US failure to act on its words a key hurdle in Sino-America relations

By: Azhar Azam

In a telephone conversation with Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Qin Gang, the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken emphasized the importance of maintaining "open lines of communication," which has now become a catchphrase of the Biden administration, to "responsibly manage" the relationship and move forward on an "open, candid" and "vitally important" conversation between the presidents of the two countries at the G20 summit in Bali.


After the U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's rabble-rousing trip to the Taiwan region last year, Blinken's planned visit to Beijing in February prognosticated a thaw, yet the U.S. inflation of the weather balloon saga as a "national security threat" to call off the trip and sanctions on Chinese firms over their alleged close ties with China's military dashed the U.S. President Joe Biden's pledge to sensibly manage differences, prevent conflict, work together on urgent global issues and maintain open lines of communication.

The U.S. is just pretending to renew diplomatic talks with China and stabilize a tense relationship. Washington indeed isn't interested in undergirding or bringing some sort of stability to the relationship for it is acclimatized to shuttering communication channels and exploiting every opportunity to cripple the bilateral relations and hobble China's economic and technological growth.

On Monday, the Biden administration added several Chinese companies to the U.S. Commerce Department's export control list. Washington's willingness to engage Beijing remains vague as its policies seek to bide time until another instance arrives to break off the negotiations.

Blinken is gearing up for a trip to Beijing. What's truly essential during this trip is not to move beyond mere discussion and focus on concrete action. A "candid and productive" engagement to ameliorate the bilateral relationship and overcome economy, trade, and investment rows between the two powers is crucial; exchanges, whenever they take place, should be backed by concrete action in these areas as well as in respecting each other's independence.

Aimed at restricting China's economic and technological growth, the Section 301 Investigation against China is one of the major areas of concern that seek immediate redressal as tariffs under the controversial legislation have to date cost Americans about $182 billion, according to the U.S. Custom and Border Protection, and the U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned it will be "disastrous" for the country to destabilize the critical Sino-America trade and economic relationship.


Earlier this year, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) received nearly 1,500 comments against tariffs that former President Donald Trump placed and his successor maintained. A majority of them complained these tariffs had put significant pressure against bank loans and credit lines, pushed consumer prices by 35-40 percent, raised the cost of transit projects, triggered a 9 percent reduction in headcount, and led to a decline in wages, employment and investment with onshoring not proving cost-effective due to 200 to 300 percent higher prices of raw materials compared to China.

Trade between Beijing and Washington mostly benefits American firms, consumers, and the economy. As tariffs are absorbed by importers, passed on to consumers, or shared between them, either way, they are wreaking real pain to the U.S. firms, consumers, and economy, necessitating a sharp reduction, if not complete elimination, on Chinese goods.

Disenchanted with the trade war for it has raised their production costs, small and large businesses in the U.S. have been demanding their federal government end Trump-era levies on Chinese imports. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce wants tariff relief; the Information Technology Industry Council is urging the USTR to completely roll back the Section 301 duties. The biggest lobbying group in the U.S. and the global tech trade association share common views: These tariffs jeopardize America's manufacturing competitiveness, exacerbate inflation effects and inflict "undue economic hardships" on domestic companies, workers, and families.

The Biden administration should avoid treading on the same risky path and deliver on its word to hold candid talks with China to damp down tensions around trade, technology, and other issues. Pelosi's visit to the Taiwan region last year risked unintended consequences for the region; the U.S. needs to set some guardrails on this core question to prevent the competition from veering into a conflict.

Blinken recently re-expressed concerns China may be considering the provision of weapons to Russia, admitting the U.S. hadn't seen the "line crossed." This as well as other actions such as export controls and foreign investment reviews are the major irritants to "thaw" the relationship. A hype-up on a mendacious and unfounded story about the alleged Chinese spy base in Cuba, ignoring the U.S.'s illegal military facility in Guantanamo, reveals the U.S.'s double standards and may complicate the bilateral relations with China.

The rivalry between the two world powers is neither desirable for them nor for the rest of the world. China and the U.S. have plenty to disagree about, yet only inclusive, meaningful talks on trade, technology, climate change, global peace, and respect for each other's sovereignty can cut the first turf and make a new start. The number of exchanges perhaps won't produce results unless Washington chains its pledges and assurances with actions and deeds. This is the area the Biden administration needs to focus on to turn over a new leaf to protect "the most consequential bilateral relationship" in the world.

*My article that first appeared at CGTN:

NATO return to Asia is a threat to ASEAN and continent

By: Azhar Azam

Centrality constitutes the foundation of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Charter. The concept guides the way for the bloc to play a proactive role as the main driving force for its relations and cooperation with non-members and encourages it to become the dominant regional platform to overcome challenges and engage with external partners.

The US President Joe Biden's "Indo-Pacific Strategy" claims to endorse the ASEAN centrality and support its efforts to deliver sustainable solutions to the region's most pressing challenges; it actually aimed to undercut the bloc's core objective by building the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (the Quad) as a "premiere regional grouping" and bringing together Asia-Pacific allies through the AUKUS (Australia, the UK and the US), a trilateral security pact, which received a strong renunciation from Indonesia and Malaysia.

These institutional initiatives as well as the US Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) – which didn't mention ASEAN centrality once – contradicted America's commitment to ASEAN and its centrality. The exclusion of Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos from the IPEF further cast doubts within the alliance about Biden's seriousness to the grouping's unity.

Unsurprisingly, ASEAN's response to the Quad, a hotbed of the US strategic rivalry with China, has been muted for its tendency to challenge the alliance's centrality and securitize the region by creating an "Asian NATO." The IPEF isn't received well within the region either where people of the major economies hold negative views about the initiative or are uncertain the initiative will lend a positive impact on the region (Q15).

People in ASEAN countries remain "ambivalent" in cooperating with mini-lateral alliances such as the Quad. The institutional competition between the Quad and ASEAN is another factor that urges the regional states to draw closer to China in an attempt to hedge against the consequences of Washington's strategic rivalry with Beijing.

As ASEAN centrality barricades the success of the Biden administration's dangerous goals, it has been forcing regional states into taking sides with the US against China as it did to the neutralist countries, which nevertheless resisted the pressure and maintained their neutrality, during the Cold War. In order to prevail upon the political and economic union, America's military presence is being promoted to gain its support for the US subversive activities such as a "free and open Indo-Pacific (FOIP)."

Some Quad diplomats are also striving to link the "ASEAN Framework of the Indo-Pacific (AOIP)" with the "FOIP." But the use of the term "Indo-Pacific" by the bloc doesn't mean the alliance is pursuing institutional bandwagoning with the Quad or supports its unruly vision. The AOIP rather responds to the four-nation alliance's presence in the region and reaffirms ASEAN's common interest to maintain peace, stability and prosperity in Southeast Asia and the wider region.

China's endorsement of several key elements, including independence, openness, development and cooperation, has fostered an integrated approach to regional growth and stability in 2022. This concerted effort has propelled bilateral trade to nearly $1 trillion and with the launch of the third version of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (ACFTA 3.0), the cooperation is set to witness further advancements, benefitting the people across both regions.

Already 90% of the goods traded between China and ASEAN get zero tariff treatment. Since the ACFTA 3.0 will further reduce duties and enhance trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, it is expected to add a strong impetus to high-quality regional development including in digital economy and green transformation and complements the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership for open and inclusive regional growth. The recent ASEAN summit has also appreciated the progress made on the ongoing ACFTA 3.0 Upgrade negotiations.

In a number of meetings held so far this year, China and ASEAN states have agreed to jointly uphold multilateralism, deepen economic engagement, support ASEAN neutrality and inclusiveness, and reject the Cold War mentality and bloc confrontation. During these discussions, diplomats emphasized the regional countries didn't want a conflict between China and the US and sought to maintain a strong economic relationship with Beijing and others.

Yet once the US failed to rally support from the region for its "Indo-Pacific strategy" and stingy IPEF that denies market access to Southeast Asia, it is endeavoring to jeopardize ASEAN centrality and foment divisions within the alliance. These sorts of coercive tactics and aggressive regional policies risk the stability of Asia-Pacific as well as have also led to a decline in the US influence and credibility in the region.

ASEAN strictly practices a policy of non-intervention. In its foundational document (the 1976 Bangkok Declaration), the alliance showed determination to safeguard regional stability and security from external interference. It was further solidified through Article 2 of the 1976 Treaty of Amity and Cooperation which embodied universal principles including mutual respect for independence and every country's right to lead its existence free from external interference, subversion and coercion. It continues to manage its security from outside interference.

But NATO intrusion in Asia-Pacific, after the buildup of the Quad and the AUKUS, poses hard challenges to these fundamental tenets, putting ASEAN centrality in a chimera and undermining regional peace and prosperity. The opening of the so-called defensive alliance's liaison office in Japan represents more intense threats NATO is bringing to the region with possible spillover effects in the entire continent.

The regional countries cannot be swindled by the US assurances that it isn't trying to create NATO in Asia-Pacific and the AUKUS is just a technology-transferring arrangement, not a security alliance. The Southeast Asian countries had long realized the AUKUS was part of a much bigger dynamic, the Quad; they remain concerned about regional security as NATO edges closer to them and the US continues making efforts to militarize the region.

*My article that first appeared at CGTN

G7 neoclimatism will aggravate Global South’s climate challenges

By: Azhar Azam

In its updated data, the World Meteorological Organization estimates that extreme weather, climate and water-related hazards have caused almost 12,000 disasters between 1970 and 2021. The UN specialized agency assesses $4.3 trillion in economic losses and a death toll of more than two million.

The developing countries bore the brunt with over 9 in 10 deaths and 60% of economic losses as people in Africa, South Asia, South and Central America and small islands are 15 times more likely to die from climate change. Should developed countries meet their promises of climate finance and shift focus from strategic or systemic rivalries, these deaths and economic losses could be prevented. So far, they have failed.

In 2009, advanced economies pledged to provide $100 billion a year to poor countries by 2020 and at COP21 agreed to continue their collective mobilization objective through 2025, setting a new collective quantified goal from this floor to help strengthen the developing countries in coping with the climate challenges.

Even as it was a slither of developing countries' actual requirements, not only richests missed the target; they didn't ensure climate finance was “new and additional.” Furthermore, developed countries undermined the developing world's progress in health, education, women rights, poverty alleviation and sustainable development goals by diverting development aid budget to climate change action.

Leaders at G7 agreed to accelerate efforts in response to the Glasgow Climate Pact that urges them to “at least double” their collective provision of climate finance to help the developing world achieve balance between climate mitigation and adaptation as well as jointly mobilize $100 billion through 2025. Given they haven’t met their prior pledge over the last four years (2020 and 2023), expecting them to meet the new goal will be a mere phantasm.

At summit, G7 states committed to realize a “fully or predominantly” decarbonized sector by 2035 without giving a timeline for phasing out “domestic unabated coal power generation” to keep 1.5°C temperature rise within reach after Japan, which derives about 30% of energy from coal, and Germany lobbied against setting a deadline.

Japan’s and US support to counter the climate challenge have invariably been ambiguous. Tokyo is a staunch supporter of Kyiv in the Ukraine conflict; two Japanese companies, Mitsui and Mitsubishi, hold a combined 22.5% stakes in Russia’s Sakhalin-2 plant. Despite its strong opposition to Moscow's invasion, the Kishida government is allowing its firms to retain shares – buttressing Russia's "war machine."

Environmentalists and countries such as South Korea have been expressing profound concerns over the Japanese decision to discharge one million tons of potentially radioactive Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station water into the Pacific Ocean for it threatens the health and life of millions of people and aquatic creatures.

Oceanographers and marine biologists continue to witness inconsistency between assurances and “quantity and quality of the data” and perceive “real implications for ocean life and the human lives” as well as find "an abundance of data demonstrating serious concerns about releasing radioactively contaminated water.”

G7 communiqué welcomed steady progress of decommissioning work at the plant and Japan’s “transparent efforts” based on scientific evidence; questions linger about transparency of the water discharge as experts say the Japanese data shouldn’t be taken at face value and Pacific Islands and neighboring countries raise concerns.

Joe Biden is counting quite heavily on Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to portray himself an unfaltering climatist; he too has greenlit one of the largest drilling projects, Willow project, that will intensify the devastating impacts of climate change. In fact, the “climate president” has granted more drilling licenses than did his anti-climate predecessor during his 25-month term.

Protectionism, whether through tariffs and sanctions to gain leverage in negotiations or shifting manufacturing back to the country, is also a defining attribute of Biden’s coercive economic policy. While “de-risking and diversifying” in the communiqué serves as a catch-all strategy to ensure the G7 domination in economic and technology sectors; his IRA seeks to dominate the group members by tempting their businesses.

Biden's protectionism is equally hurting Asia-Pacific economies. The US president vetoed the congressional resolution that sought to levy tariffs on solar panel imports from Southeast Asian countries – Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam; once domestic production comes online, tariffs will be reinstated after June 2024.

It indicates the US is sparing no area to thrive outside its jurisdiction and politicizing climate change to control each and every sector of the global economy. This also sums up the shifty character of the G7 commitment to a "prosperous (and) secure" Asia and the Pacific, the most disaster-prone region in the world. More critically, this effort to exploit climate change for dominance will eventually exacerbate Global South’s climate challenges.

The developing countries have suffered immensely in the hands of the world’s most industrialized nations. They brought unimaginable humanitarian crises across poor regions through their relentless, brutal invasions yet aren’t prepared to provide even half of what the struggling countries need. It was symbolized by the G7 communiqué to provide $21 billion against a requirement of $56 billion.

Before the 2022 G7 summit, a damning analysis by the Oxfam International and the People's Vaccine Alliance of the Imperial College London's report singled out the wealthy group’s failure to deliver its pledged vaccines for 600,000 deaths (one every minute) in the poor countries. It found Canada and the UK as the “worst offenders” and slammed each of the members that had “massively betrayed” the developing world, exposing their commitment to inoculate the Global South.

Prior to the recent gathering, a new Oxfam study exposed the gluttonous character of the richest alliance by revealing it owed low- and middle income countries $13.3 trillion in unpaid aid and funding to climate change action. Rather than reimbursing what they owe, well-heeled economies are demanding them to pay $232 million a day in debt repayments without committing a single cent to the vulnerable countries such as Pakistan, which saw $30 billion in damages and losses from catastrophic flooding while contributing less than 1% to global emissions.

In Hiroshima, G7 has not only failed to respond to climate crisis the least developed countries and small island states are facing in the form of unprecedented deaths and a “disproportionately” high cost of up to 30% of their GDP; Biden Inc. neoclimatism and behavior as a corporation, aka profit-only approach, will erode the environment and aggravate the problems of the developing world.

Partnership is the key to clean, green transition

By: Azhar Azam

The European Union (EU) needs to tread carefully while screening the bloc's outbound investment in China's cutting-edge technologies for it is a "very heavy instrument," Liesje Schreinemacher told the Financial Times. Europe's green energy transition will be impossible without Beijing, the Dutch Foreign Trade Minister further warned.

In another rebuke to the U.S.'s aggressive posture toward China, she emphasized the power to exercise economic preferences should rest with the national governments. "They (Chinese) are doing a lot on (research and development) and it would really be a shame if we decoupled fully from China," she said.

Schreinemacher sends a powerful message: Not all countries on the European continent support the Group of Seven (G7) Communiqué from the summit in Hiroshima that called for "de-risking" trade with China. That terminology represents a protectionist maneuver as part of a catch-all strategy to contain the world's second-largest economy economically and technologically.

China and the EU have generally maintained a mutually beneficial trade and technology relationship. China is one of the EU's largest trading partners and both of them benefit from each other's expertise in the production of technology equipment and solar panels. Beijing is also a key source of important raw materials for automakers in Europe.

America has forced the Netherlands to impose technology export restrictions on China, hoping Amsterdam will safeguard its own national interests. The U.S. is expecting the Netherlands to safeguard its own national interests from a country, which Amsterdam dubs as "absolutely" a priority partner. Even the U.S. tech businesses have warned their government that the trade curbs on China could cause "enormous damage" to its own industry.

On the eve of the fourth Ministerial meeting of the Trade and Technology Council (TTC) between the U.S. and EU in Sweden on May 30 and 31, the U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, accompanied by Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Trade Representative Katherine Tai, arrived with a heavy-handed approach to hard-press the European officials into taking hostile stance vis-à-vis China.

Unlike the G7, here, many countries place “reliability and trust” underneath their cultural, diplomatic, economic and political relationship with China, describe Beijing a “top-tier global actor,” don't want to become a U.S.'s "vassal," believe it's necessary to "seek contact proactively" with the East Asian nations China and acknowledge they need to work with China to tackle existential global challenges. The EU members are wary of ceding their sovereign authority on export controls and outbound investment monitoring to another body as each of them has its own national interests.

Clean energy cooperation holds tremendous potential for powering Europe's green growth through Beijing-Brussels collaboration. After building a battery plant in Germany, China's Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Limited has already announced it will build a 100 gigawatt-hour (GWh) EV battery plant in Hungary, which will be Europe's largest.

The $7.9 billion project, one of the biggest-ever foreign investments in the country, is expected to generate roughly 9,000 jobs. The world's biggest EV battery maker has contracts with Ford Motor, Honda Motor, BMW, Daimler, Toyota, Volvo and Tesla. Once completed, the new plant could supply battery cells and modules to carmakers in Europe such as Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis and Volkswagen as well as accelerate the continent's e-mobility and clean energy transition.

China has acquired an enormous solar photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing capacity – roughly 75 percent and 85 percent in modules and cells as of 2021, according to the International Energy Agency – on the back of its huge domestic demand and heavy investments since 2011. This allowed the country to emerge as the world's largest renewable energy producer and offer these products to the rest of the world including Europe at economical prices, an edge hardly any other country has over high labor costs and lacking ability to manufacture panels on such a large-scale.

As the EU attempted to shift from fossil fuel to sustainable energy such as wind and solar, China in 2022 exported 86.6 GW (according to the U.S. Department of Energy, one GW is equal to 3.125 million solar panels or 100 million LEDs) of PV modules to Europe, up 112 percent. This highlights Beijing's critical role in the European ambitious plan to cut reliance on coal, oil and gas and fast-track Europe's clean energy transition.

Schreinemacher comments: "We (China and the EU) need each other when it comes to making our economies more sustainable and the green transition." This is the basic premise that guides the way to expand the fruitful Beijing-Brussels cooperation on renewable energy and technology to advance sustainable economic development and meet climate goals. Trade and technology barriers by either of them shouldn't decelerate the hard-won gains on clean energy transition across the two continents and the world.

*My article that first appeared at CGTN and in Express Tribune.