Blinken Casts Wide Net on China --- Top U.S. diplomat says policy of 'invest, align, compete' can preserve the international order

"WASHINGTON -- The U.S. will bolster domestic investment and strengthen collaboration with foreign partners, advancing a vision of an inclusive, transparent international order that stands in contrast to China's approach, the country's top diplomat said Thursday.

In a speech at George Washington University that laid out the Biden administration's China policy, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that even as Russia is sanctioned, China poses "the most serious long-term challenge to the international order."

"China is the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order -- and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it," Mr. Blinken said. "Beijing's vision would move us away from the universal values that have sustained so much of the world's progress over the past 75 years."

The U.S. strategy, Mr. Blinken said, could be described "in three words: invest, align, compete."

He said the Biden administration was investing in research, domestic infrastructure and education, noting the U.S. no longer ranks among the top countries for research and development as a proportion of the economy while China has surged toward the top.

The U.S. is trying to bolster its security alliances and trade partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region, Mr. Blinken said, citing the administration's elevation of the Quad group of nations -- Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. -- a reinvigorated partnership with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and a new security partnership with Australia and the U.K.

The domestic investment and international collaboration, in Mr. Blinken's telling, enable the U.S. to compete with China. He criticized the lack of reciprocity in Chinese trade and industrial policies. He noted Chinese subsidies for its steel industry and other sectors, its censorship of foreign news and entertainment media, and the forced transfer of technology from U.S. firms that operate in China.

"These actions are all aimed at defending and, as necessary, reforming the rules-based order that should benefit all nations," he said, referring to the U.S. engagement with international allies and partners. "We want to lead a race to the top on tech, on climate, infrastructure, global health, and inclusive economic growth. And we want to strengthen a system in which as many countries as possible can come together to cooperate effectively, resolve differences peacefully, write their own futures as sovereign equals."

The chief U.S. diplomat acknowledged Washington's limited ability to alter Beijing's behavior and said the administration will focus instead on the environment in which it operates.

"We do not seek to transform China's political system," he said. "Our task is to prove once again that democracy can meet urgent challenges, create opportunity, advance human dignity. That the future belongs to those who believe in freedom, and that all countries will be free to chart their own paths without coercion."

Some analysts of U.S. relations with Asia said the policy described in the speech lacked measures to bolster access to Asian markets.

"This is a good speech for the Secretary of State, because that job features talking," Derek Scissors, a China analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning Washington research organization, said in an email. "But it highlights that the Biden administration prefers talk to action, which has left us in the same place versus China for years. . . . Like many administrations before it, the Biden administration wants to seem tough on China but doesn't want to do anything difficult."

U.S.-China Business Council President Craig Allen praised Mr. Blinken's emphasis on diplomacy and criticism of a lack of reciprocity in access to Chinese markets.

"This approach should include more trade dialogues and negotiations with a view to improving market access in China and removing U.S. and Chinese tariffs which will benefit the U.S. economy and support job growth," Mr. Allen said. "A U.S. strategy needs to include substantive and results-oriented dialogues between the U.S. and Chinese governments, including ones that address market-distorting policies in China."

In an emailed statement, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington said the U.S. and China "share extensive common interests and profound cooperation potential" and denied China intends to "surpass or replace the U.S. or engage in zero-sum competition with it."

"We hope the U.S. side will work with China to earnestly implement the common understanding reached by the two leaders to enhance communication, manage differences and focus on cooperation, so as to bring the bilateral relations back to the track of sound and steady development at an early date," spokesman Liu Pengyu said." [1]

1. World News: Blinken Casts Wide Net on China --- Top U.S. diplomat says policy of 'invest, align, compete' can preserve the international order
McBride, Courtney; Leary, Alex. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 27 May 2022: A.16.