With the start of the new year, key personnel in China’s foreign affairs establishment have quickly taken up their posts.
Song Tao (宋濤) took over as director of the Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO). The Standing Committee of the Chinese National People’s Congress appointed then-ambassador to the US Qin Gang (秦剛) to serve as minister of foreign affairs.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken last Sunday confirmed that he and Qin have already spoken on the telephone. Qin’s predecessor, Wang Yi (王毅), is now director of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee, succeeding Yang Jiechi (楊潔篪) as the party’s top foreign affairs official.
These prompt appointments might signal Beijing’s wish to take advantage of slightly relaxed US-China relations.
China and the US risk being caught in a Thucydides trap, so they want to keep conflicts under control. According to China’s party-state system, government appointments were supposed to be announced at the National People’s Congress in March. The appointments might have been made earlier because China faces an economic downturn, and as Taiwan and the US are to enter their respective presidential election seasons soon and candidates are expected play up conflicts with the CCP. By taking up their posts early, the officials would be well prepared to respond.
Most of China’s personnel responsible for relations with the US are familiar faces, so China’s policy direction should be predictable, with Beijing trying to avoid conflicts and uphold China’s dignity as a great power. Some Taiwanese media companies say that the new personnel are “wolf warriors 2.0,” but officials such as Qin have other skills up their diplomatic sleeves.
The US has picked up on Beijing’s signal that it wants to manage conflicts pragmatically, but it knows that time is limited. The US economy is not doing well, and this is expected to affect the US presidential elections. Although Blinken said that his phone call with Qin was only to discuss the two countries’ relations, it was also a warm-up for his forthcoming visit to China.
In contrast to the US and China’s efforts to avoid conflict, China’s moves toward Taiwan differentiate between the Taiwanese public and the administration of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文). In Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) New Year’s message, he tried to soothe the Taiwanese public by mentioning “one family across the Taiwan Strait” without mentioning “unification,” as he did last year.
On the other hand, China has stepped up pressure on the government. On New Year’s Eve, Chinese warplanes approached the coast of Taoyuan and Hsinchu County, and had to be chased away. The new TAO director’s New Year’s message, titled “Join hands to create a better future,” said that on the basis of the “one China” principle and the so-called “1992 consensus,” he would start consultations with people from all walks of life in Taiwan on cross-strait relations and unification.
In her New Year’s Day remarks, Tsai extended goodwill to China regarding its COVID-19 outbreak by offering assistance, but her implicit stance that Taiwan and China are two separate countries will be off-putting for Chinese officials.
This will be a testing year for relations between Taiwan, the US and China. Blinken is expected to raise the “Taiwan issue” when he visits China. The new speaker of the US House of Representatives might also visit Taiwan. Election campaigns are to start in the US and Taiwan. Can China’s new foreign relations team stabilize their country’s relations with the US? The answer will have a big effect on peace in the Taiwan Strait, and the whole world.
Yang Ying-chao is an associate professor.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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