Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due to depart on Thursday for a six-nation Asian tour, organised by Chinese state media. Global Times Ironically Explained The trip is being taken as a “farewell tour” as President Joe Biden’s administration slides into “garbage hour.”
The use of the term “garbage time” to describe the current situation in the Biden Administration is interesting from a cultural perspective, as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officially frowns on the term and has urged its citizens to refrain from using it.
“Garbage time” refers to the dejected agony at the end of a basketball game when one team has no hope of winning. Chinese youth are dissatisfied. talk With a shrinking economy, ossified Communist Party political leadership and a bleak future, some are denouncing that China is living through a “garbage hour” in history, and censors are working overtime to remove online articles and social media posts that mention the “garbage hour.”
of Global Times The Chinese Communist Party seems to take some joy in blowing the deadline whistle on Biden and Blinken, as if it is cheering itself up with the thought that America might be in a worse situation than China.
of Global Times They also take some pleasure in the idea of Blinken making one last visit to Asia before the door of the 2024 presidential election hits him on the hip, suggesting that America’s Asian allies should take a long, hard look at the political turmoil in the United States.
Blinken’s visit comes at a time when the United States is experiencing severe domestic political turmoil and chaos, Li Haidong, a professor at China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Thursday.
“Indeed, there are major contradictions and conflicts among the U.S. candidates over how to treat allies, which has brought great uncertainty to the future of U.S. foreign policy,” Li said, noting that this will make many countries, including those in the Asia-Pacific region, doubt the credibility of the U.S. and even become wary of it.
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“Blinken is a typical example of America’s two-sided diplomacy,” Lu Xiang, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Thursday. “This ‘farewell tour’ is unlikely to be substantive. [Chinese Foreign Minister] Wang will likely just reiterate his previous position.”
These “China experts” all agreed that it would be foolish for the Philippines to be persuaded by Blinken to stand up to China with U.S. support. Lu Xiang sneered that the Biden administration was using “idle time” to trick the Philippines into launching a suicidal challenge to Chinese power in the South China Sea, creating other “crises, conflicts and uncertainties” in the Pacific.
“Europe is in chaos with the Biden administration and I don’t think any European leader trusts Biden. The same is true in Asia. Who trusts Biden now?” Lew asked.
Of course, the State Department is not calling Blinken’s visit a farewell tour. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller Said Secretary of State Blinken announced on Wednesday that his 18th trip to Asia will include visits to Laos, Vietnam, Japan, Singapore, the Philippines and Mongolia. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will accompany Blinken to Japan and the Philippines where he will hold “2+2” security consultations with the foreign and defense ministers of the two countries.
Blinken is also scheduled to meet with officials from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) during his visit.
Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink Said The aim of Blinken’s visit was to build a “cooperative network of formal and informal relationships that advance shared interests across the region.”
“When the secretary leaves, it will show that we are fully committed to the organization of ASEAN and fully committed to the partnership throughout the region,” Krittenbrink said at an American Enterprise Institute (AEI) seminar on Wednesday.
Mira Rapp Hooper, director of the National Security Council’s East Asia division, said:
This is essentially the creation of a new regional architecture that will help strengthen the Indo-Pacific against all kinds of challenges, be they coming from China. [China],north korea [North Korea]climate change, and many other threats and challenges.
Among critics of the Biden administration: Global Times Some suspect the more immediate purpose of Blinken’s visit is to reassure Asia that the Biden administration, busy dealing with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the war in Gaza and the collapse of President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, has not forgotten about it.
For example, the State Department appears to be praying that Vietnam will not be upset that Secretary of State Blinken did not attend the funeral of Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong. Secretary of State Blinken was scheduled to attend the funeral, but his trip was postponed to attend a meeting between President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday morning.
Vietnam sits between the spheres of influence of China and the US and is a veritable “swing state” in Southeast Asia, as a US State Department official described it in reference to the US elections. Senior US official Wang Hooning will represent China at Trong’s funeral.
Another topic on Blinken’s likely final trip to Asia is “expanding cooperation” in Japan’s southwestern islands, which are less than 100 miles from Taiwan. Cooperation between Japanese and U.S. forces in the region would further tie Japan to Taiwan’s defense, irritating Beijing.
