significant problems on the frontlines in Ukraine, Russia conducted a strategic exercise in its Far East to which China sent 2,000 troops. A few months later, in December, the Chinese and Russian navies held their annual exercise, this time in the East China Sea. In 2023, Beijing and Moscow held three rounds of naval exercises, and in 2022 and 2023, they conducted four joint patrols in Asia with nuclear-armed bombers. These activities still clearly lack the breadth and depth of the joint drills between the United States and its allies in Europe and Asia, but the Chinese and Russian militaries are undoubtedly deepening their interoperability.<\/span><\/p>\n […] The overall warming of attitudes to China is reflected in opinion polls, too, including recent data produced by the joint efforts of the Carnegie Endowment and the Levada Center, the independent Russian polling organization. At the end of 2023, 85 percent of Russians viewed China positively, whereas only six percent had a negative opinion of the country. Nearly three-quarters of Russians do not believe China is a threat to them\u2014against around a fifth of Russians who think China is a threat. Over half of Russians now want their children to learn Chinese, a stunning development. More than 80 percent of people still want their kids to learn English, but the number of people interested in Mandarin is rising rapidly. The most China-friendly attitudes are recorded in the Russian Far East, a region that shares a border with China and is most exposed to the country in day-to-day life. This generally positive public disposition to China has allowed the Kremlin to enter a closer economic, technological, and political embrace with Beijing than ever before.<\/span><\/p>\n […] Unsurprisingly, this shift has only exacerbated the asymmetry that characterizes Sino-Russian relations. As a larger and more technologically advanced economy that maintains pragmatic ties with the West, China has stronger bargaining power and many more options than does Russia, and its leverage over its northern neighbor is growing all the time. Russia is now locking itself into vassalage to China. A couple of years down the road, Beijing will be more able to dictate the terms of economic, technological, and regional cooperation with Moscow. The Kremlin is not blind to that prospect, but it does not have much choice as long as Putin needs Chinese support to fight his war in Ukraine, which has become an obsession. [<\/span>Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n After Lavrov\u2019s trip to Beijing, China announced that <\/span>Zhao Leji, the third-ranking member of the Politburo Standing Committee, will lead a Chinese delegation to North Korea to kick off \u201cChina-North Korea Friendship Year<\/strong><\/a>.\u201d From The Associated Press:<\/span><\/p>\n Zhao\u2019s visit to North Korea will be the first bilateral exchange involving a Chinese Politburo Standing Committee member since the pandemic started. In 2019, the two countries held a pair of summit meetings, for one of which Xi traveled to Pyongyang.<\/span><\/p>\n […North Korean leader Kim Jong Un] traveled to Russia in September for a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The U.S., South Korea and others accuse North Korea of supplying conventional weapons for Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine in return for advanced weapons technologies and other support.<\/span><\/p>\n […] \u201cChina is key to North Korea\u2019s economy. There is a limit that Russia can do for North Korea economically,\u201d Park Won Gon, a professor at Seoul\u2019s Ewha Womans University. \u201cFor the short-term assistance, shipments of food or crude oil can be made. But to make its economy grow in the long term, North Korea needs investments and markets. China is the only country that can provide those to North Korea.\u201d [<\/span>Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Chinese experts framed Zhao\u2019s trip<\/span><\/a> as a response to tensions between North Korea and the U.S.-South Korea alliance, and argued that the visit would bring stability to the Korean peninsula. Despite such talk, North Korea and China have an often difficult relationship, even as the former relies on the latter for almost all its economic and security needs. Recent reporting from The New Yorker has revealed that <\/span>North Korea runs forced labor programs in China<\/span><\/a> in violation of U.N. sanctions. China has denied all knowledge of the programs, claiming it adheres to sanctions despite sustaining \u201cgreat losses.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Xi Jinping also met with the former president of Taiwan Ma Ying-jeou in Beijing on Wednesday. The meeting with Ma, who has consistently espoused the view that China and Taiwan should “unify,” was widely perceived as a snub to the incoming administration of Taiwan’s President-elect Lai Ching-te<\/a>, who is set to assume office in a matter of weeks. At The New York Times, Chris Buckley wrote about the politics of Xi Jinping’s meeting with the former KMT leader of Taiwan<\/a><\/strong>:<\/p>\n The meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing was the first time that a Chinese leader has met a former president of Taiwan on Chinese soil. Mr. Xi and Mr. Ma held a handshake for around 15 seconds and smiled for the cameras. They then sat at a long table like two statesman entering negotiations, even though Mr. Ma has long been out of power.<\/p>\n […] China\u2019s \u201cimmediate focus is to push the incoming Lai administration to adopt a more accommodating political stance on cross-strait relations,\u201d said Amanda Hsiao, the senior analyst for China with the Crisis Group, an organization that seeks to defuse wars and crises. \u201cMa\u2019s visit helps to underscore Beijing\u2019s position that cross-strait dialogue is conditioned on acceptance of the idea that the two sides of the strait belong to \u2018one China.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n […] \u201cThe chances of restoring official dialogue [between China and Taiwan] are not high,\u201d said [Chien-wen Kou, a professor at National Chengchi University in Taipei]. \u201cInviting Ma Ying-jeou to visit China is also intended to demonstrate that Lai Ching-te, in the Chinese Communist Party\u2019s telling, represents only a minority of public opinion in Taiwan.\u201d [Source<\/a><\/strong>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Over a whirlwind two weeks of diplomacy in Beijing, China has sought to strengthen its ties to both the United States and Russia\u2014a difficult balancing act. Xi Jinping took a phone call with U.S. President Joe Biden last week which was followed with a four-day trip through China by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. The day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1093,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[116,2,14744,100,17753,6,5,112],"tags":[4644,7069,1369,71,327,5036,1882,5917,5982,1440,13529,3401,5934,6291,4093,228,17005,17734,7697,5860,7702,5837,806,6379,8212,4674],"class_list":["post-698660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world","category-economy","category-level-2-article","category-politics","category-recent-news","category-sci-tech","category-society","category-taiwan","tag-america","tag-chinese-diplomacy","tag-diplomacy","tag-energy","tag-food","tag-green-tech","tag-ma-ying-jeou","tag-north-korea","tag-north-korea-relations","tag-philippines","tag-politics-2","tag-regional-diplomacy","tag-russia","tag-russia-relations","tag-south-china-sea","tag-south-korea","tag-taiwan","tag-taiwan-diplomacy","tag-taiwan-relations","tag-us-china-trade","tag-us-relations","tag-us-treasury","tag-ukraine","tag-united-states","tag-weapons","tag-xi-jinping","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n\n