With a potentially tense conflict between Russia and the US, it is critical for the US to understand China’s position, and China also wants to know how the US will play the game under the current situation. The US should calm down and take a more reasonable view of bilateral relations and the global order, and it should reconsider its approaches toward both China and Russia and learn that pressure, sanctions and provocations won’t solve any problems, but only make the US suffer more. Both China and Russia are aware of the US attempt to split them, but both sides have confidence and calmness to make the strategic partnership withstand the instigation from Washington.
The US is trying to force the international community to stand with it, and will not give any room for other countries to remain neutral or stay away from joining Western sanctions and condemn Russia, as China, India, Turkey, Israel and South Africa are doing. These countries have their own reasons for refusing to follow Western sanctions, as they make diplomatic decisions independently based on their own interests, their understanding of the issue and fairness in international relations, rather than just simply following the US or Russia.
These countries are the ones that can really contribute to mediating the conflict, as only those that are truly neutral will be accepted by the warring parties to be mediators, while the US can only worsen the situation through sanctions and supplying weapons. In this backdrop China and the US arranged the meeting between Yang, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, and Sullivan at the end of last year. Both sides have been in communication on the meeting and set the date and time.
They exchanged views on China-US relations and international and regional issues of common. The US might expect China to be a mediator with Russia, but it should not try to create discord between China and Russia even if it is not capable of doing so. Apart from the Russia-Ukraine conflict, other hot topics concerning regional or international relations, such as climate change, the Korean Peninsula issue and the Iran nuclear deal, could also be discussed in Monday’s meeting.
The US wants to use the Rome meeting to further pressure China to serve its sanctions against Russia, but China won’t be misguided, and they slammed Washington for its arrogance in bossing other countries to unconditionally follow its strategy while showing no respect to the core interests of others. However, the differences won’t allow the No.1 and No.2 economies to cut off channels of communication, since there are many issues on which the two sides share common concerns. The scheduled Yang-Sullivan meeting, nearly four months after the virtual summit was held between the top leaders of the two countries, demonstrated that the China-US high-ranking communication mechanism is stably running and is a positive sign to the world at such a turbulent time. The stably sustained high-ranking communication between China and the US, the two major powers whose relations have long affected the overall development of the world, will send positive signals to the world at this time.
