Sitting at the table or being on the menu

SHIN KYUNG-JIN
The author is the Beijing bureau chief of the JoongAng Ilbo.

The third Summit for Democracy ended in Seoul last Wednesday. China, which was excluded, likened the host country to a pawn of the United States through its state-run news agency. One newspaper wrote in an editorial that the coffin cover is closed, citing the adage “Don’t pass judgment on a person’s life until the lid is on the coffin.”

Why is China so agitated? The background is the “table and menu” remarks by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “If you’re not at the table, you’ll probably be on the menu,” he said at the Munich Security Conference on February 17. In a session with German and Indian foreign ministers, he was asked about Washington’s stance as the tensions between the United States and China led to greater division and the two countries competed over alliances. At that time, the head of U.S. foreign policy brought up the table and menu theory.

China, North Korea, and Taiwan reacted sensitively. It analyzed that the U.S.-China competition has entered a new stage of fighting.

First of all, China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency compared Blinken to Hannibal Lecter, a cannibal character in novels and films, in its English column titled “Washington’s ruthless zero-sum appetite spells trouble for the world.” The Global Times ran an editorial condemning Blinken. It said, “Translated into Chinese, the meaning is akin to ‘if you’re not the knife and the chopping board, you’ll be the fish and meat on the board.’” The editorial went on to say, “Blinken’s use of this phrase reveals a worldview characterized by a harsh and chilling perspective of a world where the strong prey on the weak.”

North Korea’s response was a bit late. On March 1, the Rodong Sinmun ran a harsh editorial in which it said, “The U.S. must not be allowed to enjoy ‘gastronomy’ anymore.”

A Taiwanese newspaper reported that Blinken’s remarks came as the U.S. strategy and geopolitical thinking changed and its national power declined. The paper added that the fact that an isolationist president like Trump may be elected reflects the failure of liberal value diplomacy. The paper also alerted the ruling party, defining the table or the menu rhetoric as a candid yet realistic metaphor.

Recently, the U.S. Congress passed a bill to ban TikTok. China has banned YouTube and Facebook, but protested and called the U.S. move “the logic of the strong.”

China’s intense response is a sign of impatience. China still deals with America largely based on Chairman Mao Zedong’s “two hands theory” of engaging in both fierce battles and negotiations for a ceasefire during the Korean War. Blinken’s remarks are a warning that the declining U.S. will no longer play fair.

The next American president will intensify the U.S.-China competition. It is unknown whether Biden’s new multilateral policy will be in the second term or Trump’s new isolationist storm will hit the world. Response teams should be operated for each of the two scenarios. I hope the governing and opposition parties will work together at least after the April 10 parliamentary elections if they do not want to make the country the meat on the menu.