By: Azhar Azam
At the direction of the US President Joe Biden, the so-called world superpower nowadays is engrossed in dispatching the most expensive fighter aircraft such as F-22 to detect and explode weather balloons and other airborne objects, posing “threats” to national “sovereignty.” The downing is followed by verbose press briefings, notifying deployment of recovery teams to map out the areas and search and identify the debris on the ocean floor.
Earlier, a purely civilian Chinese research and meteorological balloon blew off its planned course and entered the US airspace. After the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken termed the unintended entry of the anodyne unmanned airship as “clear violation” of America’s sovereignty and took it as an excuse to postpone his unannounced China visit, a US jet shot it down.
“Open lines of communication” still is the rhyme, the Biden administration continues to sing. But they would have made sense if they were activated before firing a missile at the balloon. Once the innocuous object was destroyed, the US commitment to maintain communication was immediately exposed, Blinken has been reciting for a month or so to follow up on and move forward an “open, candid” and “vitally important” conversation between the presidents of the two countries at the G20 summit Bali.
Mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, the topmost tenet of China’s Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence to build a better world, is the mainstay of the country’s foreign policy. Beijing has advocated the Bandung Spirit and acceded to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, each of which promotes the vision of respecting sovereignty and territorial integrity.
It is also one of the key pillars of Beijing's Global Security Initiative that conforms to the purposes and principles of the United Nations and guarantees security for all. On the other hand, the US continues to deliberately trespass into China’s sovereign waters, breaching the one China principle by frequently practicing political provocations and conducting surveillance operations and military drills around the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, where it has no sovereignty claims.
Just a handful of countries recognize Taiwan – aka the international community overwhelmingly sees the island as an inalienable part of China. The amendment in the US' Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 through the Taiwan Policy Act of 2022 – swapping the phrase in the interventionist law from provision of arms of “defensive” character to “arms conducive to deterring acts of aggression" by China – and encouragement of Taiwan’s independence challenge Beijing’s national security interests and give it the right to resolute countermeasures.
The “freedom and democracy” in Taipei bears no relation to American prosperity and security. China and Taiwan may have different political systems; they are one country. The US exploitation of the balloon episode to spark tensions in the Taiwan Strait dashes even Biden’s own pledge to manage competition and stabilize the relationship, which has been festered by his furtherance of trade and technology sanctions on China, and amounts to unsolicited intervention in Chinese affairs.
America is taking pride in detecting a Chinese “spy,” which was clearly visible from ground. But why would China give the US a sitting duck to attack when it has sophisticated satellites at its disposal? Washington's reaction tells all that it is in search of blowing the bugle of a new cold war. On one side, Washington seeks to manage competition and on the other, it is establishing military bases in Southeast Asia to undermine regional peace and stability and sanctioning Chinese firms to contain Beijing’s rise.
In late January, the sanctions regime took punitive measures against a Chinese space and technology firm for allegedly providing satellite imagery to Wagner operations in Ukraine. Soon after Biden declared the US was “in strongest position in decades to compete” with China, Washington on Friday linked six Chinese entities with the Chinese military’s alleged balloon surveillance program to outlaw them all.
Biden’s insistence to work with a China that “can advance American interests,” delusion of “winning the competition,” sanctions overuse and the proposed US lawmakers’ visit to Taiwan attempt to hold back the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies and challenge China’s territorial integrity, calling the US longstanding commitment to one-China principle into question.
These actions will adversely impact the delicate China-US relationship given Blinken and other American officials have consistently denied seeing any evidence of Beijing’s direct or indirect assistance to Moscow. This also supports some of the European leaders' belief the US is prolonging the conflict to profit from the Ukraine crisis by supplying lethal weapons to Kyiv. Biden's latest comments and repeated contravention of agreed fundamental consensus of diplomatic ties deliver the escalation ladder to Beijing, allowing it to take appropriate antidote measures.
Mending ties with China is equally a compelling necessity for the US. Beijing is a major economic power and the two economies are deeply entwined. The “draconian decoupling” and trade and technology war, some hawkish elements in Washington are pursuing or Biden sticks to, are hitting Americans hard. For instance, the China 301 investigation, intended at restricting Beijing’s economic and technology growth, augurs ill for the US economy since it from July 2018 through February 9 has saddled American businesses and consumers with additional tariffs of about $169 billion, according to the US Custom and Border Protection.
The US and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s mischaracterization of Beijing as a challenge to the self-styled western values, security and interests and concocted connections between the balloon and security of Asia-Pacific exposes a strong urge for cold war and brings downside risks to peace and stability in Asia-Pacific.
Stoltenberg’s thorny avant-garde idea, “weapons are the way to peace” and description of the Ukraine war as "fight for democracy," reveals the US stooge organization isn't serious about engaging China on arms control, underscoring the defensive alliance is devoid of purpose and seeks to reshape itself into an aggressive organization.
The US is making a mountain out of a molehill. The balloon didn't pose any threat to America’s sovereignty; it was nowhere close to an act of aggression either. Washington’s overdramatization of the force majeure aims to smear China internationally and renew the cold war-era bloc politics. Yet today's world is capable of cracking every covert plan that may destabilize countries across regions. That's why global nations want the US to back away from zero-sum competition and manage differences with China.