U.S. protests about human rights violations in Xinjiang and Hong Kong fall on deaf ears in Beijing. Violations of "national sovereignty," say the Chinese.
It cuts both ways. Don't send spy balloons over a country if you want to discuss "normalizing" relations with it. National sovereignty.
The Biden Administration has a good ear for the back-and-forth of diplomacy with the Chinese.
I probably ought to have calibrated these remarks a little lower.
But I do find it ironic that China's exquisite sensitivity to national "face"--the respectful etiquette of sovereign diplomacy--is now wielded by the U.S., which is more usually the country trying to negotiate the bottom line, whatever the opponent's rhetoric.
Xi apparently warned Trump that if he didn't rein in Mike Pompeo's hurtful remarks about China, the U.S.-China trade deal might suffer. So Trump, of course, did.
This week the US detected a Chinese spy balloon some 60000 feet above its territory. This caused a diplomatic incident with the US cancelling an upcoming visit to China by the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken.
I suppose in the opaque world of espionage and international deceit this was to be expected, but at the same time I found it odd. I mean, countries spy on countries, we know that to be a fact. We know that China spies on the US, and that China spies on Australia. I am assuming that it is a fact that the US spies on China, and that my country, Australia spies on China. If Australia does not spy on China then I would be wanting to know, why on earth aren’t they? They should be upping their game and get right on it. When I was a young lad, one of the first memories I have of international politics was the shooting down of an American spy plane, the U-2 piloted by Gary Powers over Russia. On this occasion, when the US learnt their plane had been downed, they said that it was a ‘weather plane that had strayed off course’. [I’m thinking of that saying about history repeating itself].
Look, countries spy on those they consider hostile. This is not too much to get one’s head around, and confecting some moral outrage when one country catches another at the oldest profession in the world – ok, second oldest – is simply hubris. It’s disingenuous, self righteous, hypocritical nonsense. Can I borrow Bentham’s quote? Nonsense upon stilts! For heaven’s sake, the US even spies on its friends, remember the mini-scandal when they spied on the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, some years ago? And my country spies on allies as well – witness the scandal when caught spying on East Timor during commercial negotiations.
Maybe the growing tension between the US and China, stoked in no small way by the circling of China by an ever increasing number of US military bases, needs to be addressed by way of avoiding some cataclysmic military conflict rather than focusing on an everyday occurrence – one nation spying on another.
Disappointing that the visit to China has been cancelled. The US really playing hard ball with China, what with five new bases in the Philippines added to the hundreds already surrounding China, and now the cancelling of this trip. We really need to see the heat taken out of this escalating relationship. We need to take the 'war' option off the table.
Good move by Washington.
U.S. protests about human rights violations in Xinjiang and Hong Kong fall on deaf ears in Beijing. Violations of "national sovereignty," say the Chinese.
It cuts both ways. Don't send spy balloons over a country if you want to discuss "normalizing" relations with it. National sovereignty.
The Biden Administration has a good ear for the back-and-forth of diplomacy with the Chinese.
I probably ought to have calibrated these remarks a little lower.
But I do find it ironic that China's exquisite sensitivity to national "face"--the respectful etiquette of sovereign diplomacy--is now wielded by the U.S., which is more usually the country trying to negotiate the bottom line, whatever the opponent's rhetoric.
Xi apparently warned Trump that if he didn't rein in Mike Pompeo's hurtful remarks about China, the U.S.-China trade deal might suffer. So Trump, of course, did.
COMMENT ON THE NEWS
US Shoots Down Chinese Spy Balloon.
This week the US detected a Chinese spy balloon some 60000 feet above its territory. This caused a diplomatic incident with the US cancelling an upcoming visit to China by the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken.
I suppose in the opaque world of espionage and international deceit this was to be expected, but at the same time I found it odd. I mean, countries spy on countries, we know that to be a fact. We know that China spies on the US, and that China spies on Australia. I am assuming that it is a fact that the US spies on China, and that my country, Australia spies on China. If Australia does not spy on China then I would be wanting to know, why on earth aren’t they? They should be upping their game and get right on it. When I was a young lad, one of the first memories I have of international politics was the shooting down of an American spy plane, the U-2 piloted by Gary Powers over Russia. On this occasion, when the US learnt their plane had been downed, they said that it was a ‘weather plane that had strayed off course’. [I’m thinking of that saying about history repeating itself].
Look, countries spy on those they consider hostile. This is not too much to get one’s head around, and confecting some moral outrage when one country catches another at the oldest profession in the world – ok, second oldest – is simply hubris. It’s disingenuous, self righteous, hypocritical nonsense. Can I borrow Bentham’s quote? Nonsense upon stilts! For heaven’s sake, the US even spies on its friends, remember the mini-scandal when they spied on the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, some years ago? And my country spies on allies as well – witness the scandal when caught spying on East Timor during commercial negotiations.
Maybe the growing tension between the US and China, stoked in no small way by the circling of China by an ever increasing number of US military bases, needs to be addressed by way of avoiding some cataclysmic military conflict rather than focusing on an everyday occurrence – one nation spying on another.
Disappointing that the visit to China has been cancelled. The US really playing hard ball with China, what with five new bases in the Philippines added to the hundreds already surrounding China, and now the cancelling of this trip. We really need to see the heat taken out of this escalating relationship. We need to take the 'war' option off the table.