{"id":63311,"date":"2021-03-22T15:00:22","date_gmt":"2021-03-22T04:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=63311"},"modified":"2021-03-22T15:01:13","modified_gmt":"2021-03-22T04:01:13","slug":"china-comes-alone-while-us-brings-fast-multilateralism-to-anchorage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/china-comes-alone-while-us-brings-fast-multilateralism-to-anchorage\/","title":{"rendered":"China comes alone while US brings \u2018fast multilateralism\u2019 to Anchorage"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Last week\u2019s meetings in Alaska constituted phase two in high-level US\u2013China contact under the Biden administration. And it was consistent with phase one\u2014Joe Biden\u2019s phone call<\/a> with Xi Jinping in February. Beyond the histrionics are some deep messages for how Team Biden is working with allies and partners, with important implications for Australian policy and action.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s very clear now that any dewy-eyed hopes<\/a> Beijing had that Biden was going to be Barack Obama Mark II and work desperately to be collegiate with Beijing despite a lack of reciprocity are gone. President Biden is a changed animal to the Obama-era vice president.<\/p>\n

It must also be clear to the US leadership and to partners and allies from Brussels to London, New Delhi, Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei, Hanoi, Ottawa and Canberra that any early positive \u2018reset\u2019 of core Chinese policies by General Secretary Xi with the end of the Donald Trump era is also simply not happening.<\/p>\n

In a big shift from Trumpian approaches, though, the US\u2014through Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan\u2014came to the table after engaging with key partners and allies. Blinken was returning from Japan<\/a> and South Korea<\/a>, and he had the knowledge and momentum out of Biden\u2019s first Quad leaders\u2019<\/a> meeting with the prime ministers of Australia, India and Japan.<\/p>\n

So, the US teleported its allies\u2019 and partners\u2019 interests and weight into the room, with Blinken using the early part of his opening statement to tell Beijing\u2019s attending diplomats that the Chinese government\u2019s economic coercion<\/a> of US allies\u2014think Australia\u2014had to end for there to be forward movement. That\u2019s a newly forthright identification of allied economic interests as strategic issues, which is big news in the US alliance network and has serious, if mainly positive, implications for Australia and other US partners.<\/p>\n

In contrast, China\u2019s two top diplomats, Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi, could only bring the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party along and did so\u2014focusing on the two CCP forums<\/a> they\u2019ve had recently.<\/p>\n

There was important black comedy: the two Chinese government representatives used their opening statement<\/a> to talk about their views on perceived internal US weaknesses and vulnerabilities, while simultaneously protesting that the US and its allies and partners have no right to discuss internal issues in China\u2014like its mass human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Tibet and its repression of freedoms in Hong Kong. They also claimed that Taiwan, a vibrant democracy outside China\u2019s control, was somehow an internal matter for mainland China, as no doubt was China breaking its treaty commitments<\/a> to the UK on Hong Kong. For a flourish, they asserted that China deeply valued the United Nations and international law.<\/p>\n

This tin-eared approach and how it would sound to others<\/a> seem lost on Beijing and its unfortunate wolf warrior diplomats, who seem unaware of how jarring their words are when compared to Chinese state actions.<\/p>\n

The problem for Beijing is that Yang\u2019s performance for Xi and other strident nationalists back home only further trashes the Chinese government\u2019s brand abroad.<\/p>\n

The problem for Washington is that while Blinken is a powerful, influential figure with Biden and in the US policy community, Yang (Blinken\u2019s organisational \u2018counterpart\u2019, as China\u2019s top diplomat) and Wang are people Xi uses as voices to project his views, not as ears or advisers to bring him news and ideas that affect and inform decision-making.<\/p>\n

So, talking with Yang and Wang is not really engaging with Beijing\u2019s decision-making leadership\u2014which makes the lack of outcomes from Anchorage entirely predictable.<\/p>\n

Despite the CCP\u2019s vast propaganda and United Front machinery, Chinese voices are mainly talking to themselves, with their global communications coming as a by-product.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the US is presenting a multilateral approach with its partners and allies\u2014something Beijing knows it can\u2019t match.<\/p>\n

The Russia\u2013China meeting this week<\/a> shows the limitations to Chinese multilateralism, with Russia painfully aware of its slide towards junior partner status as Beijing\u2019s imperiousness grows.<\/p>\n

Out of all this, Blinken summed up what looks like the future, saying the US\u2013China relationship \u2018will be competitive where it should be, collaborative where it can and adversarial where it must be\u2019.<\/p>\n

And in that relationship, the US will be empowered by its partners\u2019 power and interests.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot more thinking and consultation needed on China policy, whether that\u2019s in capitals around the world, or in forums like the Quad, Five Eyes and NATO, as well as groupings like the G7 and OECD.<\/p>\n

The early signs in the Biden administration\u2019s deeply multilateral approach are good news for Australia on the rocky road ahead as we, along with the US and other partners and allies, form a broader, more cohesive China policy than seemed possible even a few months ago.<\/p>\n

But we shouldn\u2019t mistake Biden\u2019s multilateral approach for the consultative one we saw under Obama. As with his domestic strategy<\/a>, Biden wants to drive unity, but that doesn\u2019t mean settling for slow, lowest-common-denominator outcomes.<\/p>\n

We can look forward to \u2018fast multilateralism\u2019, with partners needing to have ideas, resources and momentum if they want to contribute to and shape US and broader alliance policies and actions.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s issues and interests being on the table in Anchorage is good news, but it\u2019s good news that comes with both responsibilities and opportunities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week\u2019s meetings in Alaska constituted phase two in high-level US\u2013China contact under the Biden administration. And it was consistent with phase one\u2014Joe Biden\u2019s phone call with Xi Jinping in February. 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