That Blinken speech was actually much milder than his usual style, seeking co-operation and wanting to avoiding war with China while defending American principles.
Exactly. Agree completely.
This is actually a good plan for the Americans.
They want to continue along the same path of trying to confront China, but now they also emphasize for themselves that they have to base that on American values. This outline is more about themselves than it is about China.
There is the Ugly American, and there is the American who wants to not be the Ugly American. Blinken wants America to be the latter, and de-emphasize the China-US confrontation.
But trying to promote America as the shinny thing on the hill, that is promotion of American values and themselves. If they can promote themselves well, then they can compete with China better. I think this is actually a good plan.
It is a good plan for the Americans under the circumstances of today.
What is unmentioned is the obvious.
Nothing has worked, in terms of trying to contain China.
Also, any war that breaks out in the Taiwan Straits today, there is no guarantee the US will win, as it probably will lose according to the US war games.
The trade war - China US trade at record levels
The tech war - Huawei 5G goes around the world, SMIC at 7nm, Chinese exascale supercomputers, etc ...
The diplomatic war - this emphasize on Xinjiang not paying dividends. The best example of the failure of this smear campaign was the Winter Olympics, where Biden proudly proclaimed a diplomatic boycott of it, then the leader of Argentina a country in their back yard goes to Beijing to sign onto the BRI. Then the Americans want to convince people how Americans doing nothing is still better than others doing something. Haha! Haha!
The geo-strategic war - with the Solomon Island agreement, and further agreements to be made in Oceania, including security agreements which will include military visits of warships, even though we cannot find these places on a map, clearly the PLAN will be operation far off shore, beyond the 1st island chain, beyond the 2nd island chain, beyond the 3rd island chain. Heck, the Taiwan question is not even settled yet.
This list of failure and ineffectiveness is stunning. But that is the reality.
It all started with the trade war, which is still ongoing.
Just like what Clausewitz talked about.
Once the attack starts, the longer the attack goes on, the weaker it gets. All offensives exhaust themselves eventually.
After the trade war and tech war, there was basically nothing left. There was nothing left for the Americans, in terms of what to do.
Next, the counter attack came.
Looks like China will move beyond the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, island chain, without much effort, establishing what should be a permanent presence there.
Have bases there to watch Chinese satellites should be a top priority for the Chinese space program. Here is the prefect opportunity. China helps Oceania with climate change and rising sea levels. Oceania helps China with their space monitoring. The win win!
That is why Blinken took a step back.
They are exhausted. They could not counter this move by China into Oceania. And it seems unlikely they would be able to counter further moves. Too much has been invested in the trade war and tech war. They are still fighting that.
LOL!
