China's hard-line diplomacy will end "in tragedy" and plunge the country into "political peril," while its hawkish posture was also accelerating the formation of an "anti-China alliance" just two months into the presidency of Joe Biden, policy experts in Taipei and Beijing warned this week.
The most recent high-profile exchange between officials from Washington and Beijing took place in Alaska last month, when Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese foreign affairs director Yang Jiechi were involved in a televised clash over their respective countries' red lines.
Yang's attitude was "proud" and the rhetoric from both sides "sharp" said Ma Chen-kun, a China military affairs professor at National Defense University in Taiwan. Xi Jinping's most senior diplomat, who served a term as Beijing's ambassador to Washington until 2005, left the summit in Anchorage a national hero, his fiery exchange with Blinken having "stoked a wave of nationalism and patriotism" that also found its way into the Chinese military, Ma said during a U.S. foreign policy discussion hosted by Taipei's Prospect Foundation think tank on Tuesday.
