US sanctions on China’s likely incoming defense minister may complicate the two nations’ plans to resume military dialogues that Beijing suspended in response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) visiting Taiwan, The South China Morning Post reported on Tuesday.
President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed in talks on Monday that maintaining communications was important, and China’s current defense minister, Wei Fenghe, is expected to represent Beijing in upcoming military talks. But Wei will be replaced in March, and his likely replacement, Li Shangfu, is under US sanctions.
The Post report said that China is going to bring up the issue of the sanctions on Li in talks between Wei and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. The US imposed sanctions on Li in 2018 over China’s purchase of Russian Su-35 combat jets and S-400 air defense missile systems.
At the time of the purchase, Li served as the head of China’s Equipment Development Department. The US targeted Li and the department with sanctions using the 2017 Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which the US also invoked to sanction Turkey for purchasing S-400s
The sanctions on Li could be a test of how serious President Biden is about maintaining communications with Beijing. After meeting with Xi, Biden said that Austin and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan would soon “be engaging with their counterparts from China.”
How the heck are we supposed to repair US-China relations when we go and sanction their defense minister? Of course that’ll invite retaliatory sanctions on Austin. How are you supposed to “avoid conflict” and keep open communications line when we do stupid (and purely symbolic) stuff like this?
It may make sense in Biden’s mind. But he isn’t fooling anybody else.
He might not be “fooling” anyone, but they certainly play along and that’s all that really matters.
The point is not to repair them so that we can have another provoked “unprovoked war”.
President Xi did his best to be courteous and polite during his meeting with the barbarian US president. He stressed the need for large countries to provide kind and patient leadership away from extinction during the complex times we all live in.
Amazing, right? Completely breaks the exceptional narrative, as if it wasn’t destroyed before.
How often must we note that all these sanctions are ILLEGAL, while the USA pretends to care about international law. You have 30 NATO pals and want China to have none.
I am not clear on where international law draws the line with sanctions. But clearly, some of the sanctions the US has imposed upon the entire world for not enforcing our own policies have gone too far.
I don’t think the US gov’t even refers to international law anymore. They call it rules based order and the US makes up rules that benefit it, as it goes along.
That’s exactly what China and Russia say, officially.
They’re not wrong.
First, entire definition of legal needs to be examined. Illegal under whose laws? Laws must be agreed upon by all. If the law is unjust, people are obligated to disobey it because it is not a law. It’s a totalitarian dictate.
Imperial rats don’t care about international laws. It’s clear to everyone. International law is a tool for them. The Anglo-American empire does not have any ‘pals’. It got vassals, subjects, slaves, and little minions. These slave nations do not have a voice of their own on international arena. They are only capable of following dictate of the parasitical empire.
The election will almost certainly strip Pelosi of her status as speaker of the House around the same time the Wei Fenghe is replaced next year. So, there’s that. But the days of the US dictating China’s trade policies are over.
The days of the U.S. dictating to the world are coming to an end. Empires trying to hold on to their dominant position will take desperate measures to hold on to their privileged position, even going to war. It looks as if the U.S. is willing to start WW3 as they see the threat of China and it seems that the leaders in the U.S. would rather start it now before China becomes an even stronger adversary.
Self-destructive policies, colossal mistakes, greed, decadence, arrogance. It all leads to death of empire…
It’s too late. Not even a major war can save this empire.
“Not even a major war can save these empires.”
Fixed, no charge.
You’re still trying to maintain this silly fantasy about existence of Russian empire? It ended in 1917. What we have emerging is a Eurasian Union and that is likely to become another global empire.
The only way it’s plausible to believe that the Russian empire ended in 1917 is to have died no later than 1919.