BackA world split badly
Munich Security Conference: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s never again warning to Beijing on airspace violation was met by China’s chief diplomat Wang Yi’s flaying of Washington’s expanded use of economic weapons
PremiumWhile a speech by billionaire George Soros hogged headlines in India for the sharp rebuke it drew from the government, this year’s Munich Security Conference was under global watch for signs of a cool-off in US-China relations strained by a Chinese “spy balloon" downed by the US on 4 February over its territory. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and China’s chief diplomat Wang Yi did meet along the sidelines of this Cold War-era huddle stirred to renewed purpose by the Ukraine war, but only for a bout of mutual finger-wagging. The world’s big geopolitical schism, with “no limit" allies Russia and China ranged against the West, was not salved by this meeting. Blinken’s never again warning to Beijing on airspace violation was met by Wang’s flaying of Washington’s expanded use of economic weapons. To the extent that this conclave’s never-again spirit is—or should be—about averting another world war, it made little progress. Moscow wasn’t even present, so no light could be spotted in the Ukraine tunnel either unless the Munich do helped frame a potentially useful peace formula behind the scenes. Meanwhile, we must all mull the implications of a globe split apart by geopolitics.
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