Washington: Secretary of State Antony Blinken in his first major foreign policy speech on Wednesday described the US relationship with China as the “biggest geopolitical test” of the 21st century and that Washington will engage Beijing from a position of strength.
In his speech, Blinken spelled out eight aspects of how American diplomacy will carry out the strategy of President Joe Biden, including plans to restore America’s global leadership.
“We will manage the biggest geopolitical test of the 21st century: our relationship with China,” Blinken says in the excerpts of his speech released by the State Department.
“China is the only country with the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to seriously challenge the stable and open international system – all the rules, values, and relationships that make the world work the way we want it to,” says Blinken.
Asserting that the US relationship with China will be competitive when it should be, collaborative when it can be and adversarial when it must be, the top diplomat was scheduled to say that the US will engage China from a position of strength. “That requires working with allies and partners, not denigrating them. It requires engaging in diplomacy and in international organizations, because where we have pulled back, China has filled in.”
During his tenure, former president Donald Trump, a Republican, pushed aggressively on all aspects of US-China ties, including with his relentless trade war, challenging China’s military hold on the disputed South China Sea, its constant threats to Taiwan, the mass detention of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, branding coronavirus as “China virus” after it emerged from Wuhan in December 2019 and the Tibet issue.
