Beijing claims US is ‘intensifying its siege on China’

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Chinese state mediaOfficials and academics have all publicly denied the distinction in recent weeks in what appears to be a concerted attempt to undermine the rhetorical shift. The official Xinhua News Agency said in a comment on Friday that “risk reduction is just decoupling in disguise.”

“A change in words means no difference in action. Essentially, de-risking is little different from decoupling,” the agency said, adding that the US had “intensified its siege on China.”

Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang voiced He made similar criticisms at a press conference in Germany this month, saying, “If the EU seeks to decouple from China in the name of de-risking, it will decouple from opportunity, cooperation, stability and development.”

Fu Cong, China’s ambassador to the European Union, urged leaders to define what risk reduction means in a country interview with the New Statesman. “If risk mitigation means getting rid of China global industrial and supply chainsespecially in key areas, and when it comes to key technology, we are strictly against it,” he said, according to a transcript posted to the embassy’s website.

Cold War technology

The switch in US language reflects the Biden administration’s attempt to strike a more dovish tone towards Western allies, who fear cutting off business ties with Beijing altogether. Washington’s attempts to withhold the latest chips from China on national security grounds have raised concerns new technology cold war.

“Because of the huge economic impact, the push for decoupling is putting great international pressure on the US,” said Zhu Feng, professor of international relations at Nanjing University, adding that the term “de-risking” gives the US more “leeway” give manoeuvre.”

“There is no essential difference between the two terms,” ​​he added. “I don’t think the change in rhetoric will entail any adjustments in policy.”

The de-risking narrative began to take hold in March when European Union President Ursula von der Leyen gave a speech in which she explained, among other things, why she was planning to travel to Beijing to meet President Xi Jinping.

“I believe that decoupling from China is neither feasible nor in Europe’s interest,” she said. “We need to focus on risk mitigation, not decoupling.” This approach was widely seen as an attempt to ease tensions between the US and China after an alleged Chinese spy balloon was shot down a month earlier after it had violated US airspace had crossed. This prompted Foreign Minister Antony Blinken to cancel a visit to Beijing and further soured diplomatic relations.

The Biden administration reiterated its statement to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen shortly thereafter saying in April that “we are not trying to decouple our economy from China’s.” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan argued next week: “We are for de-risking and diversification, not decoupling.”

That shift in rhetoric allowed some of the world’s wealthiest democracies to speak with a unified voice on addressing China’s economic risks at a Group of Seven summit in Japan this month. The heads of state and government reached an agreement in a final opinion to achieve economic security through “diversification and deepening of partnerships and risk reduction rather than decoupling”.

US goodwill

Two researchers from the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, a think tank linked to China’s top intelligence agency, wrote This month, the “de-risking” narrative reflected that Western democracies had realized they could not function without the world’s second largest economy.

They also argued that the term shows “a certain amount of goodwill” on the part of the US and its allies, as it shows they want to keep the dialogue with China open. Biden said at the end of the G7 summit that US-China ties could “thaw very soon,” suggesting that a long-awaited talk with Xi could be imminent.

Still, the researchers cautioned that the new wording does not mean a fundamental change in their strategy, such as the US lifting trade sanctions against Chinese companies.

supply chains

According to Deborah Elms, Singapore-based executive director of the Asian Trade Centre, the push to reduce risk in supply chains could have the opposite effect: countries rely on a single location for some products lack of baby food in the US as an example.

“It’s a classic case of putting all your eggs in one basket and assuming that domestic production is somehow less susceptible to disruption, but that’s actually not true,” she said.

The US and other western nations were increasingly Since the pandemic, we’ve been looking at onshore supply chains for various commodities. For example, the Inflation Reduction Act, which offers subsidies and tax breaks to companies that manufacture in the US, has been criticized by Europe and South Korea for penalizing their companies.

Japan is also spending billions of dollars to try rebuild its domestic semiconductor industry. Tokyo has also imposed export restrictions on some chipmaking technologies to China.

“What they want to achieve is partial decoupling,” said Zhou Xiaoming, a former deputy representative of China’s UN mission in Geneva, of the US and its allies’ risk reduction strategy.

“That means decoupling in areas of their choice that they believe are important to their national security,” he added, “as well as important to efforts to stem China’s rise.”