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I wonder if Secretary of State Antony Blinken is thinking of resigning soon. How else to explain the long, rambling speech on China he recently delivered full of phrases like "competition need not lead to conflict."
While experts had downplayed expectations, Blinken had a chance to summarize President Biden’s high points from his 6-day Asia trip and energize the administration’s policy toward China. Instead, he spent nearly an hour rolling out a policy to "invest, align and compete" but with such soft, complaisant language that I fear even China’s propaganda mouthpieces will have a hard time railing against it.
Blinken set a new low in major diplomatic speeches and took a mighty long time doing it.
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Blinken’s speech was slow torture because everyone was waiting for him to weigh in on Taiwan. Last week, President Joe Biden said "yes" he would defend Taiwan. Then the White House walked it back. Technically, Biden’s right; the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 gives the president the right to choose the response to security threats to Taiwan or to U.S. interests (go on, look it up.)
The ball was in Blinken’s court. Finally, after nearly an hour, he said there was no policy change and the U.S. does not support Taiwan’s independence. Here was the one time Biden did the right thing in foreign policy, and put some nice strategic ambiguity in play, and his own Secretary of State shuts it down.
The whole speech went like that. Blinken realizes China is a major threat in so many ways; he spells out economic and military threats, but he then pulls his punches. His mushy policy and diplomatic lingo made for an exceptionally weak lecture on the international order listing out reams of tedious accomplishments from caving in on a European trade dispute to vaccine giveaways.
Halfway through, I began to wonder if the whole Hunter Biden laptop China influence thing was indeed impacting U.S. policy, because Blinken was all but begging for better business deals with China. Maybe he was mesmerized by Senator Mitt Romney, who sat, watching, in the front row.
Whatever the cause, Team Biden has adopted an approach to China so soft it’s sinister.
Take Chinese students in America. Currently, about 360,000 students are enrolled in universities and the FBI has warned not all of them are friendly. Yet Blinken is "thrilled they’ve chosen to study here" and said America is "lucky to have them." Chinese President Xi Jinping’s own daughter graduated from Harvard, yet China is a bigger threat than ever. It makes you wonder.
On trade, Blinken says the U.S. will "push back responsibly" because "we want trade and investment as long as they are fair." He tore into China’s steel dumping; but made just one mention of solar panels, where U.S. makers have been all but shut out and there’s a hot tariff dispute right now. Blinken even threw in a plea for Beijing to show more U.S. movies in China.
Engaging with China was a major theme. "We can’t let the disagreements that divide us stop us from moving forward on priorities," Blinken said.
And what is a priority? Climate change, of course. "Climate is not about ideology. It’s about math. There’s no way to solve climate without China’s leadership," according to Blinken. He ranked China as the top polluter, and America second. What? Laying near-equal blame on the US was unfair to Americans, because the US has slowed its emissions far more than China has. Then came this happy talk: "competing on clean energy and climate policy can produce results that benefit everyone." Everyone with lobbyists, that is.
And then there was COVID. "Our fates are linked. Our hearts go out to the Chinese people…All countries need to work together to vaccinate the world," said Blinken.
Blinken also wants China and the U.S. to work together on Iran, North Korea, and "address our responsibilities as nuclear powers." All while China is doubling its nuclear weapons for no reason.
Blinken is just recovering from COVID, so he gets a pass on his delivery, but not on the policies. And let me say he did well calling out the joint China-Russia strategic bomber flight, China’s surveillance state, and problems in Xinjiang. My favorite part came when he said "we will shape the strategic environment around Beijing to advance our vision for an open, inclusive international system." That’s containment, which pokes at China’s deepest paranoia, so that was good.
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"There’s no reason why our great nations cannot coexist peacefully, and share in and contribute to human progress together," Blinken summed up.
Do you reckon that’s how Xi Jinping and Putin talk to each other?
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Back in April, I was impressed at Blinken’s reaction to Russia’s atrocities at Bucha and his efforts to help support Ukraine. Sadly, on Thursday, we once again saw the Blinken of the Afghanistan disaster of 2021.
Blinken may or may not be thinking of moving on, but either way, this was probably Team Biden’s last big chance to roll out a strong China policy before the mid-term elections. China is enabling Russia’s Ukraine war, buying oil and grain. The world is dividing into two camps. But Blinken’s still pursuing his global diplomacy priorities from ten years ago.
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