LOS ANGELES./–Holding high-stakes diplomacy with 71-year-old Chinese President Xi Jinping and 70-year-old Foreign Minster Wang Yi, 62-year-old Secretary of State Antony Blinken continues to kick sand in world’s second strongest economy, one that has the U.S. wholly dependent on Chinese manufacturing. Blinken tried a new round of high-stakes diplomacy, knowing the frosty relations between 81-year-old President Joe Biden and Xi, both disagreeing on practically everything. Only recently, Biden signed a new foreign aid bill that demanded that TikTok USA be sold within the year or face an outright ban in the U.S. market. TikTok parent Company BytheDance stated it has no plans of selling its U.S. TikTok holdings setting up a showdown in U.S. courts. Meeting with Xi and Yi, Blinken asked China to stop selling electronic components to Russia’s war-making machine.
Blinken walks on thin ice with China, already provoking Xi when Biden said in 2022 he would send U.S. troops to defend Taiwan from a Beijing takeover of the Island of Formosa, home to the non-communist, Chinese Nationalists AKA the Republic of China. Former President Jimmy Carter negotiated and signed with former Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, ending the 1954 Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, requiring the U.S. to recognize only one China, the one in Beijing. Yet Biden said if confronted with a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, he would violate the Taiwan Relations Act and send troops to defend Taiwan. Biden refuses to commit any U.S. troops to his proxy war in Ukraine against the Russian Federation. Blinken expects Xi to go along with U.S. foreign policy trying to create a NATO-like coalition in Asia.
Biden and Blinken got off on the wrong foot with China March 18, 2021, accusing Beijing in a get-to-know-you summit in Anchorage, Alaska, of genocide against Muslim Uyghurs in Western China and suppressing pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. Blinken ended the meeting abruptly, leaving U.S. Chinese relations in doubt. When Biden boycotted the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, the frosty relations turned to a deep freeze. “We have all the food, water and energy we need,” said JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, saying China needs the U.S. more than the U.S. needs China. While that’s certainly debatable, Dimon points out that China imports 11 million barrels of oil a day, making it far more dependent on countries like Russia and Iran, than the United States. Dimon estimated China’s nominal GDP at $13,000 compared to the U.S. $85,000, showing the U.S. wealth discrepancy.
Whatever CEOs like Dimon think of China, it’s obvious that Biden has driven U.S.-Chinese relations to the lowest level in since the 1949 Maoist Revolution. If China chooses to buy Russian oil or sell microelectronics to Moscow, there’s little the U.S. can do to stop it. Dimon thinks the U.S. should be careful of growing more dependent on China for rare earth minerals, 5G, semiconductors, penicillin and materials critical to essential pharmaceuticals. “China says it wants good relations with the West. At the same time, Beijing continues to fuel the largest armed conflict in Europe since WW II. They cannot have it both ways,” said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. Dimon agrees that the U.S. should not do anything with China if they continue supporting the Ukraine War,
Meeting with Blinken, Xi and Yi expressed concern about the U.S. trying to undermine China’s authority in the Indo-Pacific, trying to create an anti-China coalition with Japan, South Korea, Australia and the Philippines. Xi and Yi agree with Putin that the U.S. has threatened Russia in Eastern Europe, creating the conditions for the Ukraine War. “This is the first war in Europe, a free democratic nation invaded by 200,00 or 300,000 Russian soldiers under the threat of nuclear blackmail,” Dimon said, agreeing with the White House hard-line stance on Russia and China. Dimon mentions nothing to 71-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin trying for months before the Feb. 24, 2022 Ukraine invasion to negotiate new security arrangement for Ukraine. Biden ignored Putin’s requests, then acted surprised when Putin invaded Ukraine because to U.S. weapons deliverties.
White House officials have Democrats and Republicans in Congress agreeing with the Ukraine War. When 52-year-old House Speaker Mike Johnson agreed April 20 to advance a $95 billion foreign aid bill to the House floor, it showed Biden had all the backing he needed to give Ukraine another $60 billion in Ukraine War funding. Whether acknowledged or not by the U.S. press, Biden has damaged U.S. foreign policy and harmed national security. Global bankers like Dimon should think of what would happen to U.S. markets if they engage in nuclear war with the Russian Federation. Dimon knows that the one thing the Federal Reserve Board can’t fix are geopolitical problems. If relations continue to deteriorate under Biden, all best would be off in a second Biden term. More war is the last thing global markets need, only adding to economic chaos and eventual recessions.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
