The US is trying to instil in Russia the idea of the “unreliability" of China

In Rome, Yang Jiechi, head of the Office of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee Commission on Foreign Affairs and a member of the politburo of the CCP Central Committee, met with Assistant to the US President for National Security Jake Sullivan. The negotiations lasted more than seven hours.

This was the first meeting of high representatives after the start of Russia's special military operation in Ukraine, but not the first between American and Chinese representatives. March 18, 2021 in Anchorage, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang had already been negotiating "in high tones" about the relationship between the two countries and, after exchanging accusations, they parted with nothing. After that, the American side threatened to continue the policy of sanctions against China.

In the course of the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Beijing, contrary to the forecasts of Washington experts, continued to demonstrate a departure from its previous "subtle" diplomatic practice, transferring it to the rails of a tough confrontation. China has shown that the United States will no longer be able to conduct dialogue with it from a position of strength.

This was also demonstrated by the Rome meeting, which turned out to be oversaturated with diplomatic intrigues. It was obvious to everyone that the negotiations were directly related to the development of the Ukrainian crisis. The parties did not hide it, although they did not publicly link it to this problem.

The American side claimed that "the dates of the meeting were agreed upon by the United States and China quite a long time ago”, that "it was not linked in time to any specific events related to Russia and Ukraine”.

And the Beijing newspaper Global Times the day before carried out the idea that the meeting in Rome "almost four months after the virtual summit between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden should demonstrate that the Sino-American communication mechanism at the highest level is working stably”, and Jiechi and Sullivan are called upon to "implement the important consensus reached by the heads of state of China and the United States at their virtual summit last November”.

Washington's attempts "to use the meeting in Rome to put even more pressure on China, forcing it to comply with its sanctions against Russia, have no prospects," the newspaper said. But at the same time, the Global Times stressed, "disagreements should not allow the two first economies of the world to block communication channels, since there are many issues on which both sides share common concerns”.

Beijing hinted that in the context of a tense conflict between Russia and the United States, it would be extremely important for Washington to know Beijing's position, and Beijing wants to understand how Washington intends to play the game in the current situation. This is the first thing.

Second position. It is said that the United States can count on China to mediate with Moscow. But the Americans "should not try to create discord between China and Russia”.

Finally, the third position. Beijing will change its policy if "Washington punishes it because of Moscow”. This means that Chinese diplomacy is ready to act as an intermediary between Moscow and Kiev, but in this case Beijing cannot be forced to join sanctions against Russia.

Did the US and China manage to find "contact"? The talks in Rome lasted seven hours, by all indications they can be classified as "crisis diplomacy". After the end of the conversation, Sullivan did not answer the question about the readiness of the United States to impose restrictions on Beijing.

CNN recalled that China also abstained from voting in the UN Security Council on the Ukrainian resolution, making some comments about the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. At the same time, Beijing has stated that it does not intend to join the sanctions imposed by Western countries against Russia.

That is, Sullivan failed to get an unambiguous tug of Beijing on Washington's side, depriving Russia of its "Chinese trump card" in the unfolding "sanctions war". Further options are possible.

The United States may increase pressure on China, to the point that the Americans would decide to go all-in, causing such shocks the world economy simply will not withstand. This is the hard scenario.

The soft scenario assumes that Washington will try to play the Chinese domestic political card, to put the Ukrainian crisis out of the equation of relations with Beijing, so that China loses pace, starting to rethink its foreign policy, tactics and strategy.

However, there is reason to believe that if Beijing begins to shift in this direction, such a process will take place slowly, and Russia will have time for operational manoeuvring.

Elena Panina, Director of the RUSSTRAT Institute