The threats, bombast, rewriting of history, projection, linguistic perversions, and other routines of Chinese Communist Party propaganda are often garnished with “nice” or “moderate”-sounding refrains about optimism and friendship.
CCP messages about the shared beautiful future—a future that could be firmed up and expedited if only China’s victims around the world would be more reasonable and recognize the value of win-win exchanges—shouldn’t fool anybody about the Party’s nature and intentions. Apparently they do, though, or they wouldn’t be part of the repertoire.
Softer tone
So “Top Chinese Official Softens Tone on US, Says War ‘Unimaginable’ ” (Bloomberg, July 3, 2025).
A senior Chinese official said he was “optimistic” about the future of his nation’s ties with the US, among the most upbeat comments given by Beijing in recent weeks about a relationship upended by Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Both the Chinese and the Americans are hoping for a “friendly, good” relationship between their countries, and politicians are expected to heed the will of the people, Liu Jianchao, head of the Communist Party’s International Department, said….
Speaking in Beijing, Liu [shown above] called a war between China and the US “unimaginable” but highlighted Taiwan and the South China Sea as possible flashpoints. He urged America to respect the One China principle, which dictates that Taiwan is part of China’s territory.
Liu urged America to respect China’s sovereignty and honor its commitments on Taiwan. “We will decide at what time to take what kind of measures to achieve China’s reunification based on the development of the situation, our needs, and movements of Taiwan’s separatist forces,” he said….
“China is keenly aware of what it’s gained from China-US cooperation,” Liu said. “Our cooperation is mutually beneficial. The act of putting up barriers will hurt the other and ourselves as well.”
Liu also instructs U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about the hazards of talking about “peace through strength”: this kind of thinking is about “flexing muscles instead of encouraging dialogue. It will only stir up confrontation and conflicts instead of promoting peace and harmony.”
War
War with the Republic of China is “unimaginable,” but China will achieve “re-”unification by hook or by crook; “we will decide what kind of measures….” Measures including the unimaginable?
The danger of war between China and Taiwan and its allies would vanish if the People’s Republic of China convincingly stopped fighting its gray-zone war against it and stopped preparing for full-scale war. The same could be said mutatis mutandis of the danger of war between China and any of the other countries it harasses. China’s current policies can only stir up confrontation and conflicts instead of promoting peace and harmony.
Liu’s obtunded tone of late is part of a trend, Bloomberg finds.
China is adopting a less confrontational tone with the US days after confirming details of a trade framework with Washington, as the world’s two largest economies finalized [sic] an understanding reached in Geneva.
In separate comments on Thursday, Commerce Ministry spokeswoman He Yongqian said Beijing is hopeful it can “jointly promote the healthy, stable and sustainable development of China-US economic and trade relations.”
A few possibly distancing quotation marks draw attention to individual words in the piece (“unimaginable,” “optimistic”), but one can’t be sure of the intended implication, if any.
Maybe Bloomberg is just honestly reporting what the Chinese propagandists are saying as well as the discernibly softer tone in which they are saying it as compared to the tone of three weeks ago or whichever point in time is being taken as a baseline. Maybe the reporters just forgot the part about how standard this stuff is, representing no essential change in the Party’s claims, attitudes, or goals.
