[CC may contain inaccuracies] Can we say that some measured progress is being made?
Sure. The difficult issues still remain.
Obviously, Taiwan, the war in Ukraine and other tech export curbs by the
United States and of course, China's diplomatic moves in the South China Sea.
There's a whole long list of issues that caused this frayed relationship.
But again, it's good that they're talking face to face and at a high
level. So this talks on the sidelines of the
U.N. General Assembly between Anthony Blinken
and the vice president of China, John Chung, is just comes 24 hours after Jake
Sullivan, the national security adviser, met with Wang Yi, the foreign minister
of China, in Malta. By the way, just before Wang Yi headed
off to Moscow, where he is this week, meeting with his counterpart, Sergei
Lavrov. So, again, there are many different
diplomatic overtures being made in this geopolitical struggle.
But this is an important meeting because from what from my reading of it, John
Geng struck more of a conciliatory tone that we've seen of late out of Beijing.
Han Jiang said China, U.S. relations face a lot of difficulties and
challenges. It needs us both to display more
sincerity, more efforts and meet each other halfway.
This is what also Anthony Blinken had to say to Hunter,
who, from the perspective of the United States face to face diplomacy, is the
best way to deal with areas where we disagree and also the best way to
explore areas of cooperation between us. The world expects us to responsibly
manage our relationship. The United States is committed to doing
just that. Anyway, it's been a long diplomatic road
leading up to this upcoming November and the APEC meetings that will be held in
San Francisco. And a lot of these meetings are trying
to lay the groundwork for a potential summit between President Biden and Xi
Jinping. They have not met in person since last
October, November, was it at the G20 in Bali?
And of course, the relations between China and the United States kind of got
derailed after that fairly warm meeting on Bali because of this spy balloon and
various other diplomatic snafus. But you have to wonder about the level
of good faith being displayed by both sides here, right, Steve?
I mean, these diplomatic overtures, they're happening as China, on the one
hand, sends warplanes near Taiwan and we have U.S.
officials visiting the island, on the other hand.
Yeah, that's a good way to put it, because again, you can say many things
and display good faith, but it's the actions that speak louder than those
words. And but again, the United States would
likely say we will continue to have the right to send officials to Taiwan.
And that's what China is upset about right now, because the Arizona governor
is in Taiwan this week, as well as an undersecretary of commerce for
technology and standards. They are on Taiwan.
And presumably this display by the play, this is file footage here, but
essentially Taiwan saying about 103 warplanes yesterday in the 24 hours to
yesterday had flown around Taiwan, 40 of them according to Taiwan.
Defense officials across that median line of the Taiwan Strait into the
southwest and southeast ADIZ as the air defense identification zone.
So China or excuse me, Taiwan says that's a serious breach of security and
a provocation. China has long held that it will
continue to do so when it sees, you know, it's appropriate play.
General was quoted yesterday by state media as saying he expects another
display by the play, perhaps even larger than yesterday, today.
So, again, with the Arizona governor there, why would you say why is the
Arizona governor in Taiwan? Well, of course, we all know that Taiwan
Semiconductor manufacturing is pledging $40 billion to build out capacity at
chip plants in Arizona. And obviously, the Commerce Department
official who is there as well, probably they're talking about the continued
luring of Chinese excuse me, Taiwanese manufacturing to the United States.
And again, this is just going to continue to to happen as U.S.
officials feel that it is in their right to visit Taiwan.