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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cogito Ergo Sum who wrote (199623)	6/18/2023 8:15:14 PM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217516

Re <<Blinken arrived in Beijing>> two notables, and given so, can go either way, either leading to ping pong balls and pandas, or to interoperable China armaments for Team Russia soonest, and should the need arise, volunteers ala Korea 1950s Let's see (1) no red carpet, but a red line youtube.com (2) What 'spy' balloon ? nypost.com Biden excuses China’s spy balloon flight as Blinken visits Beijing Mary Kay Linge President Joe Biden touched on the Chinese spy balloon scandal on Saturday. AP President Biden kicked off his first day of campaigning for re-election by making excuses for communist China — saying that President Xi Jinping never meant to fly a spy balloon over sensitive American military sites earlier this year. “I don’t think the leadership knew where it was, and knew what was in it, and knew what was going on,” Biden told reporters Saturday as he headed to Philadelphia for his first campaign rally of the 2024 election. “I think it was more embarrassing than it was intentional.” The conciliatory comments came as Secretary of State Antony Blinken continued a two-day visit to Beijing, his first diplomatic trip there since he called off a planned trip as the balloon made its uncontested three-day journey across US airspace. “I’m hoping that over the next several months I’ll be meeting with Xi again, and talking about legitimate differences we have but also how … to get along,” Biden added. Republicans were outraged at Biden’s anemic take on the incursion. “I’m not sure how the President could say that with a straight face,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) told The Post. “Not only was it intentional, it was a direct threat to our national security. China is our greatest geopolitical foe.” “Biden has been anything but tough on China,” said Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY). “It seems he’s compromised, which is what the evidence reviewed by the House Oversight Committee suggests.” Meanwhile in Nevada, Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis pledged to send Biden “back to his basement … where he belongs” as he slammed the Democrat’s leftist policies on energy, spending, and the border. “America’s got to make a decision, because we need to restore sanity in this country,” the Florida governor told a crowd at the annual Basque Fry fundraiser, which famously features fried lamb’s testicles on its menu. “We’re going to reverse the decline.” The “spy balloon” made headlines earlier this year.Tyler Schlitt Photography Biden’s China comments came shortly before he took off in Marine 1 for a 40-minute aerial tour of cleanup efforts at the I-95 overpass that collapsed in Philadelphia this week. “There’s no more important project to the country right now as far as I’m concerned,” Biden said as he and local elected officials spoke about the disaster, which has sparked traffic nightmares on the critical interstate artery since a gas tanker truck flipped and burst into flames Sunday. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who followed Biden at the podium, promised to have the roadway open again “within the next two weeks.” But in a garbled minute-long comment, Sen. John Fetterman — dressed in his customary hoodie and gym shorts — praised Biden for his $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill as “the jewel, kind of a law, of the infra, infration, infriction bill that is gonna make sure that there’s bridges like this all across America getting rebuilt.” President Joe Biden listens to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, right, speak at the Philadelphia International Airport on Saturday.AP US-China relations have grown increasingly tense during Biden’s presidency. Last week, his administration admitted that China has built a spy base in Cuba — after first denying the story — and Blinken was reportedly scolded by Foreign Minister Qin Gang on Tuesday during a pre-trip phone call. Beijing has been illegally militarizing reefs in the South China Sea, is intensifying surveillance of Americans, and has repeatedly threatened to invade democratic Taiwan to forcefully “reunify” it with mainland China — with little response from Biden. The suspected Chinese spy balloon drifts to the ocean after being shot down off the coast in February.REUTERS“ China has some legitimate difficulties unrelated to the United States,” Biden said Saturday, without specifying them. Biden and Xi have not spoken since February, when two US Air Force fighter jets shot the spy balloon down over the Atlantic Ocean, sparking fury from China. The president made no mention of foreign policy when he delivered a heated speech to about 2,000 union members at a campaign rally at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. “I’m proud to be the most pro-union president in American history,” he proclaimed. “But what I’m really proud about is being re-elected the most pro-union president in history,” he added, seemingly fast-forwarding ahead 17 months to November 2024. Biden also crowed that inflation has “come down 11 months in a row” – without acknowledging that the steep rise in consumer prices, which peaked at a 40-year high of 9.1% last June, has been driven by his own free-spending fiscal policies.

To: Cogito Ergo Sum who wrote (199623)	6/18/2023 8:22:36 PM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 217516

Re <<Blinken arrived in Beijing Sunday>> no matter, recommendation to eat China, achieve nuclear parity with Russia, w/ Russian help if and as necessary, go go go, and yes, by all means, let the Pandas out and run wild seems longish for the first session ... Discussions between the delegations led by Blinken and Foreign Minister Qin Gang lasted 7 1/2 hours bloomberg.com Blinken Has ‘Candid’ Talks With China’s Qin on Trip to Mend Ties Top US diplomat meets with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang Saga over alleged spy balloon derailed earlier trip by Blinken Iain Marlow19 June 2023 at 00:19 GMT+8 Secretary of State Antony Blinken had “candid” talks with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing, the two countries said, as both looked to project a positive but cautious tone about a visit that’s meant to bring some semblance of normalcy back to a strained relationship. Discussions between the delegations led by Blinken and Foreign Minister Qin Gang lasted 7 1/2 hours — much longer than planned, officials said. In a further signal that the two saw the meeting as a path to closer ties, Qin accepted Blinken’s invitation to visit Washington at “a mutually suitable time,” the State Department said. “The Secretary emphasized the importance of diplomacy and maintaining open channels of communication across the full range of issues to reduce the risk of misperception and miscalculation,” a US readout of the meeting said. “The Secretary raised a number of issues of concern,” it said, without identifying them. The US described the talks as “candid, substantive, and constructive.” State-run China Central Television used similar phrasing, calling them “candid, deep and constructive.” Blinken’s previous attempt to visit China in February was scrapped at the last minute when the US revealed an alleged Chinese spy balloon was floating over American territory — an incident that led China to accuse the US of “hysteria.” In its own description of the conversations, CCTV said it hoped the US could “deal with accidents in a sober, professional and rational manner.” The main goal of Blinken’s trip will be to try to reestablish senior-level communications channels with Chinese counterparts, including between their militaries, to manage the intense competition between the countries, according to US officials. They have sought to set expectations low, saying there would be no breakthroughs. Blinken has more meetings set for Monday, including with Wang Yi, the Communist Party’s top foreign affairs official. One sign that China considers his visit a success will be if he’s granted a meeting with President Xi Jinping. No such meeting was on the schedule as of Sunday night, but it could be added at the last minute. Antony Blinken with Qin Gang in Beijing on June 18. Photographer: Leah Millis/AFP/Getty Images The most senior US official to visit China in five years, Blinken is making his trip at a tumultuous time, with the two sides sparring over everything from human rights and technology to trade and weapons sales to Taiwan. Qin said Taiwan is “the core of the core interests” of China and “the biggest problem” and “the most prominent risk” in China-US ties. The latest from Beijing as @SecBlinken meets his Chinese counterpart at a former imperial garden that's used to host foreign dignitaries. Both sides are expected to discuss differences on everything from human rights and Taiwan to trade and technology. https://t.co/JBTloX2lEq pic.twitter.com/V7daXTiC3v — Iain Marlow (@iainmarlow) June 18, 2023 But there were also signs of progress on tangible matters on Sunday. Both sides said they’d discussed increasing flights between the two countries. Many of those flights were scrapped during the coronavirus pandemic. Blinken and Qin didn’t just read talking points to one another, one senior official told reporters on condition of anonymity. The official described the conversation as substantive, with extensive back-and-forth. The primary goal of the trip was to help establish communications channel at the minister and sub-minister levels, so the US and China don’t always operate from a position of distrust, and the discussions today helped accomplish that, the official said. Blinken’s visit is part of a renewed flurry of high-level US-China engagement that has gradually picked up momentum after the balloon incident derailed an attempt by Biden and Xi — who met late last year in Bali, Indonesia — to establish a steadier path for bilateral relations. Biden said Saturday he’s “hoping that over the next several months I’ll be meeting Xi again.” Some of the meetings have taken place in public, including when Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao visited the US. But other meetings have been out of the limelight. White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan recently met with his counterpart for a low-key meeting in Vienna, while CIA Director Bill Burns made a secret trip to Beijing last month to discuss intelligence issues. Also: US Accuses China of Risky Encounter Over the South China Sea The US and Chinese militaries recently had two dangerous confrontations between naval vessels and jets in the region, which the Pentagon characterized as “unnecessarily aggressive” and “dangerous.” Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu — who is sanctioned by the US government in relation to Russian arms purchases — also recently rejected a meeting with his US counterpart Lloyd Austin when the two men attended a defense forum in Singapore this month. — With assistance by Qi Ding, Philip Glamann and Bill Faries (Updates with Chinese readout of meeting.)

To: Cogito Ergo Sum who wrote (199623)	7/26/2023 1:22:51 AM
From: Snowshoe	Respond to of 217516

re <<Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang>> He went absent a week after meeting with Blinken, and now he's out... Qin Gang: The abrupt fall from grace of China's rising star bbc.com One of the most visible figures in China's government, a rising star who was catapulted into the role of foreign minister by Xi Jinping himself, has been removed. The announcement that Qin Gang had lost his job was massive news here, but it was delivered, typically, without fanfare and with very little detail. Just a few sentences on Xinhua wire service - which were then read out on the main evening TV news bulletin - spelt the dramatic end of Mr Qin's time as the global public face of China, only half a year after he had been appointed. About a month ago, he had disappeared from his normal duties and the official reason given for his absence was some sort of health issue. However, as the weeks went on and he failed to re-emerge, speculation turned to the possibility that he was being punished for stepping out of line politically. Full story: bbc.com