It is like the prelude to an “Opium War” in reverse. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Dutch and the British introduced China opium produced in India, Persia and other Asian corners. In this way, they obtained enormous profits that balanced the trade balance that was unbalanced by the export of tea, silk and porcelain, among other Chinese products, to the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
The effect of opium was not only economic. This drug was affecting a good part of the Chinese population. That is why it had been banned by Emperor Yongzhen in the 18th century and for the same reason Daouang, the eighth emperor of the Qing dynasty, decided in 1829 to start the so-called Opium War.
Now, it is from China to the powers of the West that an opioid drug flows that is wreaking havoc on the populations where its consumption is growing. That is one of the reasons why, go from enemies to partners of Chinait is important for the United States.
Washington needs the Asian giant’s regime to cut short what it has been allowing until now through its inaction: that large Chinese companies send fentanyl precursors to Western powers.
It is not the only reason why the North American government wants to rebuild the bond that has been deteriorating for a decade. The geopolitical redefinition which is being operated on a global scale, threatens the Western powers with an anti-Western super-bloc.
The division of the world imposed in the 20th century by the Cold War left the Western side with the economic advantage.
By bureaucratization and the ossification of the collectivist system of central planning, the Eastern bloc was economically weaker than capitalism. The North Atlantic powers reached vigorous levels of development, while the rival bloc languished after the deceptive initial boost that Stalinism had produced.
Today, the Asian giant that under Maoism he had feet of clay and was essentially peasant, it has powerful economic turbines that propel it towards the heights of development. This immense difference with the previous version of the East-West Confrontation increases the North American need to separate China from the bloc in which Putin and the Iranian ayatollahs are.
Geopolitical imperatives impose Joe Biden and Anthony Blinken play a role similar to that played by Nixon and Kissinger in the 1970s. That North American president and his Secretary of State reached an agreement with Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai, averting the risk that China and the Soviet Union would form a communist bloc that would have unbalanced the Cold War.
Mao and Chou En-lai professed a closed and dogmatic Marxism, unlike Xi Jinping, who presides over a deideologized china whose goal is global economic and technological leadership. That objective led it to compete so strongly with the United States, which led to the strategy of leading an aggressively anti-Western bloc.
The meeting between Biden and Xi was crucial for the goal that was set by both Washington, due to the war fronts opened in Ukraine and the Middle East, to which is added the danger of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, and Beijing, due to the growing problems that the giant’s economy is suffering. Asia and its difficulty in recovering the high rates of economic growth that it maintained for more than three consecutive decades.
With an agenda as crucial as the one that covers issues such as fentanyl, the future of Taiwan, artificial intelligence, both presidents knew how extremely careful they had to be during their face-to-face meeting in California. But at the subsequent press conference, Biden answered a journalist what was not appropriate to answer.
It was simpler to avoid the question. Explain, for example, that this was not the time or place to say something that could disrupt the good outcome that the summit had had.
He simply shouldn’t have said it. Calling Xi Jinping a “dictator” At that time, it implied attacking the strategic objective of the United States in this very complex instance of the world: creating a stable link with China to prevent the Asian superpower from confirming its presence in the anti-Western bloc in which Russia, the Islamic Republic of Iran, North Korea and other states with authoritarian regimes.
The face Blinken made speaks for itself. When Biden reiterated the view that the Chinese leader is a dictator, his gesture was explicit in regretting the response. By the way, immediately afterwards, everything that had been advanced in terms of understanding seemed to be shaken, although, finally, the waters calmed down and the progress made in the meeting did not sink.
The Chinese leadership chose not to turn a setback into an irreparable disaster. It wasn’t worth it. What Blinken could not prevent is that Biden’s response to a malicious question once again called into question the president’s abilities to carry out his duties. Normally, social networks are bombarded from Trumpist factories with alleged blunders and apparent mental gaps that seem to put the president’s lucidity on hold. Then the doubt arises that age is causing the head of the White House to weaken some powers that are essential to leading the world’s greatest superpower.
There were two big reasons for Biden to keep his thoughts on the Chinese regime and its top leader to himself. The first: get China to stop the clandestine production and export of fentanyl, that is decimating the North American population with the abrupt annulment of mental faculties produced by this synthetic drug. Joe Biden is not an amateur but an old wolf of American politics.
A statesman who has shown his experience and ability on many fronts, particularly leading Western aid to Ukraine so he can fight the Russian invasion. That is why it is striking that, when he had to take care of the achievement of a rapprochement that was as difficult as it was indispensable, the Democratic president said the word that he did not have to say in reference to Xi Jinping: “dictator.”
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