Blinken says China strategy is about rules-based order, not ‘new Cold War’

WASHINGTON: The United States does not seek to sever China from the global economy, but wants Beijing to adhere to international rules, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a long-awaited speech on Thursday on US strategy to address China’s rise as a great power.

Washington will not block China from growing its economy or try to change Beijing’s political system, Blinken said, but it will defend international law and institutions that maintain peace and security and make it possible for countries, including the United States and China, to coexist, he said.

“We are not looking for conflict or a new Cold War. To the contrary, we’re determined to avoid both,” Blinken said in the 45-minute speech at George Washington University, which covered the gamut of the most contentious issues in bilateral ties.

US-China relations sank to their lowest level in decades under the Trump administration and have soured further under President Joe Biden, who has so far kept up his Republican predecessor Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on Chinese goods, but also has pursued closer ties with allies in the Indo-Pacific and beyond to push back on Beijing’s growing influence.

Seventeen months into his administration Biden, a Democrat, had faced criticism from Republicans and some foreign policy watchers for not announcing a formal strategy on China, the world’s second-largest economy after the United States and Washington’s main strategic rival.

Foreign crises, including the messy US withdrawal from Afghanistan last year and Russia’s war in Ukraine, have created distractions for Biden, who has vowed not to let China surpass the United States as global leader on his watch.

But his administration has sought to capitalize on fresh solidarity with allies spurred by the Ukraine crisis and the “no-limits” partnership China announced with Moscow just weeks before the Feb. 24 invasion.

Blinken’s speech coincides with the start of a sweeping tour by China’s foreign minister of Pacific island countries, an increasingly tense front in competition for influence between Beijing and Washington and its allies.

Washington remains focused on China, which poses “the most serious long-term challenge to the international order,” Blinken said.

Washington has long complained of what it says are China’s unfair trade practices, such as state-led subsidies and market access barriers, as well as its increasing economic coercion toward other countries.

While Blinken credited the hard work of the Chinese people for their country’s historic economic transformation in the last four decades, he assailed China’s leader Xi Jinping.