China Ambushes Top American Diplomat
by Gordon G. Chang • July 30, 2021 at 5:00 am
"Chinese leaders give the impression that the U.S.A. has much more to seek from them than they from Washington.... This time, the Americans were on the defensive as they sought Beijing's cooperation on a range of issues—climate change, North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan, and others—ensuring that the U.S.A. did not seek conflict." — Yogesh Gupta, former Indian diplomat and specialist on China-India relations, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post, July 27, 2021.
In fact, the Chinese are not that essential, and American leaders do not have to listen to them. Take their economy. Last year, China became even more dependent on exports, and it remains extraordinarily reliant on access to the U.S. market. In 2020, China's merchandise trade surplus with the U.S. accounted for a stunning 58.0% of its overall merchandise trade surplus.
Moreover, China's financial markets have become even more dependent on foreign capital because of Xi Jinping's unrelenting attack on his country's tech sector. Xi began his most recent phase of this months-long assault with the unprecedented halting last November of Ant Group's initial public offering, slated to be the world's largest at $39.5 billion. This year, Xi has wiped more than $140 billion of value off U.S.-listed Chinese tech giants during the last week of July alone, and most analysts believe the carnage will continue.
China, as a result, is needy, requiring foreign cash to replace what has already been lost—and what will be lost as Xi continues to take apart his tech giants. Biden can use his considerable powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977—or, if he is even bolder, the Trading with Enemy Act of 1917—to halt commerce with China and investment into the Chinese markets, ending once and for all the China threat.
Once again, China's regime went out of its way to insult Biden administration diplomats.
The mauling this time took place in the Chinese city of Tianjin, on July 26. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, the most senior Biden administration official to visit China, was the victim.
Beijing used the meeting with Ms. Sherman, as it used the now-infamous March meeting in Anchorage, not to work with the U.S. but to launch a propaganda campaign against Washington.
Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng, for instance, publicly accused the U.S. of trying to end the Chinese regime. "A whole-of-government and whole-of-society campaign is being waged to bring China down," Xie said, according to the official China Daily, during Sherman's visit.
