OPINION: Blinken’s Beijing Dialogue: Peace A Far Cry!

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's recent Beijing visit hardly establishes peace and promotes development in the world. Washington and Beijing are yet to devise any regular military-to-military channels of communications between them. Communist China's territorial designs against democracies, including Taiwan and India, constitute serious threats to peace in the Asia-Pacific region today. Blinken's Beijing dialogue does not address them.

Ideally, one of the most cherished goals of modern diplomacy is to move towards establishing peace and fostering all-inclusive development in the contemporary world. Did the dialogues US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had with China's top leaders, including its President Xi Jinping, Director of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee Foreign Affairs Commission Wang Yi and Foreign Minister Qin Gang, achieve any remarkable feat in this regard?

Observers say peace is a far cry. Secretary Blinken's agenda in Beijing this time around was just to negotiate with Beijing to agree to re-establish diplomacy and open channels of communication with it to reduce the risk of any "misperception and miscalculation" in their relationship.

During Secretary Blinken's two-day sojourn in Beijing, he had five-and-a-half hours of talks with China's foreign minister Qin. He and Qin agreed to "effectively manage differences and advance dialogue, exchanges and cooperation," including increasing the number of people-to-people exchanges and flights between their countries. In his talks with Secretary Blinken, China's top diplomat Wang called for Washington and Beijing to reverse a "downward spiral" in relations.

During Secretary Blinken's talks with President Xi, the two sides said what would please each other. President Xi emphasized that the world needs a generally stable China-US relationship. He said that the Chinese, like the Americans, are dignified, confident and self-reliant people.

Speaking in the Great Hall of the People with Secretary Blinken, Chinese President Xi said whether China and the US could get along had a "bearing on the future and destiny of mankind." As such the two nations "should properly handle" their relations "with an attitude of being responsible to history, the people and the world." Xi also said China respected US interests and would not "challenge or replace the United States."

On his part, Secretary Blinken said the American government was committed to responsibly managing its relations with China. He said, "It's in the interest of the United States, in the interests of China, and in the interest of the world." Blinken assured the US was not trying to "contain" China or decouple from its economy. He said that the US was committed to returning to the agenda set at the summit between President Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi in Bali last year.

During Blinken's visit, the two governments agreed to have working groups and diplomats meet soon on a range of issues, including increased access to each country for journalists, scholars and students. The two sides agreed to expand direct commercial flights between the two nations. It is hoped the dialogue Secretary Blinken had with the top Chinese officials would help reduce a lot of friction that currently exists between the two nations. Tensions soared in February when the Pentagon announced that a Chinese surveillance balloon was drifting across the continental United States. The tensions aggravated in late February when Blinken confronted Wang on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference saying China was considering to provide lethal support to Russia for its war in Ukraine.

It can be hoped that the outcome of Blinken's Beijing sojourn would generate a new momentum for stabilizing China-US relations. It would also lay the ground for a face-to-face meeting between Chinese President Xi and his US counterpart Joe Biden during a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in the US in November this year.

However, the observers say, it would be too early to say if the understanding Secretary Blinken has reached in Beijing would go beyond to establish peace and promote development in the entire world. Washington and Beijing are yet to devise any regular military-to-military channels of communications to prevent any potential clash between them.

Communist China's territorial designs against democracies, including Taiwan and India, constitute serious threats to peace in the Asia-Pacific region today. China's Foreign Minister Qin bluntly says, "Taiwan is the core of China's core interests, the most important issue in China-US relations and the most prominent risk." The Blinken dialogue hardly addresses them.

The United States continues to adhere to its policy of "strategic ambiguity" over whether it would respond militarily to an attack on Taiwan. Last year, US President Biden just said Washington would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. While in Beijing, Secretary Blinken reiterated the US did not support Taiwan's independence. He just warned against China's "provocative actions" in the Taiwan Strait.

(Jagdish N. Singh is a senior journalist based in New Delhi. He is also Senior Distinguished Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, New York)

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