'Blackmailing' China on climate action won't work
President Biden's climate envoy John Kerry's visit to Shanghai to meet his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua is set to fail.
It will not produce the urgently desired bilateral cooperation needed to lift climate ambition and advance climate action.
Compared to the recent Anchorage face-off, this meeting between the two climate czars who have known each for two decades shall be more cordial and courteous. But the outcome won't change – another wave of U.S. pointing fingers, cornering China and painting China as the "bad guy" against humanity. China has to be mentally and psychologically prepared to respond.
The failure is a consequence of the new U.S. administration's policy towards China. And the first three months' saga of the Biden administration in confronting China has literally crippled the foundation of potential cooperation and further ripped the due respect and trust to pieces. In the context of U.S. foreign policy strategic priorities, the relationship with China is sharply regarded as the "biggest geopolitical test of the 21st century," and China as a strategic rivalry and national security threat.