The meeting between the US and Chinese Presidents is coming amidst previous tensions two the superpower countries. We analyse what led to this and what the two sides look like.
Starting with the remarks made at the table, which have been made public, China looked determined and was negotiating from a position of strength even away from home. China focused on the aggressive behavior of the United States, unnecessary competition, and attempts to remodel China into a western image yet the two countries are far different from each other in History. culture and people. This is something the United States still doesn’t want to accept; we saw the disruptive and disrespectful coughs by US secretary of state Anthony Blinken as President Xi-Jinping was giving his remarks.
On the other side was the US group led by its president Joe Biden and other officials who have mostly been to China in order to extract and exert a conversation out of the Chinese after China rejected their advances and bullying. Instead, China demanded for sincerity. The United States looked more on the defensive. What the US in its approach of heightened strategic ambiguity, a strategy developed by white house advisor on National Security Jake Sullivan focused on was, what can be looked as non-vital issues of Fentanyl and drug abuse in its country, how China should control the production, as if China is responsible for the United States Policy on imports and health and as though the United States is a Colony of China as was the Opium wars in which opium was imposed on China and the western world.
This meeting is coming when The US under president Joe Biden decided to keep the Sanctions and trade embargo started by former President Trump. The US has further; previously and repeatedly provoked China by sending diplomats to Taiwan a recognised Chinese territory amidst China’s warning. China has demanded Sincerity which is not forthcoming from the United States.
US’s policy in the Middle East has also failed while China’s is thriving after brokering a deal for the normalization of relationships between Iran and Saudi Arabia, The United States’ attempt to have Saudi Arabia normalise relationships and recorgnise Israel has failed amidst its support for the Israel massacre and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
The US war on Russia in Ukraine has also failed yet China remains on the other side in support of Russia who is winning the war.
US strategy in Africa is also failing because the US doesn’t want to commit itself to tangible projects, only rhetoric and unwanted lecturing. China on the other hand has participated in building of infrastructure all across the continent some of which the US and NATO have been destroying if we are to talk of Libya.
China made a break-through in the Chips industry amidst a US led coalition to strangle China’s technology industry.
US automobile industry is shrinking and struggling as it also struggles to have semiconductor chips manufactured in the United States.
The United States media has been measured in its coverage of the meeting, someone can almost feel that there is anxiety on the American side and a recognition of the fact that they are on the weak side. This confirms the US insistence on sending envoys to China in order to have a one-side dictated relationship. From Blinken the secretary of state, Gina Raimondo the Commerce Secretary, Janet Yellen the secretary of treasury, John Kerry, Henry Kissinger, secretary of defense Lloyd Austin’s attempt to meet the Chinese Minister of defense which was rejected by China and a delegation of Members of Congress who visited China recently.
From the Look of things, the United States aside from its usual military threats and blackmail looks extremely weak and desperate. Another sign that things are not going as planned for the United States is; when Biden was asked at a press conference immediately after the meeting with president Xi about his previous remarks on president Xi Jinping as a dictator, he doubled down and claimed that President Xi is a dictator because China runs a political system far different from what the United States is running, which is a ridiculous argument considering China is a country run on the rule of Law, in many cases laws more respected than in the United States.
It is Important for Africa, Pan Africanists in Particular to read between the Lines, this opportunity in history has rarely happened, Africa’s intellectuals have to ratchet up the reorganisation of the Continent and liberation forces, those at home and those abroad because the transformation we seek as Africans is not going to come from the current African political elite, it is going to have to be forced through without them or against them. It has to be done while the west is growing weaker because then, these conditioned African elites will have no support to continue their mediocrity at home.
©Kwame Gonza