'Decoupling' cannot make US stronger

While not much is expected from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's visit from Wednesday to Friday, especially because this is a US presidential election year when the only issue uniting the Democrats and Republicans is frenzied anti-China paranoia, the fact that the visit is even happening is a positive sign. The same can be said about the visits of US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo last year and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in early April, and the resumption of the high-level military-to-military video meeting between US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun — earlier this month.

Surely, talking is better than fighting, but too many aggressive and provocative US moves and veiled (and not so veiled) threats negate the nice words the administration's representatives have said recently.

Much work remains to be done to shore up damaged bilateral relations and avoid continuing lose-lose economic and political "decoupling". Here the picture is less rosy as exemplified by the ongoing US persecution of Huawei, China's top telecommunications company. I attended Huawei's Analyst Summit in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, last week.