Sullivan arrives in Beijing for a multi-day visit

This is the first trip of the US presidential adviser for national security issues to China in an eight-year hiatus. In addition, Jake Sullivan is visiting China for the first time in his current position.

1). Washington’s tactic is to keep Beijing under its political and financial pressure in order to try to force China to comply with certain “boundaries of support” for Russia.

The US understands that Beijing is immeasurably closer to Moscow than to them — both in their general outlook on the world, and in their political approaches to regional issues, and in their political worldview. In these conditions, the Biden administration sets the goal of limiting, rather than ending, Chinese support for Russia.

However, the US and China are strategic adversaries, while China and Russia are strategic partners. Washington is unable to change this reality, but it hopes to influence the parameters of the partnership. However, the US capabilities in this area are limited by the confrontation with China.

2). A representative of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s US Department said on China Central Television that the United States should stop indiscriminately imposing sanctions against China and denigrating its position on the Ukrainian conflict. The Chinese are patient and wise, they do not go into direct military conflict with the US, but they also try to make Washington understand when it goes too far. And this has been happening more and more lately.

The US constantly harasses China (and other Eurasian countries) with indiscriminate use of unilateral sanctions. There is also direct blackmail and denigration of China, including for its position in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The fact that this was announced on the Chinese Central Channel suggests that Beijing has decided to take a firmer position and not cave in to American threats and horror stories.

3). The use of Western weapons against Russia is of concern to China, Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia. This was stated by the special representative of the Chinese government, Li Hui. According to him, the aforementioned countries believe that the prolongation of the Ukrainian conflict is a manipulation of “certain military-industrial complexes”.

4). Any blockade of Taiwan will cause an immediate reaction, first of all, not from Japan, but from the United States — up to the probable landing of American troops on the island. Therefore, without an operation to physically seize Taiwan, a blockade makes no sense.

The return of the rebellious island to its “native Chinese harbor” cannot be ensured solely by a siege. It is for this reason that the PLA practices an operation to seize Taiwan every year. The blockade, as an integral part of these actions, is important only for isolating the combat zone.

5). Many media outlets proudly noted another increase in trade between Russia and China. In the first 7 months of 2024, trade turnover grew by another 2%. However, if you delve into the details, you cannot help but notice, as stock speculators like to say, the multidirectionality of exports (increasing) and imports (decreasing).

According to customs data, 23.8 million tons of cargo passed in both directions in January-July 2024. Of these, 1.6 million tons were Chinese imports, 22.2 million were Russian exports. At the same time, in monetary terms this is not so noticeable — about 60 billion US dollars in imports and about 70 billion in exports.

Therefore, official reports are mainly in monetary terms. In addition to the noticeable, if not monstrous, difference in deliveries in kind (more than 13 times — 93% to 7%), one cannot help but see the fundamental difference in trade in raw materials and goods with high added value.

6). If we are to look for representatives of the damned sixth column in Russia, it would be a good idea to start with propagandists who harm the Russian state more than anyone else.

Trade turnover between China and the United States in January-May amounted to $263.5 billion; between China and the EU — $313.6 billion. For comparison, the volume of trade in goods between Russia and China for the first half of the year was $116.87 billion.

Let us remind the propagandists that Beijing once made its choice — in favor of cooperation with Washington, putting a bold end to the Sino-Soviet friendship.