The Biden administration just announced
Their China policy
And they’re making a mistake
A dangerous mistake
Welcome to China Uncensored. I’m Chris Chappell.
US President Joe Biden has been in office for almost a year and a half now.
And during that time, people have been a little confused about what his China policy is.
I can’t imagine why.
Biden: You hear people saying, “Biden wants to start a new Cold War with China. I don’t want a
Cold War with China. I just want to make China understand that we are not going to step back,
that we are not going to change any of our views Cooper:
So are you saying the United States would come to Taiwan's defense if China attacked?
Biden: Yes. We have a commitment to do that.
What a clear, unambiguous statement! That was immediately walked back by his administration.
Well there has been no shift, the president was not announcing any change in our policy
nor has he made a decision to change our policy. There is no change in our policy.
And it happened again.
Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?
Yes. You are?
That's the commitment we made.
In a statement afterwards,
a White House official insisting that Biden was not suggesting any change in existing US policy.
So we will defend Taiwan, except no we won’t, but yes we will, but no we won’t.
Will we or won’t we?!! The suspense is killing me! Actually it’s killing Taiwan.
But that’s just one example.
The Biden administration has sent a lot of mixed messages on China.
And people have been criticizing Biden’s China policy since that first meeting when
White House officials got lectured by Chinese officials in Alaska.
Biden has been accused of not having a plan, of just muddling through on China.
Or just more or less copying Trump’s China policy.
That one had to hurt. No one wants to be compared to the ex, even if it’s a compliment.
The White House kind of set themselves up for this though, because they never
clearly said how they view China and the Chinese Communist Party.
But last week, the Biden administration finally put
all the speculation to rest. It officially announced its China policy.
In a speech by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The suspense is killing me.
To succeed in this decisive decade, the Biden administration’s strategy can be summed up
in three words—“invest, align, compete.”
Great! Invest, align, compete! What does that even mean?
We will invest in the foundations of our strength here at home – our competitiveness,
our innovation, our democracy. We will align our efforts with our network of allies and partners,
acting with common purpose and in common cause. And harnessing these two key assets,
we’ll compete with China to defend our interests and build our vision for the future.
Amazing. That was so boring I still don’t know what it means.
What’s that, Shelley? Invest in America, align with our allies, compete with China. Well, why
didn’t he just say that? Diplomats. Always making things harder to understand.
Now Secretary Blinken’s speech said a bunch of the right things.
But it also confirms what I’ve been worried about since the beginning.
President Biden’s new policy on China looks good on the surface.
But he’s missing something huge. Something that could destroy everything.
I’ll tell you what Blinken got right, and wrong, after the break.
Welcome back. President Biden’s invest, align, compete strategy on China was a great idea…15
years ago.
Competing with China isn’t going to cut it now. The Chinese Communist Party sees
itself at war with America. That’s something the Biden administration can’t acknowledge,
because they’re so focused on bringing diplomacy back, baby.
That’s why we’ve put diplomacy back at the center of American foreign policy
I’m not like that other guy America used to date.
I’m so diplomatic! Unless you’re a bad dude, like Corn Pop.
Ok, I’m not saying we don’t need diplomacy. We do. But we don’t need diplomacy just to say,
hey, we’re diplomatic. We need diplomacy that actually works.
But I don’t want to make it seem like Blinken’s speech sucked.
He got some stuff right. Like defending American values.
We are not perfect. But at our best, we always strive to be – in the words of our Constitution –
a more perfect union. Our democracy is designed to make that happen. That’s what the American
people and the American model offer, and it’s one of the most powerful assets in this contest.
Yes! We need to champion American democracy and freedom.
And he prominently brought up China’s human rights issues. In fact, Blinken used the g word.
The United States stands with countries and people around the world against the genocide
and crimes against humanity happening in the Xinjiang region, where more than a million
people have been placed in detention camps because of their ethnic and religious identity.
Blinken then called out China on their human rights abuses in Tibet and Hong Kong.
And he pushed back on the Chinese Communist Party’s line that this is no one else’s business.
Now, Beijing insists that these are somehow internal matters
that others have no right to raise. That is wrong.
Great! That *is* wrong. So what is Biden going to do about it?
We’ll continue to raise these issues and call for change – not to stand against China,
but to stand up for peace, security, and human dignity.
Ohhhhh so close. “Raise these issues and call for change?” This is like “sending
thoughts and prayers.” It sounds nice but it means almost nothing.
To be fair, the Biden administration has been sanctioning Chinese officials for
human rights abuses. And Biden signed a law banning slave labor products from Xinjiang.
So they are doing things. But why are they afraid of saying that?
Blinken also talked about the importance of a free and open Indo-Pacific.
And he called out China’s asymmetric decoupling. That’s where they’re trying to make China less
dependent on the world while making the world more dependent on China.
Which means we need to make America less dependent on China. Which Blinken claims we’re doing.
But there’s a pattern here. Blinken correctly identifies a lot of the bad stuff the Chinese
Communist Party is doing. But he stops short of saying why they’re doing it.
More after the break.
Welcome back.
Like I said earlier, President Biden’s new policy on China looks good on the surface.
But he’s missing something huge.
The Biden administration fundamentally doesn’t understand the Chinese Communist Party.
And that means the CCP is going to play Biden like a fiddle if he doesn’t wise up.
Throughout his speech, Blinken was careful to say that the US
isn’t looking to challenge or change China.
We are not looking for conflict or a new Cold War. To the contrary, we’re determined to avoid both.
We don’t seek to block China from its role as a major power,
nor to stop China – or any other country,
for that matter – from growing their economy or advancing the interests of their people.
Bad news, Secretary Blinken: we’re already in a Cold War.
And you can say that the US isn’t looking to block China until you’re blue in the face.
The Chinese Communist Party will never believe you.
Maybe he was trying not to give Chinese propaganda any ammunition. But it doesn’t matter,
because the Communist Party will say the US is attacking China anyway.
Blinken also talked about how the US wants to coexist and cooperate with China.
And he says there’s no reason that can’t happen.
There’s no reason why our great nations cannot coexist peacefully,
and share in and contribute to human progress together.
And here’s the dangerous mistake. There *is* a reason why the US and
China can’t coexist peacefully. And that is the Chinese Communist Party.
The Biden administration can’t admit this. Maybe they don’t believe it.
Blinken also seems to indicate that the problem is with the Chinese Communist Party under Xi Jinping.
I’ve talked before many times about the problem with believing that Xi Jinping is the problem.
But once more for the people in the State Department:
The Chinese Communist Party is the problem.
If Xi gets overthrown, but the Communist Party is still around,
the Party is going to replace him with someone just as bad or maybe even worse.
Blinken mentions the Chinese Communist Party by name
four times in his speech. But he never talks about the Party’s ideology.
He says the Chinese regime wants to undermine
the international rules-based order, but he doesn’t say why.
Not to compare him to the ex,
but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had a pretty different take on this.
“We must start by changing how our people and our partners perceive
the Chinese Communist Party. We have to tell the truth.
We can’t treat this incarnation of China as a normal country, just like any other.”
I guess we’re back to treating China like a normal country, except for all the genocide.
Biden’s position on the Communist Party is fundamentally different from Trump’s.
Under Trump, National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien gave an entire speech
about the Chinese Communist Party’s ideology.
Let us be clear, the Chinese Communist Party is a Marxist-Leninist organization.
The Party General Secretary Xi Jinping sees himself as Josef Stalin’s successor.
O’Brien also spelled out why ideologically,
the Chinese Communist Party needs total control over its people.
Under communism, individuals are merely a means to be used toward the achievement of the ends of
the collective nation state. Thus, individuals can be easily sacrificed for the nation state’s goals.
Individuals do not have inherent value under Marxism-Leninism.
They exist to serve the state; the state does not exist to serve them.
Maybe the Biden administration thinks this all sounds a little too Cold War-ish.
That talking about Marxist-Leninist systems is so 20th century.
Maybe Biden mistakenly thinks that the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t
actually believe in communism anymore. But they do. Their system runs on it.
And if Biden doesn’t understand the Communist Party, he doesn’t understand
why the Chinese regime cannot peacefully coexist with America.
It’s because America’s democracy, our freedoms, our unalienable rights,
are an existential threat to the Chinese Communist Party. Just by existing, we are a threat to them.
And that’s why they consider themselves at war with us.
If the Biden administration doesn’t understand this, their China policy will ultimately fail.
The Chinese Communist Party doesn’t seem too worried about Biden’s policy.
They didn’t have much of a reaction to Blinken’s speech. Other than to call it “unexciting.”
And cliched.
Everyone’s a critic.
And now it’s time for me to answer a question from a fan of the show who supports China
Uncensored on the crowdfunding website Patreon, or the exclusive social media platform Locals.
James Wallberg asks on Patreon:
Given the rise of China as a maritime threat do you think America should quietly hire privateers
to run interference with them? Feel free to use whatever pirate jokes you want to make,
there will never be a better opportunity.
Well, James. I think that the PLA Navy and the Chinese Maritime Militia would
find American pirates in the South China Sea really Arrrrrrgghravating.
Did you like that joke? Ayyye do.
Pirates would be a good idea, if it didn’t cost an arm and a leg.
I hope you enjoyed that, James.
Seriously though, the idea that America should hire privateers has been proposed before.
In fact, I talked about it in this episode of our other show, America Uncovered.
You should check it out.
Part of the reason people are talking about using privateers is that the US Navy is getting weaker.
So we could hire military contractors like Blackwater
to go up against China’s Maritime Militia instead.
You know, I’ve always wanted a Pirates of Dark Water reboot.
Pirates of Blackwater has a slightly different ring to it.
Thanks for your question, James. And thank you for supporting China Uncensored on Patreon.
We can only make this show because of the support of viewers like you. All it takes is as little as
a dollar per episode over at the crowd funding website Patreon. You’ll get some cool perks,
including the chance of having me answer your question at the end of an episode.
Once again, I’m Chris Chappell. See you next time.