Chinese Consulate General in SF Zhang Jianmin will speak at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on Wednesday 1/24/24 5:30pm

Sign up to attend https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2024-01-24/year-dragon-celebration-chinese-culture-and-cuisine

Professor Ling-chi Wang of UC Berkeley: What Consul General Zhang is doing is quite consistent with China’s new approach to global diplomacy. In the past, China has been largely shy, passive, polite, and non-confrontational in general. Since Xi Jinping gave his speech on a new era and new world order in global politics and diplomacy, China has been proactive in engagement across the globe. While the U.S. wants to isolate and contain China throughout the world, China has been quite outgoing, forceful, and aggressive.

The best example of this new era and new approach in political engagement and diplomacy is what has happened last week in Davos, Switzerland. Chinese Premier Li Qiang, like a traveling salesman, led the largest delegation of high government officials and corporate executives to the World Economic Forum. Before he arrived at the forum, he met with Swiss president, business and political leaders and after the Davos conference he flew to Ireland to meet with Irish leaders. It was a visible show of force and openness rarely seen before. Chinese diplomats throughout the world are branching out and actively engaging the world and signing deals and agreement and egging the world at local, national, and international levels.

I therefore see Consul General Zhang reaching out to Commonwealth Club as part of China’s new engagement with small and big countries throughout the world. This is the right positive and constructive way to confront U.S. economic, political, and military containment of China. I think we are going to see such proactive engagement throughout the world at a time when the U.S. is increasingly isolating itself on global stage and internally divisive and destructive. American democracy is falling apart in a spectacular display for the world to see.

In the short term, U.S. will continue to make small provocations, supposedly clever moves in Taiwan, East China Sea, and South China Sea. Chinese call this hoaxing xiaohui 好行小慧. Taiwan is just a small potato in comparison with Xi Jinping’s global vision and diplomatic initiatives across the world. Before Nancy Pelosi made her high-profile trip to Taiwan and stirred up troubles here and there, the fact remains: before her trip, most Americans did not even know where Taiwan was. In the mean time, China was busy building diplomatic and economic ties with countries throughout the world and doing business with them for mutual benefits. As for the Trade War against China, there is no countries in the world trading more heavily with China than the U.S. The Obama-Trump-Biden trade war against China is inflict damages to the U.S. and its people.

U.S. should heed wise advise from from other countries, and abandon its foolish ways, the sooner the better. China will prevail most likely in five or ten years and hopefully, the U.S. will come to see the light, abandon its follies, and embrace world peace, cooperation, rather than spreading hatred, tension and destructive wars as a means of hanging on to its declining global domination.