Opinion | No more meetings, no more talks on the phone with chief Lloyd Austin
By Augustus K. Yeung
INTRODUCTION
Experiencing a series of vicious acts, violence and provocations as well as the general lack of trust, China has now decided not to answer phone calls from Lloyd Austin, chief of U.S. defense ministry.
Prospects for a renewed high-level military dialogue between China and the U.S. remain dim, with Beijing saying their defense chief will not hold a bilateral meeting while both are attending a weekend security conference in Singapore.
Closely monitoring the moods of the PLA and comparing the other Chinese departments with their U.S. counterparts, Beijing believes that the Defense Department under Lloyd Austin is the weak link in the United States.
Beijing is now deeply concerned that US and China are most likely to trigger conflicts between the two armies of the world's largest superpowers.
Traditionally, China has always been faithful to their policy of peaceful and cooperative relations with the US, especially the military wing, believing that any armed conflict can trigger a war which is beyond calculation.
The Chinese leadership has decided to take a peaceful and preventive measure by sending the message unmistakably to the American side, hoping to forestall a future war that they believe is down the road.
The Chinese have an adamant sense of history: They have in their hearts reserved a special place for their American friends, and how much hate they have for their "foes", the barbaric Imperial Japanese Army.
Today, the Chinese are still "fighting" these Japanese "foes"; the non-stop production and viewing can testify that they watch anti-Japanese war movies every day.
The message? China's trying to avert any military conflict, but it'll fight back if provoked.
FM spokesperson Mao Ning blamed the U.S…
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning most recently blamed the U.S., saying Washington should "earnestly respect China's sovereignty and security interests and concerns, immediately correct the wrongdoing, show sincerity, and create the necessary atmosphere and conditions between the two militaries."
She gave no details, but tensions between the two sides have spiked over and Washington's military support and sales of defensive weapons to self-governing Taiwan, China's assertions of sovereignty to the contested South China Sea and its flying of a suspected spy balloon over the U.S.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is scheduled to address the Shangri-La Dialogue on Saturday, while Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Li Shangfu will speak at the gathering on Sunday.
Austin met previously with Li's predecessor, Wei Fenghe, at last year's Shangri-La Dialogue – which appeared to do little to smooth relations between the two sides. In his address to the forum, Wei accused the U.S. of seeking to contain China's development and threatening to assert its claims to Taiwan by military force.
China refused to take a phone call from Austin… insisting that communications on the military level have yet to show signs of improvement
Chinese leader Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden cordially met on the sidelines of the Group of 20 meeting of large economies last November in Indonesia. Unfortunately, contacts have proceeded only sporadically since then, with only side meetings on neutral territory.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled a visit to Beijing in February after the U.S, shot down a Chinese "spy" balloon that had crossed the United States. He later met with the Communist Party's senior foreign affairs adviser Wang Yi in Austria.
China refused to take a phone call from Austin to discuss the balloon issue, the Pentagon said. Always beset by mistrust and accusations, communications on the military level have yet to show signs of significant improvement.
Beijing was reportedly angered by Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen's April stopover in the U.S. that included an encounter with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. China's PLA holds military exercises and sends fighter jets, drones and ships near the island "to advertise its threat to attack and wear down Taiwan defenses.'
Moreover, "China protests movements of U.S. Navy ships and aircraft through the Taiwan Strait and close to Chinese-held islands in the South China Sea, dispatching its own ships and planes and raising the possibility of confrontations or collisions." (Source: MDT/AP)
CONCLUSION
Last century's Sino-Japanese war might be over, but the aftermaths of horror of war – such as hard-feelings and the anti-Japanese sentiments are still here to haunt the nation.
Remarkably, Germany's leaders did an excellent job in easing the pains inflicted by the atrocities of the Nazis. Remember the picture of Chancellor Willy Brandt kneeling before the million Jewish victims massacred?
Japan's leaders have never done that; they have even erased this memory by white washing the "rape of Nanking", a genocidal chapter in their bloody acts of atrocity.
Western anthropologists have observed that the Americans are reality bound, whereas the Chinese are past oriented in culture.
Some American leaders are mistaken as they perceive China as a "threat" to American national security. False!
Chinese students pose a "threat" to their American competitors; they are culturally and genetically prone to "academic achievements – a syndrome pushing them to succeed." True!
The American public are manipulated by media to the point that they believe the Chinese president got carried away with the "no limits" friendship with Putin, who's invading Ukraine. If one goes by the number of Chinese students attending colleges and universities in the U.S., the picture's crystal clear. They prefer America to Russia.
If unprovoked, no Chinese has ever and would never think of harming the Americans, who are held high in regard as "professors of great learning"; the Chinese see themselves as "learners in apprenticeship". Such perception has been around since the end of WWII.
The Chinese are happy to see their leaders getting along well with their American counterparts, Katherine Tai, the Secretary of Trade and Commerce, and Janet Yellen, the chief of finance, just to name a few.
The Chinese just can't accept Lloyd Austin; they fear that he might "lead or mislead" the two nations to the tragedy of "sleepwalking" into war.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by Augustus K. Yeung:
Opinion | How far can Beijing's mediation go when some believe it's 'mission impossible'
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