Were we as wrong about “China Joe” as the left-media were about “Russian Collusion”?
Certainly, the Hunter Biden emails left no doubt that there was a lucrative money trail running from the Biden family – and that its unnamed “Big Guy” was in for his cut – to a new-defunct Chinese company. Just as certainly, all Chinese companies lead back to the CCP. This is not a “conspiracy theory”, it’s Chinese law.
This was an evidence trail that was at least, unlike the “Russian Collusion” conspiracy theory, not completely imaginary. Then there’s Biden’s past as VP under Barack Obama who spent eight years disastrously ignoring China’s increasing aggression in the Pacific, so nearly all his opponents assumed that “China Joe” would be Xi’s “cock-holster”, to borrow a phrase from alleged “late night comedians”.
But so far – and pleasingly – the Biden administration is giving all the signs of not repeating the Obama blunders. While Biden is certainly not engaging in Trump-esque “fire and fury” rhetoric (and is being notably re-rebuffed by China’s close ally, North Korea), his administration has backed descriptions of China’s actions in Xinjiang as “genocide”.
The claim that Biden “dismissed” China’s genocide is mostly a right-media repeat of the left-media’s standard deliberate misrepresentation of Donald Trump. Like Trump, Biden is a terrible public speaker. His mind wanders and disconnected sentences stumble out of his mouth, giving plenty of leeway for un-generous interpretations of what he meant.
The latest meeting between Biden foreign policy officials and their Chinese counterparts has also featured some pretty blunt talk.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan made a point of abandoning traditional niceties by inviting TV cameras and reporters back into the meeting room to capture them trading barbs with their Chinese counterparts on Friday (AEDT).
As is typical of China’s “wolf warrior” diplomats, the Chinese officials pursued an attack-as-defence strategy. Australia has seen this tactic in operation aplenty in the past six months. Instead of trying to defend their own indefensible actions, Chinese officials try to attack their critics, however spuriously.
The Chinese officials said it was hypocritical of the US to complain about China’s human rights record and accuse it of cyber espionage given the history of racism against African-Americans. They also accused the US of being a global “champion of cyber attacks”[…]
Sullivan shot back that America has tried to confront mistreatment of minorities rather than “trying to pretend they don’t exist”.
The “secret sauce of America” was its willingness to acknowledge its flaws and work to improve, he said.
In stark contrast to the supine Obama policy, Biden officials are making it clear that China will no longer be allowed to run roughshod over America and its allies.
At the outset of the two-day summit in Anchorage, Alaska, Blinken said the US team will “discuss our deep concerns with actions by China, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyber attacks on the United States, economic coercion of our allies”.
“Each of these actions threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability,” Blinken said.
“That’s why they’re not merely internal matters, and why we feel an obligation to raise these issues here today.”
In more good news for Australia, following on from the announcement of a high-level meeting by “Quad” alliance leaders, Biden administration officials singled out Australia relations as a policy principle.
Before the meeting Kurt Campbell, Biden’s Indo-Pacific Co-ordinator, told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age that a thaw in US-China tensions was contingent on China dropping its economic pressure campaign against Australia.
The Secretary of State also appeared to be issuing a veiled warning to Beijing over its sabre-rattling against Taiwan and Japan.
Blinken said the Biden administration is “committed to leading with diplomacy to advance the interests of the United States and to strengthen the rules-based international order”.
“The alternative to a rules-based order is a world in which might makes right and winners take all,” he said. “And that would be a far more violent and unstable world for all of us.”
Blinken, who has just returned from trips to Japan and South Korea, said other countries had raised concerns about China’s behaviour.
Sydney Morning Herald
So, maybe we were wrong about “China Joe”. Let us hope so. The last thing the world needs right now is a return to the “clusterf**k” foreign policy of the Obama years.
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