ANCHORAGE, AL – Not quite as planned: that might be the American’s response to the first face-to-face meeting between the United States and China. Though U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken opened the meeting by outlining concerns the Biden Administration has with the Chinese, Chinese Communist Party foreign affairs chief Yang Jiechi told the diplomats that “many people within the United States actually have little confidence in the democracy of the United States” and that the Chinese “believe that it is important for the United States to change its own image and to stop advancing its own democracy in the rest of the world.” The tension should not come as any surprise as it followed a recent move by President Biden to sanction 24 Chinese and Hong Kong officials ahead of the meeting over the determination that Beijing was rolling back democratic freedoms in Hong Kong. Jiechi also told Blinken that “the U.S. wasn’t “qualified to speak to China from a position of strength.” What is unknown at this point is whether the strained relationship will affect any of the changes or promises made by the Chinese in the Phase One Trade Agreement whereby they committed to buying more agricultural products from the U.S. while also making internal reforms to deal with forced technology transfers, theft of intellectual property, and barriers to fair trade.
(SOURCE: All Ag News)