More Good News! Its Agreed! The USA and China are Talking Again
Vienna, Austria plays neutral host to facilitate a resumption of dialogue
[Image: a photo of the meeting in Vienna from the Chinese readout.]
Published: 2023-05-12
Updated 2023-05-13: A major new section has been appended in which two follow-up articles are examined.
Introduction
Equivalent high level representatives of China and the USA's governments met on the diplomatically neutral turf of Vienna, Austria on May 10th and 11th, 2023. Here are links to respective short English-language "readouts" from each government, by The White House and Xinhua News Agency to which this essay will apply a magnifying glass.
Let's channel a little inner-Mercouris and see what we can glean from a quick review of past diplomacy between China and the USA and the readouts provided for the recent meeting.
Background
High level diplomacy between the USA and China was frozen when Blinkenlights canceled his scheduled trip to Beijing due to the weather balloon incident which he described as an "irresponsible act" by China. Reuters reported that "he would visit when conditions allowed".
Conditions do not appear to have allowed Blinken to engage with his Chinese counterpart. It may be that China does not take lightly the cancellation of a planned visit due to a weather balloon. Blinken's junking of the visit was yet another mis-step since he angered the Chinese in Anchorage back in March, 2021.
During that diplomatic debacle the USA began with extended openning remarks which so offended the Chinese delegation that head diplomat Wang Yi responded with a few truths of his own. Following the meeting, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said:
It was the US side that … provoked the dispute in the first place, so the two sides had a strong smell of gunpowder and drama from the beginning in the opening remarks. It was not the original intention of the Chinese side,
Since then, Wang Yi has been elevated to "the director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee" and to a member of the Politburo.
A second major spat was again caused by USA Secretary of State Blinken canceling his scheduled trip to Beijing hours ahead of his planned departure due the “balloon” incident which he described on NPR as an “irresponsible act” by China. Further details of provocations, largely at the hand of the USA, between the two nations are covered in article at Antiwar by Connor Freeman.
Just two days before the Vienna meeting, Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang, a step down from Yi on the diplomatic heiracrchy, and US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns met in Beijing. China’s readout offered some advice on how the USA could adjust its diplomacy and rhetoric to achieve cooperative relations between the nations. It appears that the USA State Department was listening.
Two days were allocated for the Vienna meeting. It was obviuosly scheduled some time in advance. Examining the picture above, both delegations have come with a considerable party. This adds to the time allocation and indicates the importance and seriousness of the event.
Readout: USA
The White House's readout is minimal boilerplate, so we're going to have to wring it tightly for nuance.
The USA is getting its diplomatic protocols in order in its title, which correctly describes Yi's position as a Politburo member and as Director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission (of the CPC's Central Committee, which they omit to shorten the already long title), in that order.
The first substantive sentence begins:
The two sides had candid, substantive, and constructive discussions on key issues ...
This is diplo-speak for "the USA believes the talks were neither alarming nor brilliant", or "views were exchanged". The triplet of ‘candid, substantive and constructive’ is echoed by the Chinese readout, which is examined in the section below. The USA seems satisfied with the meeting.
Next we have:
This meeting was part of ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication and responsibly manage competition.
which means, we eff'd up recently and are trying to re-establish communications.
The readout concludes with:
The two sides agreed to maintain this important strategic channel of communication to advance these objectives, building on the engagement between President Biden and President Xi in Bali, Indonesia, in November 2022.
which means "we believe we have successfully thawed our diplomatic relations with China".
The last part of the first quote above was a summary of the topics discussed which have been agreed to be allowed to be published:
the U.S.-China bilateral relationship, global and regional security issues, Russia’s war against Ukraine, and cross-Strait issues, among other topics.
No surprises there, and not much information either. I mean, what isn't included in "global and regional security issues"? We shall return to this list, and its order, below.
The use of "cross-Strait issues" delicately avoids using the term 'Taiwan', which is wise, and acknowledges the topic.
"Russia's war against Ukraine" is a little more problematic, but the Chinese will likely not bite on this and leave that to Russia to handle.
[Image: a map of China with a few squizzles.]
Readout: China
The official English readout from Xinhua news agency is equivalently brief, though more deliberately structured.
The introduction provides the fully expanded (but not complete) title for Yi (including the "of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee" part). Nex is the correct title for Sullivan. The sentence finishes with:
had candid, in-depth, substantive and constructive discussions on bilateral ties here on Wednesday and Thursday.
The term "in-depth" is new and differs from the USA readout. One would imagine that the Chinese are happy with the talks. It may also imply that they have put the USA in the dog box for long enough, have let them out and are being nice. The "here" is a permitted injection by Xinhua meaning that they were with the Chinese delegation in Vienna, though obviously not "in the room'. Not that they would reveal anything resticted, even if they were.
The next three sentences are formatted as paragraphs and describe the topics discussed. The first is the re-establisment of diplomatic relations and "stabilizing the relationship from deterioration". This would imply that the Chinese place great importance on their diplomatic relations with the USA. Combined with the above, it means, "let's not let the previous deterioration happen again".
The first topic listed, the diplomatic rapprochment, matches the order of the USA readout. This is the important message which the diplomatic services are sending to foreign governments and their respective peoples.
As can be expected from the Chinese Foreign Affairs Committee of the Central Committee the next topic, that of Taiwan, is presented precisely. Xinhua's editor has omitted in the introductory sentence Yi's membership of the Politburo and inserts it here when presenting this serious topic:
Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, fully expounded China's solemn position on the Taiwan question.
The uses of 'fully' and 'solemn' place heavy diplomatic weight on the sentence. A non-diplomatic translation could be: "Here is a message from the Politburo; There is One China, there will always be One China, get this into your thick skulls." One may also see a hint of: Taiwan will be integrated into the Communist Party of China's governance structure well before the centenary of the Communist Revolution in 2049.
The next sentence/paragraph merges "Asia-Pacific" (not Indo-Pacific) "Ukraine" and the 'everything else' clause:
The two sides also exchanged views on the situation in the Asia-Pacific region, Ukraine and other international and regional issues of common interest.
Asia-Pacific is first, meaning "this is our territory". Next is Ukraine which means "you are causing trouble for our close friend Russia and we have been forced to be involved, but we say nothing here", and then the "everything else" clause of "international and regional ...".
The Chinese conclude with:
Both sides agreed to continue to make good use of this strategic communication channel.
which mimics the phrase used by the USA, though dropping the adjective “important”. This serves two objectives, minimizing the sentence length and implying that all diplomatic connections are “important”.
The USA readout injects the names of the Presidents and refers to their meeting in Bali in 2022. This would seem to be for local political consumption. The Chinese do not. Their sign-off is concise.
With that concision, the Chinese diplomatic service are saying that the import bit is above, namely the resumption of dialogue and how they framed the “Taiwan question”.
Order of operations
Let's dig into the order of topics presented. In the USA readout the topics are all merged into one sentence with the following order:
"diplomatic relations"
"everything else"
"Russia/Ukraine"
"cross-Strait", and
"etc." ('other topics')
The Chinese readout uses three sentence/paragraphs with:
"diplomatic relations"
"Taiwan", and
"Asia-Pacific", "Ukraine" and “everything else"
Looking at the USA sequencing one sees another example of the USA’s diplomatic service getting their protocols in order. "everything else" is more important than "Russia/Ukraine", which supports the "diplomatic relations" as the key outcome. "Russia/Ukraine" gets mentioned because it is politically important to the USA, but is stuffed in the middle. As noted, "cross-Strait" avoids the term "Taiwan" to underplay it. The underplaying is further done by tacking on the 'etc.' (other issues) so that 'cross-Strait' does not occur as the last topic in the list which has a place of importance as people tend to remember the last thing in a list.
So, credit where credit is due. The USA diplomatic service has been quite deft. They are improving their game.
The Chinese is simple and clear. Following the "agreed" "diplomatic relations" is "Taiwan" which stands alone with solemn language. The merger of the lesser issues of Asia-Pacific and Ukraine are appended by the "everything else" to wrap up the list.
The Chinese are also being respectful, including the Ukraine/Russia topic, but including it only as a single word, the name of the nation. They do not mention Russia or use the nasty word “war” which both show respect to their friends in Moscow while not offending those in Washington D.C.
Expanding out
Given the background of the expanding SCO and BRICS, de-dollarization in trade, China's growing influence in the Middle East (the Iran-Saudi rapprochement and more) and China's entry as a potential broker for peace in the Ukraine conflict, there are good reasons for the USA to wish to speak with them. Of course, the Chinese welcome this. They are not trying to "burn it all down" but be given the respect which they believe they deserve. The problem for the USA, or blessing depending on how one looks upon it, is that many, many other countries agree with the Chinese. Frankly, they’d like a little respect too.
It is possible, likely even, that more subtle issues than the coarse topics presented to us were discussed. This can only be a good thing. Diplomacy is how civilized nations propose joint actions and resolve disputes.
The USA readout is boilerplate, short, accurate and respectful enough. The Chinese readout is also short, supportive and puts their Taiwan red-line gently and forcefully at once.
Conclusions
Compare this with the dumpster fire of Anchorage two years ago or any number of dumb-assed statements by Blinkenlights anywhere or Linda Thomas-Green-to-the-Gills at the U.N.
The USA is deserving of credit here for waking up from their destructive rhetoric, and perhaps for jettisoning Blinkenlights in the process. China has clearly indicated what needs be done to improve relations further than "stabilizing the relationship from deterioration", namely, stop the provocations over Taiwan. We’ll have to wait and see how much the USA administration can reign in their Military Industrial Complex funded Congress and whether the administration itself can re-tool its rhetoric.
The best news is the first point and conclusion from both readouts, the restablishment of relations. In their concluding sentence both readouts use a verb dear to diplomats, "to agree", in the past tense.
The two nations, via their diplomats, are talking again.
Update: Antiwar and WaPo weigh in
At the risk of making this article incomprehensibly long, I couldn’t resist discussing two follow-up articles to the meeting in Vienna by Antiwar and The Washington Post. The WaPo article gets picked apart and criticized as yet another piece of limited use and partially misleading "access journalism" by this exemplary MSM publication. Finally, a short comparison to the two articles is offered
Antiwar
An article, unexpectedly authored by Connor Freeman, at Antiwar’s News site provides an extended, recent background on the previously frozen state of USA and Chinese diplomatic relations following the "balloon incident” which lead to the sorry state of affairs. The reason for Connor's authorship appears to be that, quite naturally, the article requires many references to previous news articles at Antiwar, the vast majority of which were written by News Editor Dave DeCamp. To avoid too much self-referencing, it seems that Connor was given the honor of writing this new news article.
It is a such an excellent summary of the "previous state of affairs" that I inserted it above in the Background section of this article. It is short, detailed and heavily referenced, which is quite an accomplishment. Well done, Connor.
WaPo
The first source for the Antiwar piece is a May 12th article by Cate Cadell at The Washington Post published at 13:03 EDT, 9 and a half hours after this article was initially published. The overly cautious, early phrase of "in a tentative sign that relations could be thawing between Beijing and Washington" invites a further examination of the language used in the article.
The opening sentence-as-a-paragraph declares:
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told China’s top diplomat Wang Yi that the administration wants to move beyond the spy balloon spat, according to a senior White House official, in a tentative sign that relations could be thawing between Beijing and Washington, three months after the wayward airship derailed high-level talks and caused a diplomatic tailspin.
Apart from the cautious phrase, the opening attributes the diplomatic freeze to an inanimate object, namely the balloon. This is obviously false. Balloons don't talk or direct foreign policy, humans do. This is a variation of the passive voice commonly used in the MSM. Describing the affront the Chinese received from Blinken’s last minute cancellation as a “spat” is not even a poor understatement, its offensive and misleading. The Post asserts that the weather balloon was a "spy" balloon, which might even be likely, but is certainly not an established fact, and neither we nor Cate will ever know.
In the recent “Templates and Narratives” article at this site one is advised to look vary carefully at the leading paragraph or three of articles like this. The above is another demonstration of why the advice was offered.
[Image: U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptors assigned to the 525th Fighter Squadron, 3rd Wing, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. (U.S. Air Force Photo by Senior Airman Justin Wynn), borrowed from American Military News.]
The alleged “spy balloon” was shot down just off the coast of South Carolina. It was a combined operation with the FAA, who stopped departures from 3 airports (ILM, MYR and CLS), the Coast Guard which cleared an area of water off the coast, and the US Air Force which used multiple F-22 Raptor fighters and a refueling plane to blat the balloon with a $400 000 air-to-air, heat-seeking AIM-9X Sidewinder. Any blasted remaining pieces of the active part of the balloon that fell were to be gathered by USA Military or other offices of the government. Thus, there will never really be an opportunity to know whether the balloon was carrying surveillance equipment or not.
Cate then provides a piece of loose information, namely that the meeting in Vienna was "pulled together quickly". Two months could be characterized as "quickly" for such a high-level meeting involving at least 7 persons in each delegation. One gets the sense that WaPo is implying two to three weeks. However, this is preceded by some slightly more useful information, that the delegations met for “about eight hours” across the two days.
In the third paragraph Cate re-introduces her “access journalism” “anonymous source”, the senior White House official. Read this carefully:
The senior U.S. official described the talks as “constructive” and “candid.” Sullivan raised the cases of detained American citizens in China and counternarcotics operations as well as regional security issues including Taiwan. Sullivan also discussed Ukraine and shared concerns about Beijing supplying weapons to Moscow.
In the first sentence she quotes the source who is repeating two of the three adjectives used in the official White House readout, so nothing new there. Watch the next sentence. “Sullivan raised …”. The second sentence and the issues its lists are in no way connected to the senior official, except by proximity. It is actually Cate that says “Sullivan raised …” rather than the official as we are led to believe. Is this sloppy writing or a technique to allow WaPo lawyers to later say that they did not attribute the second sentence to the source? Spotting this sort of sloppy writing is the sub-editor’s job. Sadly, this failure of editing returns below. For now, lets assume that it is the source who has claimed that this list of topics were raised by Sullivan at the meeting.
The three topics supposedly discussed in Vienna which were in neither readout but which have been supposedly leaked to the WaPo reporter by the source are:
cases of detained American citizens in China
counternarcotics operations, and
shared concerns about Beijing supplying weapons to Moscow
(We know about the Taiwan issue from both readouts).
If the objective of the meeting was to re-establish diplomatic relations then the first issue seems counter to that and a small-fry talking-point. Perhaps it was important for the USA delegation to raise this issue.
The second is quite strange. A nation's standard "counternarcotics operations" are known as Customs which hardly requires being raised at such a high-level meeting. So, this is either fluff or it refers to some more clandestine or extra-territorial activity, supposedly by China. But why would the USA be concerned about 'counternarcotics operations'? Is China encroaching on the DEA's turf (Drug Enforcement Administration)? No expansion or explanation is provided.
The use of "shared" in point three is downright misleading, and we don’t know where it comes from because of the lack of quotation and the implied origin. The "concern" that China may be "supplying weapons to Moscow" might be shared amongst persons in Washington but is hardly "shared" between the diplomatic delegations which is implied in the sentence. China either is supplying, in which case they are not "concerned" or they aren't in which case they are also not "concerned".
WaPo then quotes the anonymous official extensively:
“This meeting comes as the United States and the PRC have sought to increase high-level engagement to maintain channels of communication and manage competition” said the U.S. official. Describing the balloon incident as “unfortunate,” they said the administration is now “seeking to look beyond that.”
The first sentence is a restatement of the USA official readout but cast as a joint effort when it seems far more likely that the USA initiated this request and the Chinese agreed to it. Indeed, this is what the rest of the paragraph indicates with "unfortunate" (what an understatement) and "seeking to look beyond".
The relevant quote from the USA readout which the official is paraphrasing is:
This meeting was part of ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication and responsibly manage competition.
One notes that the WaPo article provides neither a link to the USA readout nor the corresponding Chinese one, while the article revolves around both.
That is the first three paragraphs dealt with, lets see where we go from here.
Cate Cadell continues with:
China’s official news agency Xinhua said on Thursday the talks discussed “removing obstacles in China-U. S. relations and stabilizing the relationship from deterioration.” Beijing’s rhetoric appears positive compared to previous recent statements, which have been sharply critical of U.S. calls to install “guardrails” on the relationship, calling them hypocritical.
Firstly, a couple of nit-picks. Cate is obviously using a proportional rather than fixed width font as neither she nor her editor can see the typographic error in "China-U.<space>S.". Technically, this is a misquote and reveals that Xinhua has better editors than WaPo. Secondly, Xinhua didn't say anything, it published the words of the official English text of the Chinese readout which the WaPo reporter is quoting. I say verbs matter. Xinhua published or wrote and did not say anything.
Cate then undermines the careful work done by the USA's diplomatic service's careful wording in the official White House readout by describing the publication by Xinhua as "rhetoric" (which extends “said”; rhetoric is an oratory technique). She then fumbles "guardrails" and "hypocritical". While these terms have certainly been used separately, this author could not find them used together by Chinese diplomats, official channels like Xinhua or by semi-official channels like China's Global News. Maybe my search skills are insufficient? In any case, Cate provides no quotes or links to substantiate her claim.
The next paragraph is unproblematic, mentioning the USA/China presidential meeting in Bali at the G20 in November 2022 which was meant to lead to a visit by Blinkenlights to Beijing the following February.
We then receive:
Blinken postponed his departure on the eve of the trip when the Chinese spy balloon was discovered traversing the United States before being shot down by an American fighter jet off the coast of South Carolina.
Blinkenlights didn't postpone, he canceled. The "spy balloon" assertion has been covered above.
Further down we get more of the "postponed" theory with:
It’s the latest in a series of signs that conditions could soon be right for Blinken to reschedule his visit to Beijing.
The phrase "reschedule his" could perhaps be better expressed as "negotiate a new opportunity to". Good luck to him. He’s going to need it.
Cate then notes various other contact requests initiated by the USA with Chinese counterparts. Antiwar's Connor Freeman puts this in context by referring to a Bloomberg article which describes the "flurry" of requests as being PR efforts. This effort is supposedly meant to calm European and Asian allies who are alarmed by the USA's lack of diplomatic contact with China while it is ramping up war rhetoric and performing destabilizing actions. These are occuring in its Congress (i.e approving weapons sales to Taiwan), on the South China Sea and diplomatically with other nations of the Asia Pacific region such as establishing small, coast-guard type naval bases on the Philippines and encouraging the nation to join the "Freedom of Navigation" patrols or sending nuclear weapons to South Korea.
Cate concludes the article by quoting a Think-Tanker, Craig Singleton, who implies that the USA doesn't care about economics or trade, or considers them “niche areas”:
“What we are seeing today is the emergence of Xi’s bare minimum balancing act, in which he permits limited bilateral dialogue on niche areas of vital significance to Beijing — think economics and trade — while rejecting engagement on most anything else of import to Washington,”
"Balancing" is what diplomacy is about . What Singleton is complaining about is that China refuses to have its diplomatic service used as a punching bag for the USA to proclaim narratives on selected topics all the while not considering positions which are of concern to China.
Assessment
What are we to make of this article by Cate Cadell? I suppose its par for the course, really. Some speculative skerricks of new information are provided. The most concrete is probably the “eight hours” of the total duration of the meetings. Meanwhile, the article falls afoul of the usual failings of the MSM.
Stupid statements are made like claiming a balloon caused the diplomatic rift. This is actually a reverse passive voice effort. What Cate implies is that China caused the rift by launching the balloon when in fact the rift was caused by Blinkenlights. I mean he's the Secretary of State, for crying out loud. Couldn't he have called up Qin Gang before issuing his public statements and inquired about what was going on, or expressed his government's concerns? Perhaps he did, but he still burns down the now all important "strategic communications channel" by thumbing his nose at China and canceling his scheduled trip. This incompetence followed the abuse he handed out in anchorage a couple of years ago. Is it any wonder that Sullivan ends up meeting with Wang Yi instead of Blinken with Qin Gang? It looks like the Chinese wont touch Blinkenlights with a barge pole.
Other elements of the standard MSM failures in the WaPo article are:
Assertions are presented as accepted fact, as in "the spy balloon"
Blatant mis-representations are employed, such as "shared concerns about Beijing supplying weapons to Moscow" or Blinken "postponed"
Use of anonymous officials, which in this case provide us almost no information, and even that is unreliably attributed
Some think-tanker is quoted to point the finger at "them" being the problem. In this case the statement is just daft, adding nothing to the article at all
How do the two articles compare?
In the following statistical categories for the two articles, the first number is for the WaPo article, the second for Antiwar one. For "own" publication news.antiwar.com, original.antiwar.com and libertarianinstitute.org are merged.
Number of words: 792 and 828
Links to own publication: 2 and 15
Links to other publications: 0 and 7
The comparison is a little unfair in that the WaPo article is about the recent meeting and its implications whereas the Antiwar article provides extensive background in addition to the topics covered by the WaPo article. It does this with only 36 more words and provides 20 more references (the first of which is the WaPo article). The Antiwar article doesn't use the passive voice or deliberately misrepresent.
What do we gain from the WaPo article? A few talking points from the U.S. official some of which make little sense. The comments from the anonymous Chinese official which I omitted above reaffirm known Chinese positions and provide a tentative date for a meeting between the USA Secretary of State and his Chinese counter part in "late June or early July" (quoting Cate) but that “politicization of hot button topics” (quoting Cate quoting the official) meant that "scheduling would remain ambiguous for the time being" (quoting Cate). And that's it.
What do we gain from the Antiwar article? We are provided with a detailed background to the current situation, commentary and reaction to it (with links to more), and a potential explanation for the recent "flurry" of contact attempts.
Choose your poison. I'll take Antiwar anyday.
Sources
Readout of National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s Meeting with Chinese Communist Party Politburo Member and Director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission Wang Yi, The White House, 2023-05-11
Senior Chinese, U.S. officials talk on bilateral ties, huaxia (Editor), Xinhua (Chinese government media), 2023-05-11
How it happened: Transcript of the US-China opening remarks in Alaska, Nikkei Asia, 2021-03-19
To Avoid a War With China Over Taiwan, the US Needs To Back Down, Dave DeCamp (writing an opinion piece!), Antiwar, 2023-05-12
Blinken postpones China trip over 'unacceptable' Chinese spy balloon, Humeyra Pamuk, Idrees Ali and Michael Martina, Reuters, 2023-02-04
China Tells US It Must Respect Red Lines to Foster Communication, Dave DeCamp, Antiwar, 2023-05-08
The Blundering Biden Team, Patrick Lawrence, Consortium News, 2021-03-23
US and China Conclude ‘Tough’ Alaska Talks, Dave DeCamp, Anitwar, 2021-03-19
The Flight From the US Dollar, Ted Snider, Antiwar, 2023-05-08
Bold gambits on the West Asian chessboard, Pepe Escobar, The Cradle, 2023-05-09
Update Sources
US, China Tentatively Agree to Restart Dialogue, as Washington Fears Allies Will View Policies As Too Aggressive, Connor Freeman, Antiwar, 2023-05-12
U.S. looks to move past balloon incident in slight warming with China, Cate Cadell, The Washington Post, 2023-05-12
Meet the Sidewinder—the $400,000 missile of choice for shooting down suspected Chinese spy balloons and mystery UFOs, Low De Wei and Bloomberg, Fortune, 2023-0213
U.S. fighter jet shoots down suspected Chinese spy balloon, Randall Hill and Phil Stewart and Jeff Mason, Reuters, 2023-02-06
VIDEO: US fighter jet shoots down Chinese spy balloon off SC coast; recovering debris, Justin Cooper, American Military News, 2023-02-04
— Hunting for guardrail and hypocritical, and failing —
'Guardrail' of China-US relations can be obtained from Shanghai Communiqué: Global Times editorial, Global Times, 2022-02-28
US urged to take concrete moves to build guardrails, not play 'Taiwan card' ahead of Xi-Biden meeting at G20, GT staff reporters, 2022-11-12
US bipartisan politics make building guardrails around China-US ties more difficult, opinion with no author thus editors, Global Times, 2023-03-19
NB: I expect Mercouris and/or The Duran to offer come comment on the above diplomatic development and will add that, and any other reasonable sources to this article as I come across them.
Culture
How about a little on topic, Liverpuddlian style, Brit Alt Pop from way back when?
You Can Talk To Me, The Seahorses single from 1997, The Seahorses - Topic / Universal Music Group. uploaded 2019-06-20
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