Day: April 20, 2024

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to China on Wednesday, according to a senior State Department official, in a trip that comes as he and others in Washington accuse Beijing of “fueling” Russia’s war in Ukraine by helping to resupply its military.

Blinken will travel to Shanghai and Beijing from Wednesday to Friday, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the plans ahead of time. The official said he could not yet confirm that Blinken would meet Chinese President Xi Jinping during the visit.

The trip will attempt to build on recent diplomatic outreach to Beijing, the official explained, but would also necessitate “clearly and directly communicating [American] concerns on bilateral, regional and global issues” where China and the United States differ on policy.

Among other issues, Blinken will raise “deep concerns” about alleged Chinese business support for Russia’s defense industrial base, the crisis in the Middle East and also in Myanmar, the issue of Taiwan and China’s recent “provocations” in the South China Sea, he said.

But the official played down the likelihood of results, with many of the differences between Washington and Beijing now deep-seated.

“I want to make clear that we are realistic and clear-eyed about the prospects of breakthroughs on any of these issues,” he said. 

He also demurred when asked if Blinken would meet Xi on Friday, as is rumored. But he said more scheduling details will be released later.

“It’s safe for you to expect that he’ll spend considerable time with his counterpart … Foreign Minister Wang Yi,” he said. “We are confident our Chinese hosts will arrange a productive and constructive visit.”

‘Fueling’ the Ukraine war

American officials have since last week accused Chinese businesses of keeping Russia’s war effort afloat by exporting technology needed to rebuild the country’s defense industrial base that supplies its military.

Speaking to reporters on Friday on the Italian island of Capri ahead of the Group of 7 foreign ministers’ meeting, Blinken said U.S. intelligence had “not seen the direct supply of weapons” from China to Russia but instead a “supply of inputs” required by Russia’s defense industry.

The support was “allowing Russia to continue the aggression against Ukraine,” he said, by allowing Moscow to rebuild its defense capacity, to which “so much damage has been done to by the Ukrainians.”

“When it comes to weapons, what we’ve seen, of course, is North Korea and Iran primarily providing things to Russia,” Blinken said.

“When it comes to Russia’s defense industrial base, the primary contributor in this moment to that is China,” he explained. “We see China sharing machine tools, semiconductors, [and] other dual-use items that have helped Russia rebuild the defense industrial base that sanctions and export controls had done so much to degrade.”  

Beijing was attempting, Blinken said, to secretly aid Russia’s war in Ukraine while openly courting improved relations with Europe. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz met with Xi in Beijing on Tuesday, and Xi is set to meet French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris next month.  

“If China purports, on the one hand, to want good relations with Europe,” he said, “it can’t, on the other hand, be fueling what is the biggest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War.”

The G-7 group, which also includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom, also released a statement on Friday calling on China “to press Russia to stop its military aggression.” 

The seven foreign ministers also expressed their concern “about transfers to Russia from business in China of dual-use materials and components for weapons and equipment for military production.”

In an email to Radio Free Asia, Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, did not deny Blinken’s claims. 

But he said China “is not a party to or involved in the Ukraine crisis” and that the country’s position on the war is “fair and objective.”

“We actively promote peace talks and have not provided weapons to either side of the conflict,” Liu said. “At the same time, China and Russia have every right to normal economic and trade cooperation, which should not be interfered with or restricted.”

Not the only tension

Blinken’s trip will come amid a slew of other squabbles between the world’s two major powers bubbling since last year’s Xi-Biden talks.

In a speech at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, on Thursday, FBI Director Christopher Wray repeated claims he made to Congress earlier this year that Chinese hackers were targeting key U.S. infrastructure and waiting to “wreak havoc” in case of a conflict.

On April 11, Biden notably warned Beijing that the United States would come to the aid of Philippine vessels in the South China Sea if they were attacked by China, calling the commitment “ironclad.”

On the economic front, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who herself visited Beijing this month, has slammed Beijing for what she says is over-subsidization of green technology, with cheap Chinese exports crippling development of competing industries worldwide.

Xi also expressed concerns to Biden during a phone call on April 2 about a bill that would allow the U.S. president to ban the popular social media app TikTok, which U.S. officials have called a national security threat, if its Chinese parent company does not divest.

China, meanwhile, on Friday forced Apple to scrub social media apps WhatsApp and Threads, both owned by Facebook parent company Meta, from its App Store, citing “national security concerns.”

Blinken will be joined on his trip by Liz Allen, the under secretary for public diplomacy and public Affairs; Daniel Kritenbrink, the assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific; Todd Robinson, the undersecretary for narcotics and law enforcement; and Nathaniel Fick, the U.S. ambassador-at-large for cyberspace and digital policy.

Gunfire, artillery and exploding bombs could we heard early Saturday around Myawaddy, a Myanmar city on the Thai border across from Mae Sot, as an ethnic Karen army closed in on about 200 junta troops stranded near a bridge between the two countries, according to the Thai military and a Radio Free Asia reporter on the scene.

The clash comes after the Karen National Liberation Army, an armed branch of the Karen National Union, on April 10 captured most of the junta’s Infantry Battalion 275 stationed outside of Myawaddy. 

But 200 junta soldiers were left stranded at the customs compound at the No. 2 Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge across the Moei River that links the two countries.

The setback is the latest in a series of battlefield losses suffered by the junta as various rebel groups push the military back across the country amid the country’s three-year civil war that was sparked by the junta’s coup in February 2021.

The clashes started at 3 a.m. on Saturday, Thai soldiers keeping watch along the river and local residents said. The fight centered around the customs house at the bridge as the rebels apparently were intent on wiping out the remaining junta troops, they said.

“The KNU opened the charge first, the junta troops fought back,” a Thai soldier who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity told RFA.

Several days ago, the junta announced “Operation Aung Zeya,” aimed at retaking Myawaddy, a key city on a major trading route with Thailand.

As the sun rose Saturday morning, the Myanmar Air Force deployed several sorties of Y-12, Mig-29 and MI-35 attack helicopters amid periodic exchanges of gunfire. Some residents at the bridge watched the planes with binoculars as a few strayed rifle bullets whistled by, prompting them to duck.

Smoke billowed into the sky following each artillery shell and bomb explosion.  

The casualties on both Karen and junta soldiers as well as civilians were not immediately known.

An ambulance was seen driving in and out of the neighborhood near Thailand’s Yepu Hill overlooking the casinos in Myawaddy, while several hundred people living near the river were moved by truck to a livestock ranch for safety.

Thailand’s foreign ministry said it was closely monitoring the situation with Thai security agencies on the ground on high alert.

“Thailand has been and will continue to provide further humanitarian assistance if necessary and will do our utmost to ensure the situation along the Thai-Myanmar border area returns to normalcy,” Nikorndej Balankura, the ministry spokesman said in a statement.

The famed quip “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned Lies, and statistics” can be updated for the modern era with “confusion, damned confusion, and opinion Polls” in the wake of the 2024  State of Southeast Asia surveys of  the region’s elites published  this month by a think tank in Singapore

The annual report by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute has sparked some alarmist headlines. “Majority in Southeast Asia would choose China over the U.S., survey suggests,” Al Jazeera went with. Nikkei Asia intoned: “Majority of ASEAN people favor China over U.S., survey finds”.  Guess what Chinese media ran with? “Survey shows Southeast Asians favor China over U.S”. 

Was this actually what the survey revealed? Yes, but only if one takes only a cursory flick through its pages to copy and paste some regional averages. 

The headlines were mostly generated by replies to question 31, an annual feature of the survey, which asks respondents: “If ASEAN were forced to align itself with one of the strategic rivals, which should it choose?” 

As a regional average, 61.1% of all Southeast Asian respondents said they’d pick the United States over China in the 2023 poll. This year, however, only 49.5% selected the U.S.. 

The 50.5% who said they’d pick China over the U.S. represents a 1 percentage point difference, notwithstanding the drop in U.S. favorability. In a survey in which pollsters interviewed 1,994 people, the difference between choosing China over the U.S. comes down to the opinions of about 20 people – perhaps not a reliable  measure of how a region of 660 million people regard the most important geopolitical issue of the day. 

The survey calculates the average figures for ASEAN as a whole by equal proportion per country, so tiny Brunei, which reliably opts for China over the U.S.,  gets the same weighting as the far more populous and geopolitically-important Philippines, which is consistently pro-U.S. 

The question itself asks whether ASEAN, not national governments, should pick between the U.S. and China. 

It is hard to imagine such a weighty geopolitical decision could ever be taken by consensus in a 10-nation bloc  whose members cannot agree on how to deal with the civil war in Myanmar. This makes the regional average worthless as a gauge since it presupposes an impossible outcome. 

Support for China?

A closer look at the swing in support for China raises other questions. If China was becoming more popular, as replies to question 31 implied, we might expect to see China’s popularity rise across the survey. But that’s not the case. 

Question 38: “How confident are you that China will ‘do the right thing’ to contribute to global peace, security, prosperity, and governance?” found that 29.5% of all respondents were “confident” or “very confident”. But, for the 2024 survey, it declined to 24.8%. 

To question 22: “In your view, which country/regional organization is the most influential economic power in Southeast Asia?” Some 59.5% said China, down again from last year. And of those who said China is the most important economic partner, 67.4% said they were worried about China’s growing influence, again a higher percentage than last year.

And on question 24: “In your view, which country/regional organization has the most political and strategic influence in Southeast Asia?” the percentage who said China, 43.9%, was up from last year. But 73.5% who said so were worried about Beijing’s growing regional political and strategic influence.

Early in the survey, around half of all respondents expressed concern that ASEAN is becoming increasingly disunited, something this survey makes clear. Dig down into the questions, and one finds that sentiments in the region are equally split between the two superpowers. 

On the core question ”If ASEAN were forced to align itself with one of the strategic rivals, which should it choose?” the regional average tilts in favor of China. But that regional average was massively skewed by a few countries. 

In the 2023 survey, some 58.9% of Laotians picked the U.S. over China. This always seemed to be a very odd result, because Vientiane is one of Beijing’s closest allies, and because around 80% of Loatian respondents favored China over the U.S. in the 2021 and 2022 surveys. The 2023 results were something of an anomaly. 

The 2024 results were also heavily skewed by Bruneians, who aren’t very influential on regional geopolitics. The number of respondents opting for the U.S. declined from 45% in 2023 to 29.9% in 2024. The percentage of Thais who would pick the U.S. over China fell from 56.9% in 2023 to 47.8%.

In an outcome that likely reflects anger at  Washington’s support for Israel in the Gaza War, the percentage of Malaysians picking Washington over Beijing dropped  from 45.2% to 24.9% over the past year, while those in Indonesia plunged from 46.3% to 26.8%. Next year, when the 2025 poll is published, the results could easily be different. 

ASEAN’s divide

A majority from Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia and Thailand said they’d pick China over the U.S.. A majority from Cambodia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam chose the U.S. over China. By state, the regional bloc is equally split 5-5. 

U.S. policy makers might take some comfort in the fact that the pro-U.S. stalwarts in ASEAN have been consistent throughout the years. In this year’s survey, 61.5% of Singaporeans chose the United States over China, compared to 61.1% in last year’s survey. Some 79.0% of Vietnamese said Washington over China, compared to 77.9% last year. And 83% of Filipinos were pro-U.S., up from 78.8% last year. 

But the pro-Chinese camp fluctuates. Laos swung  out of it in last year’s survey. Indonesia and Malaysia only became China-over-America in the 2022 survey, but they were previously U.S.-over-China. 

Cambodians tend to swing back and forth. Bruneians have been the only group to consistently pick China over the U.S. since these surveys began. 

Three Southeast Asian states – Singapore, the Philippines and Vietnam– are solidly pro-U.S. Only one is consistently pro-China (Brunei), and the others fluctuate each year. 

This actually should give Beijing more cause for concern than Washington. America’s stalwarts aren’t for turning. Beijing’s backers appear fickle and flighty.

David Hutt is a research fellow at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS) and the Southeast Asia Columnist at the Diplomat. He writes the Watching Europe In Southeast Asia newsletter. As a journalist, he has covered Southeast Asian politics since 2014. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of RFA.