Consequences of deteriorating US/Sino relations could be catastrophic

China’s foreign minister Qin Gang is not a man to mince his words. At a news conference last week during the annual session of what’s been dubbed China's ‘rubber-stamp parliament,’ the National People's Congress (NPC), he was in characteristic form. 

“If the United States does not hit the brake but continues to speed down the wrong path, no amount of guardrails can prevent derailing, and there will surely be conflict and confrontation,” Qin warned.  

Even by Qin’s standards it’s unusual for Chinese officials to make any explicit threats against the US. That’s especially the case with Beijing’s man at the top, President Xi Jinping.  

But last Friday Xi began an unprecedented third term making him the country’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong and kicked it off with his own warning, accusing Western countries of “all out containment, encirclement and suppression” against China. 

Such sharp verbal attacks from Beijing are just the latest indicators of how strained relations have become between the world’s two major superpowers.  

With such tensions on the rise in what is already a volatile global geopolitical landscape there is a growing sense of unease and concern in international circles. In short, Xi’s reinstatement last week comes at a sensitive time in Beijing’s relationship with the world.  

It’s not just that relations between China and the US are at their lowest point in years but also look set to continue in a downward spiral the consequences of which could in a worst-case scenario be catastrophic.  

On any number of issues from the future of Taiwan and Russia’s war on Ukraine to global technology leadership and industrial espionage, Washington and Beijing are at loggerheads.  

As analysts writing for the German news website Der Spiegel observed recently this will likely only be compounded by forthcoming events. This spring Xi plans to travel to Moscow, a trip Spiegel says that promises to ease the situation about as much as the proposed meeting between Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen and US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.  

By way of a previous illustration of how sensitive the issue of Taiwan is and China’s insistence that it is part of its own territory it’s worth casting back to a visit last summer by McCarthy's predecessor Nancy Pelosi, which sparked several days of Chinese military exercises and seriously upped the diplomatic ante in the region.  

It’s a measure of how aware president Tsai is of Beijing and Washington’s opposing positions on Taiwan that she has now convinced McCarthy to meet her in the US instead of hosting him in Taipei over fears that such a visit could trigger further military retaliation from China. 

But there are other reasons too analysts say as to why we are seeing an uptick of hardening rhetoric from Beijing towards Washington. 

“Anti-American language is not merely a reaction to US actions; it is useful for China’s domestic politics. US officials may have to accept that Chinese trash-talking is inevitable, even while they are carrying out backdoor diplomacy on areas of genuine shared interest,” observed James Palmer deputy editor of the US based magazine Foreign Policy. 

But while the response last week to the comments of Qin and Xi from the administration of US president Joe Biden was one of weary restraint insisting there was “no change to the United States posture when it comes to this bilateral relationship,” elsewhere on Capitol Hill the reaction was far less lenient. 

US House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Michael T. McCaul said Qin’s words were “incredibly inflammatory and reveal the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) intent to challenge the status quo,” while urging Biden to “respond with strength.” 

Currently there is no shortage of China “hawks’ in Washington’s corridors of power and therein lies danger too warn some US officials. 

“My fear is that by acting like military conflict with China is inevitable, you will ultimately make that reality come true,” said Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  

“China has not made the decision to invade Taiwan, but if the United States turns all of China policy into Taiwan policy, then that will potentially affect their decision-making,” Murphy was cited by Foreign Policy magazine as saying.  

With Xi Jinping’s third term as general secretary of the CCP not due to end until 2027 there is long way to go before his influence diminishes. A lot can happen in that time but for now only the most optimistic of observers would bet on any improvement in US-Sino relations. 

Georgia: Russia-inspired bill dropped but fight for democracy not over      

Fifteen years ago as a reporter I watched as Russian tanks and troops entered the eastern Georgian city of Gori, birthplace of the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. A few days earlier Russian forces had begun their invasion of the country marking the start of Europe’s first twenty-first century war.  

The conflict itself was over within a matter of days and in the event the Russian army did not strike out from Gori to take the Georgian capital of Tblisi as many had expected.  

Nonetheless the repercussions of what became known as the Russo-Georgian War of 2008 continue to this day shaping the wider geopolitical environment.  

That much was evident this past week when protesters took the streets of Tblisi in anger at a draft ‘foreign agent’ law modelled on Russian president Vladimir Putin’s restrictive regime for media and non-governmental organisations. The fear amongst many Georgians is that the law could scupper the country’s aspirations to join the EU and NATO. 

In the end the country’s ruling Georgian Dream party controlled by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a reclusive billionaire, and its coalition partner said they would withdraw the bill “unconditionally” after the public outcry. 

But many Georgians remain uneasy and while the country is still far less authoritarian than Russia or Belarus there are growing fears that it is rapidly falling into the Kremlin’s orbit. The turmoil in the country is neither isolated nor unrelated to Russia’s war in Ukraine. In a country where Ukrainian flags are a common sight, as are houses with graffiti reading “Georgia is Ukraine; Ukraine is Georgia,” many see their political fate inextricably connected to the outcome of Russia’s war in Ukraine.  

With anti-Kremlin sentiment running high given that Russia maintains control over 20 per cent of the country’s territory after the brief war in 2008, the most recent polls show that 85 per cent of Georgians support EU membership.  

They believe too that albeit on a different battleground that Russian president Vladimir Putin is trying to bury both Georgia’s democracy and European aspirations and bring it under the Kremlin’s sphere of influence. Unlike in Ukraine or in Georgia back in 2008, Putin they say doesn’t use military force but instead relies on his entrusted Georgian Dream government to do the job. For now, that seems to have failed with the government stepping back from implementing the draft bill much to Moscow’s dismay. On Friday Russia said it was watching events in Georgia "with great concern" and suggested without providing evidence that the United States was stirring up anti-Russian sentiment there. While for now the protests against the bill have pushed the Georgian Dream party and government onto the back foot, civil society groups have warned against celebrating victory too soon. 

“The fight is not over yet, Georgian civil society doesn’t trust the Georgian government anymore,” was how said Eka Gigauri the head of Transparency International Georgia summed up the situation. Few would disagree with such an assessment. Georgia is once again very much in the forefront of the current political battle of wills between Russia and the West.  

Mexico: Drug gang killings refocuses US attention on threat posed by cartels 

It’s a measure of the strange and twisted code of ‘ethics’ Mexico’s drug cartels have that they can issue a would-be apology by handing over four of its purported henchmen for the abduction of four Americans.  

It was last Thursday that the Scorpions faction of the Gulf Cartel apologised to the residents of the Mexican border town of Matamoros, the relatives of the Mexican woman and the two Americans who died in a shoot-out they say was undertaken by cartel members acting independently. It was on March 3 that the four US citizens were attacked and kidnapped shortly after crossing the Texas border into Matamoros,  

The Scorpions group, which is an armed branch of the legendary Gulf Cartel that has dominated the north-eastern side of Mexico for decades, left a narco-banner and message alongside five men who were beaten up and had their hands tied inside a black pick-up truck. 

“We have decided to turn over those who were directly involved and responsible in the events, who at all times acted under their own decision-making and lack of discipline,” the message read. 

It added that those individuals had gone against the cartel’s rules, which include “respecting the life and wellbeing of the innocent.” 

Matamoros a city of just over 500,000 is home to at least two warring factions of the Gulf Cartel, one of the country’s oldest criminal organisations that has splintered repeatedly over the past 15 years.  

Overall in Matamoros the Gulf Cartel is only one of a cluster of the most powerful cartels including the Zetas, Jalisco New Generation, La Familia Michoacana, Sinaloa, Juarez and the Northeast who are engaged in a fight to the death.  

The latest killings have once again refocused American attention on the pressing problem of transnational drug cartels' de facto control of large swaths ofAmerica’s porous southern border.  

Such is the threat posed by the cartels whose drugs are flowing into America like never before that some US officials are calling for the Biden administration to designate the leading groups as State Department-recognised Foreign Terrorist Organisations. 

This they say would allow the US government to use various means to financially suffocate the cartels and deprive them of their funding sources. 

With electoral times looming in the US, the whole issue of tackling the cartels from across the border is set once again to become a political point scorer. Meantime it’s business as usual for the cartels, albeit as bloody a one as ever.  

Saudi Arabia/ Iran: Diplomatic breakthrough a tricky challenge for US and Israel 

It was back in 2016 that the two countries ended ties. It came after Iranian protesters angered by the execution of a Shia cleric in Saudi Arabia stormed the kingdom’s embassy in Iran. Three years later, Saudi Arabia and Western countries accused Tehran of engineering a drone attack on a Saudi oil facility that temporarily knocked out half of its production. Since then, relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia have been anything but good.  

But all that changed this weekend after a China brokered deal helped restore diplomatic ties. In a joint statement Tehran and Riyadh agreed “to resume diplomatic relations between them and re-open their embassies and missions within a period not exceeding two months”. 

“The agreement includes their affirmation of the respect for the sovereignty of states and the non-interference in internal affairs,” the statement said. 

If one thing is significant about the deal it’s China’s role, showing once again how geopolitical power is shifting right now. Many observers say that it marks a real victory for Chinese diplomacy underscoring Beijing’s growing clout in the Middle East and ensuring that China benefits from the energy imports it gets from Iran and Saudi Arabia. 

Prior to the deal’s announcement on Friday Beijing’s role as a mediator had not been made public and it now presents a tricky challenge for both the US and Israel. 

Analysts point out that with the US increasingly taking sides in regional conflicts it has often become impossible for it to be a credible mediator. 

“I think this is a broader sign of the changing global order and how the period of America being the unchallenged global superpower - especially after the Cold War - that period is ending,” Sina Toossi, non-resident senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington, DC, told Al Jazeera. 

In Israel meanwhile the deal provoked sharp criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has made clear his focus on bringing Saudi Arabia on board as part of a regional alliance against Iran. 

But while news of the deal was generally welcomed, scepticism remains over its capacity to end the proxy wars in many conflict zones in the Middle East that both Iran and Saudi Arabia have been engaged in.  

From Yemen to Lebanon, Syria to Iraq both countries have been backers of those fighting on the ground hoping to extend their respective regional influence and that say many Middle East watchers will be the real test of any detente.