Suite à la destruction par erreur de l'ambassade de Chine à Belgrade lors d'un bombardement de l'OTAN, la police de Pékin a laissé des groupes de centaines de manifestants défiler devant les ambassades, notamment celle des Etats-Unis. Les manifestants, contrôlés et encadrés par la police, laissent éclater leurs ressentiments. Des banderoles et des slogans anti-américains violents fusent. Un jeune homme harangue la foule en clamant que la guerre entre la Chine et les Etats-Unis est inévitable. Les journalistes suivent la manifestation. et interviewent des manifestants qui attendent des excuses de la part des Etats-Unis et insultent le président Clinton. Des étudiants vêtus d'habits faisant référence à la révolution culturelle trainent à terre un mannequin habillé en uniforme de l'armée américaine.
Barack Obama received the Dalai Lama at the White House. The discreet meeting, a minimum protocol particularly studied to minimize the Chinese government’s discomfort, helped repair the frustrations of Tibetans and showed Barack Obama’s support for the Tibetan cause. The Dalai Lama speaks in front of the cameras. The journalist interviews a Tibetan activist in Washington.
Fabrice EPELBOIN, teacher at Sciences Po Paris, summarizes the struggle for commercial hegemony in the fields of new technologies and digital technology between China and the United States, the only two sources of power submitted in this economic sector. When China sets itself the goal of becoming the world leader in new technologies in 2025, it openly declares the trade war in the United States. The country that overthrows American supremacy in this area ensures the economic domination of the next century.
After the failure of the negotiations between Barack Obama and the Chinese authorities, the sinologist Marie HOLZMAN speaks on the evolution of the balance of power between the United States and China. The weakening of Western democracies, in the midst of the economic crisis and in the midst of postcolonial doubts, are playing against them in the balance of power and negotiations with Beijing. A new cold war will not take place, China would be the winner anyway.
Journalist Edouard LOR analyses the series of disputes between China and the United States, at a time when US Secretary of State George Schultz is visiting Beijing. Issues of contention include the sale of American weapons to Taiwan and the Reagan administration’s reluctance to export advanced technology to China. Following the US decision to restrict imports of Chinese textiles, the Beijing authorities responded by limiting the purchase of US agricultural products. According to the correspondent, the American authorities will certainly be content with simple statements, the subject that really concerns them being rather the possible rapprochement between China and the USSR.
At a time when diplomatic relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China are being re-established, the journalist interviews the Chinese and American ambassadors on the reasons for this rapprochement. Leonard WOODCOCK, the first American ambassador in the People’s Republic of China, admits that the motivations of the Vietnam war, to weaken the communist bloc to contain China, proved useless. The Sino-American rapprochement seems good for global stability, even if it means transferring advanced technologies and subsidies to China. CHAI Zemin, Chinese ambassador to the United States explains that the term "relaxation" is not appropriate, because the war has not disappeared from the planet. He cites as an example the Indochinese peninsula which is not at peace. The Vietnamese, supported by the USSR, launched a war of aggression against Cambodia.
Edgar FAURE describes the future meeting between Richard Nixon and Mao Tse-Toung as "picturesque". Indeed, the heads of state of the two most powerful nations in the world do not recognize each other. There will therefore be no American ambassador to welcome the President of the United States upon his arrival in Beijing as required by diplomatic protocol.
On the announcement of the historic meeting between US President Richard Nixon and his Chinese counterpart, Mao Tse Toung scheduled for 1972, some American citizens give their opinion, in French, to the journalist who interviews them. If they were surprised by this decision, the majority of them approve it and see it as an opportunity to bring China into the society of nations and solve the war in Vietnam.