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The Biden administration is continuing the pressure campaign put into place by the Trump White House—to counter China and rally allies.
Reuters, citing a senior U.S. official, reported that Wendy Sherman, the U.S. deputy secretary of state, will be meeting with top officials in Tianjin, China, early this week to “underscore that we do not want that stiff and sustained competition to veer into conflict.”
The official said, “The U.S. wants to ensure that there are guardrails and parameters in place to responsibly manage the relationship. Everyone needs to play by the same rules and on a level playing field.”
The Trends Journal has reported extensively on the rise of China and the Biden administration’s approach to Beijing. (SEE: “U.S.-CHINA FACEOFF: EUROPE TAKING SIDES, “NATO LEADERS SIDE WITH BIDEN, DECLARE CHINA A GLOBAL SECURITY CHALLENGE,” “CHINA TASK FORCE: U.S. APPROACH BEIJING.”)
As we pointed out on 30 March, in an article titled, “BIDEN VS. CHINA’S BELT & ROAD INITIATIVE: U.S. LOSES,” President Biden has been in contact with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to pitch a massive project to challenge China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), sometimes referred to as the New Silk Road. It was launched by President Xi Jinping in 2013 to, in part, win the favor of developing countries. Bloomberg reported on Thursday that the Biden push is called “Build Back Better World,” or B3W.
“But that’s no more than a start,” Michael Schuman wrote. “Success will require a focused program outlining what to build, how to pay for it, and how to convince needy nations to sign up.”
The report pointed out that China has run into some of its own problems in financing the initiative and the U.S. and Britain might be able to wait out the Chinese initiative to just burn out on its own.
The New York Times pointed out that there is nothing that gets the attention of Beijing like the U.S. rallying allies.
“What gets Beijing’s attention the most is not just when it’s the United States doing something, but when it’s the United States rallying our allies and partners to do something together,” an official told The Times.
The paper reported that the Biden administration is approaching both Russia and China as adversaries, but that Biden has met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and has not yet met with the Chinese President Xi Jinping.
One official told The Times that Moscow and Beijing cannot be viewed through the same lens and require separate approaches. The paper reported that Beijing tends to respond to multilateral pressure.
“There’s no clear design, although the momentum and direction are both significant and in many ways indicative of where they are going to go,” Michael Wessel, a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, told the paper. “There are disparate pieces, all of which show, I think, a resolute approach to China.”
There are some fissures within the Biden administration about the best approach. Katherine Tai has come out in support of the Trump-era tariffs, while Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen calls them harmful.
The Biden administration has also shown a willingness to flex its own military might on China’s doorstep. Last week, the U.S. sent 25 F-22 Raptors into the Western Pacific along with 10 F-15E Strike Eagles and two C-130J cargo aircraft.
“I’m not in the Department of Defense anymore, so I have no insight into who’s messaging whom specifically,” retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan “Fig ” Leaf, a former deputy commander of U.S. Pacific Command and now managing director of security consultancy Phase Minus 1, said. “But what I would say is if I’m China, I’d pay attention to the message—whether it’s intended for them or not—because this is capability both in the aircraft, the F-22, and the flexibility and expeditionary nature of the U.S. Air Force that goes back to World War I, that they (China) can’t duplicate.”
He told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that if he were China, he’d “take it as a demonstration of the legitimacy of the American commitment to the region, because messaging is one thing when it’s just words. But this is not just a statement, it’s an investment in capability because it’s not cheap to deploy 25 F-22s from two different bases to the Western Pacific.”
The report said, “in the event of a conflict with China, aircraft with stealth and advanced sensors such as F-22s, F-35 Lightning IIs, B-2 bombers and, in the future, B-21 Raider bombers and the Next Generation Air Dominance, or NGAD, fighter, would lead the air campaign.”
Forbes ran a headline, “The U.S. Air Force is Sending Dozens of F-22 Stealth Fighters to Practice for War With China.” The Forbes report pointed out that the U.S. “flying branch in recent years has grown increasingly worried that, in the early hours of a regional war, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force might fire scores of ballistic missiles at big U.S. bases, including Andersen,” in Guam.
TREND FORECAST: “TOP TRENDS 2021: THE RISE OF CHINA” As we have been reporting in the Trends Journal, Beijing will no longer take orders or follow rules set by Washington. (See our 23 March article, “CHINA TELLS U.S. TO FU.”)
While America spent countless trillions waging and losing endless wars and enriching its military-industrial complex, China has spent its trillions advancing the nation’s businesses and building its 21st-century infrastructure.
And, as we have also forecast, just as Beijing has clamped down on Hong Kong protests and taken full control, so, too, will they take control of Taiwan when they are ready.
Despite condemnations when they do so, there will be no military forces from other nations that will challenge Communist China’s military might. Indeed, America, with the largest military in the world, has not won a war since
World War II and cannot even win against third-world nations, such as Afghanistan, after invading that nation some 20 years ago.