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Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday said the U.S. was not interested in entering into a “Cold War” with China and vowed to increase Washington’s lines of communication with Beijing.
“We are not looking for conflict or a new Cold War. To the contrary, we’re determined to avoid both,” Blinken said speaking at George Washington University in D.C.
The secretary of state said the Biden administration does not want to block China’s economic growth or even its role as a world power.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks after viewing the “Burma’s Path To Genocide” exhibit at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, Monday, March 21, 2022.
(Kevin Lamarque, Pool via AP)
AFTER BIDEN’S TAIWAN REMARK, BLINKEN INSISTS US ‘REMAINS COMMITTED’ TO ONE CHINA POLICY
Instead, Blinken said the U.S. will be taking a new approach to its top rival and said Washington will work with allies to strengthen international laws and institutions to shore up democratic values and maintain peace and security.
“We cannot rely on Beijing to change its trajectory. So we will shape the strategic environment around Beijing to advance our vision for an open, inclusive international system,” he said.
Blinken’s comments come as Western nations have grown increasingly concerned that Beijing could feel emboldened by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brazen war in Ukraine and take similar steps against Taiwan.
“Even as President Putin’s war continues, we will remain focused on the most serious long-term challenge to the international order — and that’s posed by the People’s Republic of China,” Blinken said.
“The United States and China have to deal with each other for the foreseeable future,” he added, claiming U.S.-China ties were one of the “most complex and consequential relationships” in the world today.
President Joe Biden meets virtually with Chinese President Xi Jinping from the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, on Nov. 15, 2021.
(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
US MILITARY WILL DEFEND TAIWAN ‘IF IT COMES TO THAT,’ BIDEN SAYS
Senior China Fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former U.S. diplomat, Craig Singleton, told Fox News the secretary’s comments Thursday were “better late than never.”
But he added, “There remain deep divisions within the Biden administration regarding major aspects of the U.S.-China strategic rivalry.”
“Absent a clearer directive from the president himself, the inter-agency will likely remain dogged by ‘analysis paralysis’,” he argued.
Singleton said he would like to see clearly stated policy objectives when it comes to dealing with Beijing on an array of issues from global security to trade.
The national security expert also warned against the U.S. pursuing a strategy with China that assumes Beijing’s power is still on the rise, arguing leadership mismanagement in the wake of the pandemic by Chinese President Xi Jinping “has both hastened China’s rapid economic slowdown and exposed major deficiencies in the Chinese Communist Party’s governance model.”
“The risk then is that Washington is committing itself to a counter-China strategy predicated on China’s rise, rather than one that seeks to safely manage China’s seeming decline,” he added.
Chinese President Xi Jinping attends a commendation ceremony for role models of the Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics at the Great Hall of the People on April 8 in Beijing. An Australian man provoked anger from supporters of Xi by holding a sign at a Sydney marker insulting the communist leader.
(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
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President Biden earlier this week made headlines when he told reporters in Japan that the U.S. would intervene militarily should China attack Taiwan.
“That’s the commitment we made,” he said in reference to the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act.
“We agree with a One China policy,” Biden said. “We’ve signed on to it and all the intended agreements made from there. But the idea that, that it can be taken by force, just taken by force, is just not, is just not appropriate.”
The White House immediately attempted to downplay the president’s comments, and Biden on Tuesday claimed the U.S.’s position on Taiwan had not changed.
