By Mayank Chhaya-
China’s new Foreign Minister Qin Gang has clearly signaled that his country is all in with Russia and presented their coming together as a global stabilizing force against the United States.
In his first news conference held Tuesday, March 7, about two months after taking over, characterized by a virtually gloves-off approach, Qin said, “With China and Russia working together, the world will have a driving force. The more unstable the world becomes the more imperative it is for China and Russia to steadily advance their relations.”
It is by far the most unambiguous shift of the two erstwhile communist bastions joining hands against what they perceive to be American overreach in global affairs.
Quite remarkably, Qin also did not hold back on the possibility of a conflict with the U.S. saying, “If the US does not hit the brakes but continues to speed down the wrong path, no amount of guardrail can stop the derailment and overturning, and it is bound to fall into conflict and confrontation. Who will bear its disastrous consequences?”
He described the China-Russia partnership as “strategic” which he said, “will grow from strength to strength.”
There has been a dramatic decline in Sino-US relations lately underlined by a diversity of divergence over the shooting down of what Washington calls a spy Chinese balloon, what Beijing calls America’s interference with Taiwan and the approach to the Ukraine war.
On the Ukraine war, Qin said, it appears to have been driven by “an invisible hand … using the Ukraine crisis to serve certain geopolitical agendas.”
In the specific context of China supplying Russia with arms to help in the Ukraine war, he said, “Why should the US demand that China refrain from supplying arms to Russia when it sells arms to Taiwan?”
“Either a ceasefire will stop the war, restore peace and embark on a political settlement, or fuel the fire, expand the crisis and drag it into the abyss of losing control,” Qin, who at 56 is among the youngest to be appointed foreign minister in China’s history, said.
He was also candid in expressing his mind on Taiwan saying, “The Taiwan question is the bedrock of the political foundations of US-China relations, and the first red line that must not be crossed in US-China relations.” China calls Taiwan its province which it can annex any time at will while the U.S. generally and President Joe Biden particularly have said repeatedly said that Washington will stand by Taiwan in the event of any Chinese military escalation.
Qin said the U.S. “regards China as its primary rival and the most consequential geopolitical challenge. This is like the first button in the shirt being put wrong.” His first media conference on the sidelines of the annual meeting of China’s parliament was a deliberate move designed to send a signal both globally as well as domestically.
The US-China relations have steadily deteriorated since 2018 when then President Donald Trump launched a trade war with Beijing. From the origins of Covid to Taiwan and from militarization of South China Sea to the Ukraine war now, there is acrimonious disagreement between the two countries.
With the new five-year term on, the direction of U.S.-China relations has been clearly set by an unequivocal Beijing.
