Texas blackout sparks shock in China
How does the US, the most powerful country on earth, keep failing so astonishingly to respond to natural disasters? That question is on the minds of many in China and beyond, as they watched in disbelief a severe winter storm sweeping through parts of the US, leaving over 30 people dead and several million in the dark without power.
The shock was not over the havoc the harsh weather wrought, but was sparked by how unprepared various aspects of the US system were and how the country’s governing apparatus, at both the federal and local levels, responded to the natural disaster: knee- jerk fingering- pointing and partisan fights and profound ineptness and incompetence – which have already been laid bare in its failure to contain the COVID- 19 pandemic.
But underneath the noisy narratives pushed by various political and other special interests, the failure was the result of a confluence of inherent problems for the country’s backward power supply infrastructure, including outdated generators and transmission lines and lack of regulation and national coordination, observers noted.
As hundreds of millions of Chinese enjoyed an unexpectedly warm and safe Chinese New Year this week
Russia as major rivals, US allies may not closely follow the US in waging a new cold war as the G7’ s perceptions regarding China and Russia are divided and the US cannot fulfill what they need and want, analysts said.
Biden, who took over from Trump on January 20, has conveyed a message of re- engagement with the world and global institutions by bringing the US back into the WHO and rejoining the Paris accord.
The White House said Biden would focus his remarks on a global response to COVID- 19 vaccine production and distribution as well as the importance of updating global rules to tackle economic challenges such as those posed by China.
Experts noted that choosing the G7 meeting as his first debut in a multilateral setting instead of other events like Davos attended by more new emerging economies shows the US is still relying on its small clique, which will not help the US recover its past glories.
The Biden administration’s policy toward China and Russia is clear – strategic competition, and it has become a bipartisan consensus upheld by every administration. The other G7 nations are all US allies in the West and the US wants to use the opportunity to create new enemies to unite allies, said Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations at China Foreign Affairs University.
The US treats the alliance system left over from the Cold War as its most valuable strategic resource in the competition with China and Russia, and would use every chance to rally its allies or draw even more partners globally to cement its political and economic leadership, Li noted.
“The choreographed appearance in the G7 meeting reflects the essence of the Democratic Party: soft on the outside while hard on the inside. That is to say, when it talks about tackling challenges posed by China, it actually means besieging China,” said Chen Fengying, a research fellow at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.
Chen pointed out that the group will likely continue to draw their lines on “values” such as human rights and affairs related to China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Hong Kong, but will unlikely change their position on economic and currency cooperation with China.
Hard to reunite
China is now the EU’s biggest trading partner, overtaking the US in 2020. Analysts noted that this has helped the EU gain bargaining chips with the US and it also raised questions on whether the US’ ambition to rally allies would be realized.
Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at Renmin University, said what Biden wants to do at the G7 meeting is like putting “new wine into an old bottle,” but it will not succeed as the attitude of other G7 countries and their policies toward China differ.
“Not all of them see China as the ‘ enemy’ such as France and Germany. Even Japan, one of the US’ most important allies in Asia may not view China as an ‘ enemy.’ Under such circumstances, few of them would choose a side and a new ‘ cold war’ is not in line with their interests,” Wang told the Global Times on Thursday.
More importantly, what benefits would Biden bring to the alliances? Wang asked, noting that the US cannot help Europe gain strategic independence or digital sovereignty like the bloc has longed for, neither can it help Japan solve its new energy problem.
Such an “alliance” will not last long, he said.
“China and Russia are not willing to engage in an ideological confrontation with the West, and both of them are deeply intertwined with the West in fields like trade, energy, climate change and so on, so European countries won’t fully obey the US’ demands,” said Yang Jin, from Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
China- Russia ties today are not like China- Soviet ties in the past. Hostility and pressure from the US is automatically pushing China and Russia to stand side by side and back to back, which makes instigation from the US impossible, said experts.
There are no boundaries and no off- limits in China- Russia strategic cooperation. Both sides have made some tough responses to the West when the US and its allies provoked and harmed their interests, but this kind of reasonable retaliation is “necessary in correcting the wrongdoings made by the West,” Yang said.
He noted that competition and friction among the US, Europe, Russia and China have always existed over the past few decades, and these have not prevented them from cooperating with each other.
Choosing the G7 meeting as Biden’s first debut in a multilateral setting shows the US is still relying on its small clique, which will make no difference in the country recovering its past glories, said experts