United States - China: A serene China
As preparations were underway for Jake Sullivan's exceptional visit to Beijing, intended to give substance to the strategic dialogue between China and the United States, a carefully timed indiscretion among the New York Times announced on August 20 that President Joe Biden had signed four months earlier the new version of the Nuclear Employment Guidance, the reference directive on the basis of which the United States' nuclear launch plans would be updated.
The Nuclear Employment Guidance is a top-secret document (with no electronic copy). The indiscretion suggests that the Pentagon sees China, which has been steadily developing its strategic forces, at the center of a nuclear alliance with Russia and North Korea. This is an eventuality to which the United States must be able to respond with a strategic posture that simultaneously dissuades Russia, the PRC [People's Republic of China] and North Korea".
The leak is major and deliberate, and the announcement is picked up by the entire Western press. On the other hand - and this is a surprise - the information is not picked up by the Chinese media, with the exception of the unofficial Global Times1, and this is in very moderate terms. Without mentioning the substance, a revision of US strategy now focused on China, the article limits itself to quoting Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning, who notes that "the Pentagon has said it believes that in the long term, China's nuclear arsenals will rival those of the U.S. in size and diversity, calling China a 'nuclear threat' and using this argument to evade their nuclear disarmament obligations, develop their own nuclear arsenal and seek absolute strategic dominance.
At the end of Jake Sullivan's visit, all courtesy but no concrete results, the press conference he gave at the end of his visit revealed this2. Xi Jinping, who received him, a notable mark of attention, gave only a soothing message: "that he hoped the United States could see China's development in a positive light, and that they would work with China "to find a good approach enabling two great countries to get along3". That's all there is to it.
What can we learn from all this? In the United States, where the President's entourage, the State Department, the Defense Department and the Commerce Department all seem to be ignoring each other when it comes to defining an attitude towards China, as long as Washington keeps its distance from what it considers to be its turf, Beijing is composing a serene attitude and letting time do the talking.
Edouard Valensi, Asie21
