GOOD MORNING FROM LONDON
#1 CHINA-U.S TO MEET IN SWITZERLAND
THE FINANCIAL TIMES
#2 CHINA, US AND A BLOCKADE OF TAIWAN
WALL STREET JOURNAL
#3 BE AFRAID – BUT NOT OF CHINA
PEARLS AND IRRITATIONS, AUSTRALIA
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#1 CHINA AND U.S. TO MEET IN SWITZERLAND
THE FINANCIAL TIMES
“Washington and Beijing will this week hold their first trade talks since US President Donald Trump launched a trade war against China that has rattled financial markets and triggered concerns about supply chains.
Treasury secretary Scott Bessent and US trade representative Jamieson Greer will meet their Chinese counterparts in Geneva this week. China said vice-premier He Lifeng, its top economy official, would lead its delegation.
The meeting will be the first high-level interaction between the two sides since vice-president Han Zheng attended Trump’s inauguration in January.
Bessent told Fox News on Tuesday evening that the two teams would meet on Saturday and Sunday. He said they had a “shared interest” in talking because the high level of tariffs “isn’t sustainable”. But he cautioned that the discussions would be an effort to lower tensions rather than negotiations about a broader trade deal. “My sense is that this will be about de-escalation, not about the big trade deal,” Bessent said during the interview. “We’ve got to de-escalate before we can move forward.”
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
It is noteworthy that these talks are taking place in Swizerland – a location known for its neutral status. Hitherto Trump has stood on the White House lawn boasting of the 75+ countries that he says are eager to meet with the White House to discuss tariffs. No such language this time round. Switzerland is not the U.S.A.
Bessent will also bear in mind the stern lecture that marked the opening of the Alaska Meeting between China and the U.S. in March 2021 when Yang Jiechi, with Wang Li, told US representatives – Antony Blinken and Jake Sullivan – not to talk down to the Chinese side. It was a turning point in China-U.S. relations. Equality and respect was now the order of the day. Bessent will be briefed not to repeat the mistakes of Blinken and Sullivan.
The talks will be tough. This is Head-to-Head. China has earned its right to be at the Top Table. But China does not come to the talks naïve or innocent. It has the measure of Trump. It has prepared for many years for the day when across-the-table talks would take place face-to-face with the U.S. Bessant may be new but the Chinese side is experienced and its leadership will in recent weeks have been studying the history of two sets of negotiations; – first with the KMT during the Civil War and, second, with the Japanese during World War II.
Finally – this may be the Beginning but it is Far from the End. The balance of world power is changing. The U.S. knows it faces an unyielding rival and China knows it faces an experienced foe. The process began in Alaska and Switzerland marks Stage 2. The future relationship will blend co-operation with confrontation. The talk may be about Tariffs but in essence the Talks are about Power.
GRAHAM PERRY
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#2 CHINA, US AND THE SOUTH CHINA SEAS
WALL STREET JOURNAL
“When Gen. Ronald Clark took charge of the U.S. Army in the Pacific in November, his boss in the region, Adm. Samuel Paparo, had a stark security assessment for him: The situation had worsened since Clark was last posted in the Indo-Pacific, three years earlier.
Six months into the new job, Clark agrees. China’s “aggressive behaviour” has made the environment more dangerous, he said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
“These are extraordinary times,” said the commander, who has spent 37 years in the military and oversees 106,000 personnel. “Some of the things that you see our opponents and adversaries undertaking are things that really leave you speechless at times.”
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
A case in point: China’s rehearsals of a potential blockade of Taiwan. Five years ago, Clark said, he would not have thought that Beijing would consider such a manoeuvre. “Now it’s commonplace that the PLA would make a move like that,” he said, referring to the People’s Liberation Army, as China’s military is called.
The Wall Street Journal observes that China under President Xi Jinping is undertaking a dramatic military buildup, cranking out warships, missiles and nuclear warheads at a blistering pace.
For Defence or for Attack? Is China expansionist with the goal of creating military bases across the world? Or is China defensive with the goal of repelling any U.S. attack on China?
The U.S. has 800+ military bases but its “pivot to Asia” initiated by President Obama and continued in Trump’s first four-year term and Biden’s four-year term puts the focus firmly on China. In a phrase the U.S. needs to snuff out China and fast before China’s defence makes a U.S. attack on China impossible. The stakes are that high. It is eyeball to eyeball.
The U.S. – the Established Power – wants to remain in charge, its power unquestioned. But the U.S. is troubled. China will not go away. The USSR folded and U.S. thinking has always been that China would fold. After all “human nature is human nature” but the U.S. read China wrong. Its intelligentsia went to sleep. China’s goal is a prosperous society and not a classless society and China is proving to the U.S. that it can achieve wealth and a good life for its 1.4 bn citizens by rejecting the U.S. and its model of development.
The U.S. is frustrated by Chinese capabilities, including an ever-expanding arsenal of missiles, aimed at effectively shutting American forces out of critical swaths of the Indo-Pacific.
China has big advantages, including proximity. Any major fight in the region would take place in its vicinity, while U.S. soldiers coming from America risk getting there too late. But the U.S. is not sleeping on the job. War beckons.
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#3 BE AFRAID – BUT NOT OF CHINA
PEARLS AND IRRITATIONS OF AUSTRALIA
Jocelyn Chey is Visiting Professor at the University of Sydney and Adjunct Professor at Western Sydney University and UTS. She formerly held diplomatic posts in China and Hong Kong.
“If we respect Beijing’s legitimate rights, Beijing will respect ours. It is possible. China has no history of annexing other countries as Russia annexed Crimea. It respects other countries’ autonomy more than Trump respects the sovereignty of Mexico, Canada or Greenland. It has claims over a large part of the South China Sea that on the surface suggest aggressive intent, but this is not a new claim. The “nine dash line” outlining its territorial claim was first proposed by the then Nationalist government in 1948, and the government of Taiwan still maintains this position. Considering that China is surrounded by a string of US bases along the “first island chain” from Japan to the Philippines, amid that Camp Humphreys, near Seoul in South Korea, the largest US overseas military base, is just 549 kms from the city of Dalian in northeast China, it is not surprising that China should wish to limit further US advances.
As for the other superpower, in the first 100 days of the Trump regime, he has attempted to use the legal system to carry out his personal vendettas. He has shut down many government departments. He has attacked scientific research and the universities and disregarded statistical evidence, particularly in medical science and climate science. He is prejudiced against immigrants. He dismisses the most basic ideas of trade and economics.
He prefers to deal with other autocrats like Vladimir Putin and has turned his back on international agreements and treaties.
Be afraid, be very afraid. But not of China.”
GRAHAM PERRY COMMENTS;-
Jocelyn Chey’s credentials matter. She is Australian and has held diplomatic posts in China and Hong Kong. It does not mean that she is automatically correct on the views she holds but it does mean that she should be read with an acknowledgement that she has been at the heart of political power.
She is correct when she states that “China has no history of annexing other countries”. But China critics will jump to their feet and shout – “Tibet, Xinjiang Taiwan and Hong Kong”. The answer is uncomplicated. China enforces borders and country boundaries. China will not permit any part of China – eg Taiwan or Tibet or Xinjiang to secede from China.
Border Disputes, however, are quite different from Secession. China will protect and enforce its geographical limits but it will not take control of sovereign territory belonging to neighbouring states or, indeed, any states.
GRAHAM PERRY
