Will Biden Hold the Line in U.S.-China Summit?
Tellingly, there is no plan to discuss the biggest elephant in the room — China’s unleashing the COVID pandemic.
The United States’s number one geopolitical foe is not Russia, as many on the Left would now have Americans believe. Rather, it’s China, or more specifically the Chinese Communist Party. The party in control of the world’s second-largest economy is champing at the bit to become number one, and it has been and continues to engage in a massive propaganda campaign intended to convince Western political leaders that Beijing is only interested in fair play. In reality, of course, fairness is the opposite of what the ChiComs are seeking — they’re after global dominance.
Yesterday began the first China-U.S. high-level summit under the Biden administration, and clearly Xi Jinping is seeking to get Joe Biden to back off from the aggressive stance Donald Trump initiated against China over its long-running trade abuse. The Wall Street Journal reports, “The measures China wants reversed include limits on American sales to Chinese firms such as its telecommunications company Huawei Technologies Co. and chip maker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp.; visa restrictions on Communist Party members, Chinese students and state-media journalists; and closure of the Chinese Consulate in Houston.”
In short, China wants to get back to a pre-Trump relationship with the U.S. While the Biden administration is eager to continue its Trump-reversal campaign, there’s a particular lack of backbone when it comes to China. It’s difficult to ignore Beijing’s current human rights abuses — the concentration camps filled with minority Uyghurs and the crackdown on Hong Kong. But if the ChiComs can count on anyone, it’s Biden.
However, of all the items on the summit agenda, the biggest glaring omission is COVID-19, a.k.a. the ChiCom virus. Democrats, including Biden, have repeatedly derided Trump for calling out China for unleashing the global pandemic, ridiculously asserting that Trump was stoking anti-Asian racism. In fact, the Biden administration has decided to go all-in on this racism narrative, in part with the Atlanta murders, as a way to deflect criticism when Biden softens on China.
Interestingly, Biden’s recent comments essentially calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a “killer” may also be intended as a deflection tactic. Blaming the Russians is an effective dog whistle for the mainstream media, for one thing. Furthermore, it may serve to distract from a newly released U.S. Intelligence Community Assessment which found that China sought to influence the 2020 election in Biden’s favor. The report assessed “that China did take some steps to undermine former President Trump’s election chances, primarily through social media and official public statements and media.” That sounds … kind of like how Russia allegedly sought to influence the 2016 election.
Biden wants to appear tough on both China and Russia, but actions matter most. And on that front, we’re betting Biden will capitulate far too much to Beijing.