China Confronts  President Biden “We Are An Equal Now”

China’s Message to America

Please consider China’s Message to America: We’re an Equal Now

As Biden administration officials expected in their first meeting with Chinese counterparts, Yang Jiechi, Mr. Xi’s top foreign-policy aide, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi asked them to roll back Trump-era policies targeting China. Beijing wanted to restore the kind of recurring “dialogue” Washington sees as a waste of time, say U.S. and Chinese officials briefed on the Alaska meeting.

Mr. Yang also delivered a surprise: a 16-minute lecture about America’s racial problems and democratic failings. The objective, say Chinese officials, was to make clear that Beijing sees itself as an equal of the U.S. He also warned Washington against challenging China over a mission Beijing views as sacred—the eventual reunification with Taiwan.

That is a big shift for Chinese leaders, who for decades took care not to challenge the U.S. as the world’s leader and followed the dictum Deng Xiaoping set decades ago: “Keep a low profile and bide your time.” Some senior Chinese officials privately—often sarcastically—called the U.S. Lao Da, or Big Boss.

Now Mr. Xi is reshaping the relationship. As far as he is concerned, China’s time has arrived.

“China can already look at the world on an equal level,” he told the annual legislative sessions in Beijing in early March, a remark widely interpreted in Chinese media as a declaration that China no longer looks up to the U.S.

Biden will have his hands full as did Trump who set out and failed to improve US balance of trade with China.

But now China is even more aggressive. 

It will be interesting to see how Biden handles tariffs, sanctions, trade policy, human rights issues, and Taiwan.

Mish

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TheCaptain
TheCaptain
3 years ago

“It will be interesting to see how Biden handles tariffs, sanctions, trade policy, human rights issues, and Taiwan.”

Most likely it will be embarrassing to see how Biden handles those things. Trump was loud and clumsy in his handling of them but his response was neither violent nor weak. Biden’s senility makes him weak but the puppet masters which move his lips are war mongering SOBs. So the biden administration response will probably be both weak and violent.

KidHorn
KidHorn
3 years ago

China is not equal to the US. They’ve passed us.

Their GDP is higher than ours. I don’t care what the official numbers are. They clearly produce a lot more than we do.

What happened a year ago tells it all. We were completely dependent on them for medical supplies. They didn’t need us for anything.

Tex272
Tex272
3 years ago

America’s end as the power she was is very near. Read The Fate of Empires (1976, Sir John Glubb) online PDF. It’s but 24 pages (26 total). Read the Summary on p. 24 for the “stages of the rise and fall of great nations.” If you’re a Senior, you’ll escape the worst of the Insanity to come. If you’re a child, you’re screwed long before you ever have sex.

Casual_Observer
Casual_Observer
3 years ago

This is a pipedream. China is a slave economy to the west. They ship Covid-19 to the world and call themselves a leader. China is worse off under Xi. The worst is yet to come for the Chinese people.

Dutoit
Dutoit
3 years ago

No, they did not send Covid-19. Some countries let it enter (USA, Europe), other countries did not (Taiwan, south Corea, Vietnam).

Casual_Observer
Casual_Observer
3 years ago
Reply to  Dutoit

So there were no cases of covid in Taiwan South Korea and Vietnam ? None ?

FromBrussels
FromBrussels
3 years ago

It is more than obvious that asians have more genetic resistance against the C19 shit, otherwise China would have gone down the crapper, economically socially even politically ….One hell of a pull off this has been by China on the West ! Trump was damn right to call it The Chinese Virus !

Dutoit
Dutoit
3 years ago

0.42 deaths/million people in Taiwan, 5 in Singapore, 1441 in France. There must be a reason

Casual_Observer
Casual_Observer
3 years ago
Reply to  Dutoit

But you said other countries not let it in. You have failed to prove. It is zero or nonzero.

Dutoit
Dutoit
3 years ago

I prefer 0.42 to 1441, even if 0.42 is not zero

Raj Kumar
Raj Kumar
3 years ago

In this one I am putting my money on the US wining. Open demoractic societies will always win against anyone.

Casual_Observer
Casual_Observer
3 years ago
Reply to  Raj Kumar

You mean command and control economies dont work ?

Raj Kumar
Raj Kumar
3 years ago

C&C economics appear to work over a short term timeframe but never last. I am old enough to remember the Soviet Union, if we were standing in 1966 the year of my birth and looking around we would say that open democratic societies won’t last but here we are with Soviets confined to the dustbin of history.

Dutoit
Dutoit
3 years ago
Reply to  Raj Kumar

The only democratic society that I see in the world is Switzerland

Casual_Observer
Casual_Observer
3 years ago
Reply to  Dutoit

You arent looking hard enough.

KidHorn
KidHorn
3 years ago
Reply to  Raj Kumar

Open demoractic society? Have you seen who we put in charge? Our democracy is over. The fascists have taken over.

Raj Kumar
Raj Kumar
3 years ago
Reply to  KidHorn

I know exactly who Americans have elected but you have elected him. Unlike Xi in China. US for all its imperfections is still better than any other society. If you want a true measure of the end of the US then measure it when people no longer wish to migrate to the US either legally or illegally. No one that I know is lining up on the borders of China.

jivefive98
jivefive98
3 years ago

America does not have rampant and systematic government corruption from one end other country to another. China is not “equal” to anyone. China is just another tinpot dictatorship trying desperately to look more than they really are. I believe we just had a president that thought in the same manner. You cant be a great country unless you let the population scream and yell to their hearts content. Just try that in socialist paradise China.

FromBrussels
FromBrussels
3 years ago
Reply to  jivefive98

….’a socialist paradise’ ….Right you nailed it ! Ain t that exactly what the US has become, a socialist paradise, in recent months ? A woke and politically correct one of course, haha…..Believe me, american, and western democracy in general, has had its day, the pandemic and manipulated elections giving an extra boost to its demise ….

Casual_Observer
Casual_Observer
3 years ago
Reply to  FromBrussels

More idiocy from the idiot in Brussels.

FromBrussels
FromBrussels
3 years ago

An insult from you is a compliment to me ….thank you !

Greggg
Greggg
3 years ago

The reason we were in Afghanistan for almost 20 years: Block the development of the Silk Road. Last year China signed Belt and Road initiatives with Iran, Iraq and Israel gave China reign over Port of Haifa, one of our primary military parking lots. Prime mission of stopping the Silk Road seems to be lost now. The process sped up greatly under Trump.

Jojo
Jojo
3 years ago
Reply to  Greggg

And China has a lot of initiatives in Africa also.

Greggg
Greggg
3 years ago
Reply to  Jojo

Those are just vassal states or colonizations, and there are many of them includung the newest, South Africa where they are bribing the power elite, for ports on the east coast.

Call_Me
Call_Me
3 years ago
Reply to  Greggg

Since it’s ongoing, it would be proper to say “The reason we are in Afghanistan”. Some would make the case that the poppy trade is also an important reason, although maybe that is self-sustaining now and currently a secondary or tertiary factor.

Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago
Reply to  Call_Me

Why don’t we sell poppy chemical derivatives to China and that way absorb our trade deficit with them. We could cultivate the poppy in India and trade it through Hong Kong.

Call_Me
Call_Me
3 years ago
Reply to  Doug78

Or leverage futures on some synthetic derivatives, eliminating the need for physically growing anything! Just need more creativity from those steering the ship of state 🙂

GeorgeWP
GeorgeWP
3 years ago

The US seems stuck in an adversarial position to ensure it retains a dominant world position. Partly i assume that is driven by the need to keep the $US as the world currency and avoid the economic pain of having to produce enough to pay for what it consumes.
But surely there comes a time when it is best to come to an accomodation with an Imperial rival. Spheres of influence e.g. US doesn’t interfere in Eurasia, China doesn’t push against US allies in the Pacific and SE Asia.

A 2ndry issue for the US is that when it points out the nasty stuff the Chinese are up to, it would be more influential if it didn’t have a history of exterminating its indigenous people, slavery, extreme racism, gunboat diplomacy, invasion and occupation of numerous smaller nations, coups and interference against democratic governments it doesn’t like and attacking Islamic countries.

Pretty much the US has shown China what it can get away with if it has the military and economic might to do so.

p.s. of course the US is hardly the originators of the Imperial plan. Did you see the Brits are sending a warship to SE Asia to scare China. Last time they sent a couple of battleships to deal with an Asian upstart they didn’t come back.

Greggg
Greggg
3 years ago
Reply to  GeorgeWP

The last I heard of anything concerning the British Navy was when Prince Charles’s ship dropped anchor on an important trans-Atlantic cable. The Brits also conveniently forgot to intervene in the taking of Hong Kong last year.

Jmurr
Jmurr
3 years ago

It was so comical for the media to call Trump Putin’s puppet. Biden is xi’s puppet, bought and paid for.

GodfreeRoberts
GodfreeRoberts
3 years ago

Social metrics are more worrisome: There are now more hungry children, drug addicts, suicides and executions, more homeless, poor, and imprisoned people in America than in China.

Chinese kids now have longer healthy life expectancy, and graduate high school three years ahead our ours in STEM subjects.

Zardoz
Zardoz
3 years ago
Reply to  GodfreeRoberts

…AND they can leap over skyscrapers in a single bound!

Casual_Observer
Casual_Observer
3 years ago
Reply to  GodfreeRoberts

China would never lie about its data right ?

GodfreeRoberts
GodfreeRoberts
3 years ago

As you can tell from the public record, their government keeps its promises (14 fulfilled Five Year Plans testify to that), so they have no cause to lie.

If their performance is insufficient, check the professional literature on the subject:

The quality of China’s GDP statistics☆ by Carsten A. HOLZ ⁎
Stanford Center for International Development, Stanford University. link to sciencedirect.com

Quality of China’s Official Statistics: A Brief Review of Academic Perspectives
Dmitriy Plekhanov
DOI: link to doi.org

Sechel
Sechel
3 years ago

TPP would be such a useful containment tool

Mr. Purple
Mr. Purple
3 years ago

Dear China, here is your World’s Policeman Baton. We wish you luck. Sincerely, America.

ColoradoAccountant
ColoradoAccountant
3 years ago

Diversity is not a strength. It destabilizes stuff and is a liability. The CCP knows this fact, as do most engineers, chemists, and cultures. The red herring is race in the US where the real culprit is culture. The Chinese get it.

Zardoz
Zardoz
3 years ago

You’re right, but if everybody’s the same, why exist?

Jackula
Jackula
3 years ago

Tell that to the Romans

FromBrussels
FromBrussels
3 years ago

4 years without war… Deep State hawks must be bored sick…. Biden will live up to expectations though,already stirring up Ukraine again by promising ‘unwavering support’ to its pawn in the energy war, with US’ thorn in the side viz Nordstream 2, almost completed now….Will Biden/ NATO have the cojones when push comes to shove ? Interesting times… scary too….I live at a 20 minutes drive from NATO headquarters 🙂

Call_Me
Call_Me
3 years ago
Reply to  FromBrussels

You mean new war, correct? There are still plenty of unresolved situations from previous administrations that are ongoing.

FromBrussels
FromBrussels
3 years ago
Reply to  Call_Me

…’new’….yes of course, …you are right.

amigator
amigator
3 years ago

No problem with Racism in a Communist society. If there are problems into prison you go. As a matter of fact there are no problems at all the “society”. Got to love the Chinese. Hopefully they will not be asking for reparations for all the railroads they built in America.

Zardoz
Zardoz
3 years ago
Reply to  amigator

They probably will own those railroads before too long.

Dutoit
Dutoit
3 years ago

USA and most of UE countries have a rapidly declining educational system. They are not able anymore to select the good pupils from the lower social classes, and move them higher to use their ability. Selection according to value is replaced by quotas. This leads to a less and less skillful people at the top levels, in particular in science. You can still slow this tendency by importing foreign skillful people, until they will be used in their own countries.
China and most of countries in Asia have kept the good old european and american methods, and we will more and more see the consequences of efficiently selecting valuable people among a population of more than 2 billions.

GeorgeWP
GeorgeWP
3 years ago
Reply to  Dutoit

Something like 70% of STEM grads in the US are foreigners. Before COVID anyway.

RonJ
RonJ
3 years ago

China Confronts President Biden “We Are An Equal Now”

So many are not treated as equals. There are well over 100 countries, yet only 7 get to be a part of an exclusive club of heavyweights known as the G7.

Zardoz
Zardoz
3 years ago
Reply to  RonJ

A nuclear arsenal comes with its perks.

Eddie_T
Eddie_T
3 years ago

We could talk about gold. I just re-entered the fun trade, trying to catch a short term bottom.

Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago
Reply to  Eddie_T

I gave up on gold a while ago so I am out of date. Europe is going through an unusual cold spell a some of the crops got tanked. Maybe something interesting in ag commodities.

FromBrussels
FromBrussels
3 years ago
Reply to  Doug78

….dunno….I had the DB Agriculture Fund on my radar for years and finally gave up for all it ever did was losing value ….I just checked after reading your comment…Surprise, surprise, It is actually UP 20 % since october ….but then almost everything is up these days….

Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago
Reply to  FromBrussels

Agricultural land is also good.

FromBrussels
FromBrussels
3 years ago
Reply to  Doug78

No lack of it in France I guess, with more and more farmers throwing in the towel..

Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago
Reply to  FromBrussels

No lack of land but some farmers are giving up because they aren’t efficient enough. Agricultural production is still good except I hear this year there will be a dearth of apples, apricots, cherries , grapes and wine because of the freeze this April.

FromBrussels
FromBrussels
3 years ago
Reply to  Doug78

Would you mind telling me which ‘département’ you live ? Il y en a une dizaine si je ne me trompe pas, Aquitaine, Bretagne, Normandie, Centre, Rhone, Provence etc … Unless, of course, you d consider this too much of a privacy invasion….

TexasTim65
TexasTim65
3 years ago
Reply to  Eddie_T

Might the the right time to re-enter. One of the financial blogs I subscribe to just sent this today:

April 11, 2021: Bull market progression now shows base metal strength
Sector performance within the present bull market has largely replicated an historical pattern. Over the past 12 years, the rise and eventual outperformance over the benchmark indexes (i.e. TSX and S&P 500), of specific industry groups has developed starting with technology and consumer discretionary sectors in 2009 and carrying through to the current sector of base metals.

The normal progression of performance in industry groups, beginning with a bear market low, through a gradual recovery and into a full bull market and then with a final cresting high, is illustrated in Chart 1.

Starting with the early performing sectors of technology and consumer discretionary followed by communication services, brokers, automobiles, industrials, and as the bull market reaches a mid-point, communication equipment, base metals and energy begin to outperform.

As the stock market begins to peak, the precious metals, consumer staples, health care and utilities sectors start advancing.

At the stock markets’ current phase, the industrial metals sector is outperforming both the TSX and the S&P 500. The breakout in relative performance developed in September on the Canadian index and October on the U.S. index (Chart 2).

The iShares S&P/TSX Global Base Metals Index (XBM) is comprised of 34 companies in Canada, U.S., Australia, U.K. and four other countries.

Bottom line: The current bull market is now 12 years old. Over the past 125 years, the duration of the rise has been about 18 years. This suggests that the stock market rise is expected to continue advancing for another 5 to 7 more years. And with the recent breakout in performance of the base metals sector (XBM) in late 2020, the duration of the stock market rise is about 2/3rds complete. The energy sector should be the next industry group to outperform.

Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago
Reply to  TexasTim65

I am still in the stock market and probably will be for a while. The economic stimulus is unprecedented as well so I think it has a way to go. I stopped trading when I retired because it is too time-consuming. I mostly now let my portfolio run and try to pick up bargains when I see them.

Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago
Reply to  Eddie_T

Ce sont les “Regions” que tu as listé, pas des départements. Il y a 101 départements en France dont 5 outre-mer. J’habite en Ile-de-France et mon département est numero 78. C’est a dire Yvelines. Why do you want to know?

FromBrussels
FromBrussels
3 years ago
Reply to  Doug78

…No reason in particular…. as you mentioned agricultural production and land though, I just wondered, there must be quite a difference among all those regions …Yes I mixed up départements and régions, shame on me, I must have crossed France a thousand times when my late father and I had our Spain/Belgium export/import business for more than 20 years ’77/’98….

Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago
Reply to  FromBrussels

I am 35 minutes by car or commuter train from the Arc de Triomphe but we are surrounded by forest, farms and horse training facilities. Perfect spot for the rural life and the facilities of a megacity combined with zoning laws Californians would kill for.

FromBrussels
FromBrussels
3 years ago
Reply to  Doug78

We have a dutch expression : ‘leven als god in Frankrijk’ meaning ‘vivre comme dieu en France’ , living a pleasant life in other words…. There s a lot of truth in it !

Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago
Reply to  FromBrussels

The Germans have the same saying! I must admit it’s not a bad place to live.

Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago

I used to think this was an economic blog, Then it became a political blog and now it’s an international relations blog. What next?

Corvinus
Corvinus
3 years ago
Reply to  Doug78

Agreed. At this point alot of people just come to this blog to get or shell out their daily dose of outrage.

ohno
ohno
3 years ago
Reply to  Doug78

Couldn’t war with China have financial impacts? LOL.

Zardoz
Zardoz
3 years ago
Reply to  Doug78

I vote hair care tips.

Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago
Reply to  Zardoz

I second that. I am losing mine.

Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago

He can say whatever he wants to say. He can send airplanes and ships to provoke his neighbours but in the end the only way to prove you are now top dog is to grab some important territory and dare others to take it back.

William Janes
William Janes
3 years ago

Nothing new here in regards to Chinese policy and goals. The goal of the CCP elite has always been dominance using repression, surveillance, and deception. This was the goal from the beginning starting with Deng Xiaoping first visit to the U.S. where he appeared in a rodeo wearing a cowboy hat. The Kissingerian approach to China was disastrous, but lucrative to Kissinger and the large corporations. The new approach must be real politk: agreements with China are useless unless they can be enforced. They are an adversary and have always been an adversary. First, pay no attention to loud squawks, push them and they will back down.

njbr
njbr
3 years ago

Are we supposed to feel outrage with the headline that is merely a statement of fact?

Sechel
Sechel
3 years ago

I have an alternate theory. Trump pissed China off for four years and they’re trying to reset the clock

numike
numike
3 years ago

Inflation Expectations in the United States increased to 3.20 percent in March from 3.09 percent in February of 2021 link to tradingeconomics.com

Sechel
Sechel
3 years ago

The good news is that China is different than Russia. China still wants to do business., whereas Russia is not realy that driven by economics. China is far more pragamtic

TexasTim65
TexasTim65
3 years ago
Reply to  Sechel

Russia wants to do business. But it’s essentially a resource economy (like Canada) that provides raw materials (oil, gas, uranium, etc). That makes them great partners for Europe and China both of whom need those raw materials but not for the US which doesn’t.

Sechel
Sechel
3 years ago
Reply to  TexasTim65

Russia is not like Canada. Russia is closer to a 3rd world country when you look at their economy

TexasTim65
TexasTim65
3 years ago
Reply to  Sechel

I disagree (and I’m from Canada). Both are resource driven economies in that their dollar / ruble goes up/down based on world commodity prices (it’s why the Cdn dollar passed the US dollar in the early 2000’s when Oil prices were 100+ a barrel and sank when oil prices did). Yes, they both produce some other things too but the bulk of the value of their economy is sale of natural resources.

Sechel
Sechel
3 years ago
Reply to  TexasTim65

On a per capita basis Canada’s GDP is almost four times Russia’s

TexasTim65
TexasTim65
3 years ago
Reply to  Sechel

What does GDP per capita have to do with what engine drives your economy?

Sechel
Sechel
3 years ago

China is flexing it muscle and hitting the u.s where it is weak. they are using aid as diplomacy for one, second the u.s. is unable to engage in tpp which allows china to dominate the region economically, thirdly the u.s is retrenching wiht Trump pulling us back from global alliancess. its not clear Biden can fully reverse that.

Eddie_T
Eddie_T
3 years ago

China and the US are so bound by mutual trade that I have a hard time seeing how we don’t continue to dance around the issues while indulging in criticizing each other.

It’s hard to understand who would be hurt worse by a fundamental change in imports and exports between the two countries, not to mention foreign direct investment, which is huge on both sides now, even though it’s still one-sided, with the US investing about 3X more there than China does here.

China is very vulnerable to all kinds of shocks….oil and food in particular. I don’t think the future is quite as rosy as Xi might want to claim.

TexasTim65
TexasTim65
3 years ago
Reply to  Eddie_T

Correct. They are sabre rattling to see if Biden will show any sign of fear (Trump did not).

They need us a lot more than we need them.

njbr
njbr
3 years ago

I would tend to agree that China is the closest to on par with the US and certainly the most significant rival of the US. They are on an upward economic track and the US is not.

Racial polices…errr Uighurs?

Zardoz
Zardoz
3 years ago

It’s a lot to keep track of, and I don’t think he’s capable of doing it. Hopefully his administration is on the ball. Haven’t heard much at all about them… nobody fired and calling him a moron, or writing tell alls yet.

purple squish
purple squish
3 years ago
Reply to  Zardoz

Agree with the first part of what you said. But if/when his staffers start calling him a moron behind closed doors or writing tell-alls, I wouldn’t expect the NYT, WaPo or NPR to run anything about it. That news would be in the invisible part of the spectrum. Fox or Breitbart might… but that would still be in the invisible part of the news spectrum for anyone that doesn’t already think he’s a moron.

Zardoz
Zardoz
3 years ago
Reply to  purple squish

I don’t think he’s a moron, but he’s getting old and addled. Happens to everyone.

Jojo
Jojo
3 years ago
Reply to  Zardoz

Some had been fired for admitting pot use and it did create quite the brouhaha.

Biden’s White House is firing staffers for marijuana use. That’s a mistake.
March 22, 2021, 2:33 AM PDT
By Hayes Brown, MSNBC Opinion Columnist

KidHorn
KidHorn
3 years ago
Reply to  Zardoz

When it’s decided it’s time for him to move on and put Kamala officially in charge, there will be lots of accusations to help force him out.

numike
numike
3 years ago

Chinese Navy Harasses Boat Carrying Filipino Journalists: Report
This incident is perhaps the first in which a Chinese navy vessel has harassed a civilian boat inside another nation’s Exclusive Economic Zone. link to thediplomat.com

Zardoz
Zardoz
3 years ago
Reply to  numike

That is a COOL paint job!

SyTuck
SyTuck
3 years ago
Reply to  numike

cool but useless. Radar is colour blind; as are guided missiles and bombs.

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