The State Department announced on March 10 that U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan will meet with top Chinese officials in Alaska on March 18. China will be represented in the meeting by Yang Jiechi, Director of the Office of the Central Committee for Foreign Affairs, and Wang Yi, Foreign Minister and State Councilor, to engage in dialogue on what Blinken described as a “range of issues”, including those on which there is “deep disagreement.” The meeting will come in the midst of considerable speculation as to what Biden's policy toward China will be, especially following the worsening of relations caused by the bellicose posture of Trump's Secretary of State Pompeo, who repeatedly attacked China as a threat to U.S. security. After the announcement, Blinken lowered the expectations for a positive outcome, commenting, "This is not a strategic dialogue. There's no intent at this point for a series of follow-on engagements."While Pompeo is gone, his threatening rhetoric continues be heard from U.S. military and intelligence agencies, as in the "Interim National Security Strategic Guidance" paper released by the Biden administration on March 3. In language reflecting the continuity of policy coming from operatives of the "Military Industrial Complex" (MIC) within defense and security agencies, Russia and China are identified as growing threats to "western democracies". It states that this administration will endeavor to gather the world’s “democracies” into an alliance against Russia and China, to counter their "aggressive military deployment" and to thwart their “malign” influence on the world. Blinken confirmed this, telling a Congressional hearing that the administration is committed to a "summit of democracies" to address the threat from China before the end of the year. The Strategic Guidance paper identifies such cooperation with “allies” as key to U.S. policy, asserting that through such cooperation, the U.S. will “reinvigorate and modernize our alliances and partnerships around the world.” However, one must consider that if an “ally” crosses Washington, such as Germany’s refusal to cancel the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, they may also face U.S. sanctions. Blinken has a record as a War Hawk, from his time as deputy national security adviser to President Obama, and as Deputy Secretary of State, from 2015 to 2017. During this time, he was critical of Obama for not being more aggressive in pursuing regime change in Syria, saying this was a "failure" of the administration. As for relations with China, since his confirmation he has warned that Beijing has the economic, diplomatic, military and technical power "to seriously challenge the stable and open international system -- all the rules, values and relationships that make the world work the way we want it to." His defense of a "rules-based order" exposes what this phrase really means: one dominated by the unilateral control by the U.S. and Great Britain, with U.S. military muscle propping up a failing financial system, by crushing any nation which rejects the globalist order. Included in his recent testimony is his call for imposing more sanctions against Russia over the unsupported charges of Russian hacking in the SolarWinds case. According to the {New York Times}, the administration is committed to a cyber attack on Russian government institutions, as part of its retaliation for SolarWinds -- so much for the "rules-based order." Asian NATO The meetings with Chinese officials will follow meetings with officials from Japan and South Korea, with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin joining Blinken for those. The Pentagon noted in a press announcement that the meetings with those two nations are intended to bolster relations with allies in the region “in the face of long-term competition with China.” The State Department added that the meetings will “highlight cooperation that promotes peace, security and cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region and around the world.” Just prior to these meetings, President Biden will hold a virtual meeting on March 12 with his “Quad” allies—India, Japan and Australia.
