China urges US to be ‘rational’ as US envoy explores way forward. Professor Ling-Chi Wang of UC Berkeley: Judging from the piece from the Yahoo News, the U.S. and China sides did not have a dialogue in Tianjin. Instead, they talked passed each other

China urges US to be ‘rational’ as US envoy explores way forward. Professor Ling-Chi Wang of UC Berkeley: Judging from the piece from the Yahoo News, the U.S. and China sides did not have a dialogue in Tianjin. Instead, they talked passed each other, each side stated its bottomline positions with Wendy Sherman regurgitating the same tired United States’ rhetoric of “commitment to healthy competition, protecting human rights and democratic values.”

I for one do not consider unilateral imposition of surprised and unfair trade tariffs and artificial barriers to be “healthy competition.” With a long history of Native American genocide, black slavery and racial discrimination, colonization of Mexican land from Florida to California, and racial exclusion and exploitation of Asian immigrants, not to mention the rampant killing of about 30,000 Americans by guns and assault weapons each year and 90,000 of drug overdose, and 2 million Americans in prison, most of whom are racial minorities and poor, who is going to listen to the American gospel of ‘protecting human rights? As for the so-called “democratic values,” we should take a look at our paralyzed, broken democratic system of government before we even wish them on other countries of the world. Our political system is a laugh stock worldwide. I think it is time for American political and intellectual leaders to sit up and listen, for change, to what Wang Yi said American government should and should not do.

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/china-urges-washington-stop-demonising-030138758.html

Kiji Noh in San Francisco: Yes, Ling-chi, China and US are definitely on different wavelengths.

Sherman, Blinken/State Dept’s approach to US-China relations encompasses a range of “can, should, must”:

“… collaborative where it can be, competitive where it should be, and adversarial where it must be.” Within that range, the imperative “must” is “adversarial”.

Furthermore the fundamental POV is advancing US “interests and values.”

China calling for US to ” to drop arrogance and prejudice” ain’t gonna happen with Sherman, Blinken/State Dept’s fundamental POV. US “interests and values” are rooted in preserving global hegemony in which the US makes the rules and everyone else knows their place in the pecking order.

Blinken, Sullivan, Campbell will not willingly surrender American Exceptionalist privilege just because China tells them to “drop arrogance and prejudice”!

The only positive that I see coming out of this is the desire for “guardrails” that would avoid a hot war.