Chapter 3 Towards International Isolation and Conflict (2)

3. China and the U.S. are at Loggerheads
 
When Trump entered the White House in 2017, Xi Jinping believed that the United States had declined and that the world’s trend of “rising in the east and falling in the west” was unchangeable. But to Xi’s surprise, after the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Trump administration quickly adjusted its national security strategy to make China the number one strategic adversary. In early 2018, Trump launched a trade war, imposing high tariffs of 25 percent on the Chinese exports to the United States. The Chinese government also immediately took tough trade countermeasures.
 
As the confrontation between China and the United States expanded from trade to technology and ideology, the U.S. ended its “engagement with China” policy that had begun during the Nixon era. In 2020, former U.S. National Security Advisor O’Brien stated in a speech that as China had become more affluent and stronger; he also believed that the CCP would become enlightened and would satisfy Chinese people’s growing needs and desires for democracy. In hindsight, this was a bold and purely an American idea. Unfortunately, this miscalculation led to the biggest failure in U.S. foreign policy since the 1930s. How did we make this mistake? How could we not see the CCP for what it is? The answer is simple: because we didn’t pay attention to the CCP’s ideology. We have closed our eyes and ears to the wishful thinking that these party members are nothing more than members in name only. Now let’s set the record straight: the CCP is a Marxist, Leninist party. Xi Jinping, the party’s general secretary, sees himself as the successor of Stalin.

On July 21, 2020, the United States closed the Chinese consulate in Houston; on July 24, China closed the U.S. consulate in Chengdu.
 
In January 2021, the Biden administration took office, inheriting the Trump administration’s policy toward China adding a joint alliance to confront China. From the Indo-Pacific Quadripartite Dialogue mechanism to the signing of the New Atlantic Charter by Britain and the United States, the G7 summit, NATO summit, EU summit, to Biden’s meeting with Putin in Geneva, Biden’s strategy toward China is becoming clearer: Stabilize the Indo-Pacific. Support Taiwan. Loosen Japan. Unite with allies. Unite with Russia to control China.
 
So far, both U.S. and Chinese ambassadors have left but neither has yet sent a new ambassador.

4、Meng Wanzhou Incident
 
On December 1, 2018, Canadian police arrested Meng Wanzhou, Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer of Huawei who was transiting in Vancouver at the request of the U.S. government for mutual legal assistance. China implemented hostage diplomacy in retaliation, arresting Canadian citizens Kang Mingkai and Spuff and commuting the sentence of Canadian suspect Schellenberg for drug crimes, from 15 years in the first trial to the death penalty in the second. The verdict is contrary to the international criminal trial principle of no additional sentence on appeal.
 
5. Three Dead Ends for Uyghurs, Hong Kong, and Taiwan
 
In 2014, Xi Jinping began to implement the Uyghur genocide policy, starting with the arrest of Professor Ilham, the construction of large-scale re-education camps to imprison Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and others, and the systematic implementation of genocide against the Uyghur people. Currently, the U.S., British, Canadian, Dutch, Lithuanian, and other parliaments consider the Chinese government to have committed genocide and crimes against humanity against the Uyghurs.