Biden Never Learns: He Still Wants to Talk to China
by Gordon G. Chang • June 23, 2021 at 5:00 am
Call this another Biden debacle in the making.
China, it is evident, is now in no mood for substantive discussions, other than, of course, for the purpose of accepting America's surrender.
American leaders, administration in and administration out, think it is important to meet face-to-face with adversaries, that they can somehow reason with them. That view is naïve, arrogant, and almost always incorrect. Chinese leaders of the communist variety often talk of "friendship" but are ruthlessly pragmatic, and often just ruthless. For them, personal feelings have no value in relations with other states.
Personal diplomacy with Beijing is counterproductive: Americans chase after the Chinese and the Chinese take advantage of this eagerness. The incessant pursuit of Beijing makes America, in the eyes of the Chinese regime, an easy mark.
If the reports about Dong are accurate, Biden should be now talking about imposing the most severe costs on China, not chasing after Xi Jinping to begin a conversation. America should, among other things, cut trade, end investment, prohibit technical cooperation, perhaps stop all travel altogether. Biden definitely should close China's remaining four consulates in the U.S. and send virtually all Chinese embassy officials home. The President should announce it is the policy of the United States to end communist rule in China.
Chinese officials took Canadian hostages, known as "the two Michaels," in December 2018 and have held them since because they knew Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would do nothing about it. The Chinese believed Trudeau would do nothing because he had spent his career desperately trying to court China. — Charles Burton of the Ottawa-based Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
So, President Biden, stop turning the other cheek and start performing your most fundamental constitutional duty: Protecting America from foreign enemies.
President Joe Biden, according to National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, wants to begin a new round of "engaging" China.
Call this another Biden debacle in the making.
On June 17, after the troubled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva, Sullivan told reporters that Biden "will look for opportunities to engage with President Xi going forward."
"Soon enough, we will sit down to work out the right modality for the two presidents to engage," Sullivan said. "It's now just a question of when and how."
How about never?
The U.S. and China have already engaged each other. Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken sat down with China's top two diplomats, Politburo member Yang Jiechi and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in Anchorage in the middle of March.
