Secretary Blinken Destroyed by His own Arrogance,
Had to Recall Journalists to Hear Talking Points
After Initial Public Statements
To say the first major diplomatic summit between the United States and China was an unmitigated mess would be an understatement. Apparently U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken thought it would be of value for the domestic audience if he was to lambast the Beijing delegation in public and on camera. His efforts were a complete fail as the Chinese knew everything was presented for domestic consumption… so, the Red Dragon threw fire right back onto the purple hair and obviously stunned an unsettled U.S. Secretary.
The train wreck was started by challenging China publicly, in front of the international press, likely believing such an aggressive posture would weaken Republican criticism about the JObama administration being soft/weak on China. However, using a joint press conference as the forum only provided insult to the Beijing delegation.
Unprovoked public insults are expressions of weakness, not strength.
It was visibly obvious that Secretary Blinken stupidly did not anticipate the Chinese officials would retaliate in their remarks responding to him.
The Chinese diplomatic team is exceptionally skilled at verbal combat; they use facts and evident weakness to their advantage. Blinken’s foolish decision gave the Chinese officials a rare opportunity to dress down the Secretary of State very publicly in front of the international media.
Secretary Blinken was visibly shocked and destabilized by the strength of the returning words from the Chinese team. His response was extremely defensive; ‘he doth protest too much’, and he was incoherent. Blinken also repeated JoeBama’s ridiculous catch-phrase “America is back.”
Additionally, despite Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s criticism of China, there was not one word on Beijing’s responsibility for the coronavirus. Nothing about China allowing COVID to become a dangerous pandemic, and no criticism of Beijing for their continued refusal to cooperate with international investigations of the origins of the virus, including inspections of the Wuhan bio-labs.
Overall this was a pathetic (weak) and sophomoric (feeble) attempt at diplomatic confrontation; while being disrespectful and completely devoid of fact points to frame the purpose of the diplomatic meeting. The first rule in any negotiation or confrontation is to use the behavior, the accepted empirical action of your adversary, against them.
The U.S. delegation did not cite any factual examples only platitudes and generalities. This allowed a much more prepared Chinese delegation to use the stage to frame the confrontation as without merit, and embarrass the U.S. contingent. After Blinken used the catch-phrase a “rules based international order”, the Chinese shot back with a big truth: “the United States does not talk for the world, only for the United States government.” The U.S. team was dead silent and without retort.
The U.S. team was so badly beaten by the Chinese, so brutally caught off-guard, Secretary of State Blinken had to call the press back into the room after his team put together counterpoints. Yes, the U.S. team called the reporters back into the room -after opening remarks- just so they could make statements the international audience would hear. THAT is embarrassing.
All-in-all a major fail on so many levels. The JoeBama diplomacy now appears weaker and more reactionary than the Jimmy Carter diplomacy. Adversaries will take good advantage of the U.S. ineptitude.