Mehdi Khoorsandi in an interview with the site of Strategic Council on Foreign Relations touched upon the recent verbal tensions between the U.S. and China as well as Biden’s remarks who had said the U.S. would respond militarily to a probable attack of China on Taiwan. Khoorsandi called the U.S. as the main player of the developments that took place within the past few months and noted:” in situations when we experience the transition from unipolar to a new multipolar international system, the U.S. makes effort through various measures to weaken Russia and China as two main poles”.

He referred to the challenges created by Russia and China to reduce the US dollar hegemony as well as unilateralism versus regionalism, and added:” the U.S. has employed various means and methods against Russia and China since 2001. The strategy of awarding the two countries to be present in international agencies in order to control them led to the application of leverage instruments like sanction, pressure and war of trade tariffs, and concluded during Trump Administration that even these instruments would not work out”.

The expert of international issues said:” since the end of Trump tenure of office, the U.S. has followed up the policy of clash in the peripheral and the strategic depth of these countries, as well as attacking their first security layer. Instead of supporting integration at international relations’ scene, it makes effort to engage China and Russia in their peripheral as well as attrition clashes”.

Khoorsandi mentioned AUKUS pact and NATO expansion eastward as other measures taken by the U.S. to respond the authority exercise of China and Russia, and continued:” the U.S. has created situations that entrap China and Russia while they know it is a trap. As Putin told the father of a soldiers killed in Ukraine war that if there was any alternative solution except war, he would have chosen it. Now, instead of concentrating on its economic growth and increasing its influence, China has been engaged itself in a number of military war games and development of its weapons”.

Having touched upon the remarks made by some American authorities within the past weeks on the U.S. adherence to the United China, and non-supporting of Taiwanese independence, he considered such position in line with lowering China’s concern level about Taiwan and added:” the U.S. would like to make sure the Russian war of attrition, and to avoid getting involved into two fronts simultaneously through by managing tensions”.

U.S. Rising Tensions with China Followed by Russia’s Weakening as Its Helping arm

The expert of international issues stated that Russia’s war with Ukraine does not lay the groundwork of the future world order. Instead, main developments are taking place between the U.S. and China. He said:” the U.S. weakened Russia as the helping arm of China, and will ultimately, increase tensions with China. Having understood that it will be inevitably drawn into stage, China is looking for signing security agreements with its peripheral countries”.

Khoorsandi stated that Chinese had already adopted a self – restrained policy based on toleration versus sanctions and political pressures, but the policy has changed since 2021 and we witness a change of strategy and tone of the country’s authorities. He continued:” the change of strategy has also been taken into consideration by other industrial and developed countries of the world. G-7 member countries in their 2021 statement announced that they should pay more attention to the South countries because with its influence and further cooperation in these regions, China has left few allies for G-7”.

U.S. in Confrontation with China; the Largest Challenge of the World Order in Long Term

Having referred to China’s sharp tone in some statements addressed to the U.S. authorities, he added:” in elaborating of its policies towards China, the U.S. claims that in long term, China will be the largest challenge of the world order; because the country intends to change the international order and to achieve this goal, it has increasingly boosted its economic, military, technology and diplomatic authority”.

The expert of international issues pointed out to the acknowledgement of the U.S. Secretary of State who had said maintaining ties with Beijing is the most sophisticated and the most effective relations in the world today and said:” the U.S. has expressly announced that it would try to raise impediments before China. For sure, if any confrontation takes place in the South China Sea that affects China’s interests, the country would then show its offensive approach more clearly”.

Putting stress on the U.S. soft power, its capability to influence and to direct the world public opinion, Khoorsandi touched upon the effect of these instruments on the Russian war against Ukraine and spelled out:” for sure, one of the scenarios that the U.S. follows concerning China, is to make a military clash of attrition in a way that similar to the Russian case, the U.S. will not enter into it directly”.

The analyst of international issues continued:” the U.S. will certainly play an active role in South China Sea to strike China’s position, its interests as well as its containment. The U.S. policy in the South China Sea has so far been creating and rising tensions among China and its neighbors aiming at further containment of Beijing and justification of its presence in the region. The policy will definitely continue in future. Although disputes of the South China Sea have a long record that started in the past but within the recent years since China has changed its concentric policy to eccentric one and has claimed ownership of a large part of the South China Sea, the disputes have further increased. The U.S. wishes China to remain entangled in the Asia Pacific region”.

According to Khoorsandi, disputes over Spratly, Parcel, Sankakou, small islands under Taiwan seizure and a large number of other islands located in the region have a great potential for clash and instability. Every regional country including China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Japan, Brunei and Taiwan has sovereignty claims over parts of the South China Sea.