The Chinese were right to remain skeptical after the Blinken visit to Beijing. The short version:
Literally took 24 hours for insults to start again 🙄
What's the point of sending Blinken to Beijing to cool things down if you're going to insult Xi literally the day after? That's frankly beyond me… 🤷‍♂️ https://t.co/bLCsK8qt5D
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) June 21, 2023
Even though Blinken emerged from his many hours of meetings looking beaten up, he still had enough gumption left in him to have his short talk with Xi Jinpeng labeled as “candid”. Nevertheless, Blinken appeared to offer a meaningful concession to China by the appearance of firming up its language on the status of Taiwan in a China-favoring direction, going from the old formula of empty reaffirmations of the one-China policy to saying at a press conference, “We do not support Taiwan independence.”
Moon of Alabama cited an AlJazeera story that picked up a more telling statement, that the US had also revised its Taiwan fact sheet…on May 28, before the Beijing meeting. But the AlJazeera piece stressed that despite the appearance of some verbal flip-flopping, US policy had not changed. Hence the extremely strong words to Blinken.
As we said, everyone tried to put the best possible face on these meetings, even thought there was as close to nada as you could get in the way of concrete next steps. China did not agree to the US key demand of reopening military channels of communication because the US is pig-headedly refusing to drop sanctions on China’s defense chief Li Shangfu.
English language house organ Global Times, in articles after the Blinken meeting with foreign minister Qin Gang and then the meetings with Wang Yi and Xi, stressed that what would matter was US actions. That’s hardly a surprising position given recent history, as summarized in Responsible Statecraft:
One recurring problem in U.S.-Chinese relations is that China perceives a wide gap between what the U.S. says it wants from the relationship and what it does. Washington professes to value the status quo, but it takes actions vis-à -vis Taiwan that seem to erode it. The U.S. and its allies claim that they don’t seek to harm the Chinese economy while the U.S. implements export controls that are clearly designed to kneecap China’s technology sector.
The administration then says that it wants to stabilize relations, but then it turns around and produces a communique with its G-7 partners that attacks China in the sharpest terms and faults China for coercive behavior that the U.S. and its allies also engage in.
It is natural that the Chinese government sees U.S. policy as an effort to contain and “suppress” China, because that is what the U.S. has been seeking to do. Under these conditions, repairing ties becomes much more challenging if it is even possible.
The Biden administration frequently likes to pose as being open to diplomacy with other states while putting the burden on the other state to take the initiative….
This creates the impression here at home that the administration is the reasonable party willing to talk while making no effort that might involve politically risky concessions. Diplomatic outreach is rarely successful without sustained effort and at least some risk-taking, so it is no surprise that this approach has been fruitless in every case.
The administration is also very stubborn in its refusal to offer any sanctions relief, no matter how minor, to facilitate diplomatic progress. As they see it, sanctions relief should only be granted after the other side yields. The trouble is that the other side just digs in its heels and refuses to budge, and the administration refuses to show the sort of flexibility that might end the impasse. The administration can blame the other government for the lack of progress, but the reality is that the U.S. chooses stalled diplomacy over making any goodwill gestures that might lead to reciprocal moves.
Alexander Mercouris highlighted a key point in his presentation yesterday, that that China explicitly and repeatedly rejected the US approach of what he called going a la carte with China, cooperating where it suited the US, being confrontational elsewhere. Yet as Mercouris pointed out, you can still infer from US readouts that the US has not dropped that stance either. For instance, from the State Department on the Blinken-Qin discussion:
The Secretary raised a number of issues of concern, as well as opportunities to explore cooperation on shared transnational issues with the PRC where our interests align.
A new article in Global Times calls out another point we had flagged in our earlier post, that the US insisting in its Qin readout and presumably even more so in the meeting, that it was going to uphold the “rules-based order” as in US hegemony. From Global Times today:
A statement on Sunday by a US State Department spokesperson said that Blinken said the US will “work with its allies and partners to advance our vision for a world that is free, open, and upholds the rules-based international order.”
Yang [Tao, director-general of the Department of North American and Oceanian Affairs of the Chinese Foreign Ministry,] said that the original intention of President Xi Jinping in advocating a community with a shared future for mankind is to maximize international solidarity and cooperation to jointly address global challenges.
“China is the first country to sign the UN Charter. It is the creator, defender and beneficiary of the current international order. Why should China change the existing international order?” said Yang.
“Some people always talk about the ‘rules-based international order.’ What rules are they based on? If it is the UN Charter, China has no problem. If it is the rules formulated by a handful of countries, China, as well as many other countries, will find it difficult to agree,” Yang said.
Not surprisingly, the Financial Times and other outlets report that China is hopping mad about this snub. From the pink paper:
China has responded with outrage after US president Joe Biden called his counterpart Xi Jinping a “dictator”, in a row that threatens to derail nascent attempts to reach a truce in their deteriorating relationship.
China’s foreign ministry described as “extremely absurd and irresponsible” the remarks from Biden — which came just a day after US secretary of state Antony Blinken visited the Chinese leader in Beijing in a bid to restore dialogue.
The comments “seriously violate basic facts, diplomatic protocols and China’s political dignity”, China’s foreign ministry said.
The US president told a campaign fundraising gathering in California on Tuesday evening that Xi had not known about an alleged spy balloon that flew over the US early this year. The incident sparked acrimony and sent bilateral ties plunging to an all-time low.
“That’s what’s a great embarrassment for dictators, when they didn’t know what happened,” Biden told the gathering for 130 guests in a private home.
The timing of the comments is expected to anger Xi, China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, who secured an unprecedented third five-year term in office in March.
I wouldn’t bet on the minimal commitments from the meetings, like a return to pre-zero Covid levels of passenger flights, being implemented.
The worst is that this insult does not simply demonstrate that the US is incapable of diplomacy. It shows we are so interested in dominance that we’ve lost sight of what our interests our. So institutionally, we are engaging in the same sort of self-destructive behavior that Trump practices personally. Perhaps that is the real reason Democrats hate him. Despite decorating in gold, the essence of his behavior is not all that different than theirs.
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I’m tempted to compare this to Eisenhower and Dulles, but then that would be pissing on Eisenhower’s grave.
Could not believe this when I saw it a short time ago. Biden has also called Putin a ‘dictator’ so I guess that he now rates Xi at the same level – as an enemy to be regime-changed. And that Foreign Affair’s article in Links today called “America’s Goal Should Be a Democratic China” seems to confirm it. Biden is facing next year’s Presidential elections and as by then the Ukraine will be lost, he will have to have something to rabble-rouse on and get voters to support him. Based on what just happened, I think that Biden and the Democrats will campaign on China-bashing and shouting how they are a threat to the American way of life, that they are just about to invade Taiwan, and I would not be surprised that not only will they attack China over human rights but that they will accuse that country of genocide as far as the Uyghers are concerned. They will literally push the US into confrontation with China in order to win a political election. But hey, anything for a political win.
Now that you mention it, Hunter has now pleaded guilty, and Ukraine is unraveling, maybe this is Biden’s way of signalling adherence to the Pelosi camp.
As a foreigner it is again and again annoying how USA use international politics as a extension of national politics. Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan for instance may well have been in order to curry favor with her Chinese-American constituency.
re curry favor, I wonder which 130 people and whose private home.
Promoting democracy?
Not likely…
I don’t see China-bashing as a winning strategy. I think most folks are alarmed about our dependency on China for manufacturing cheap goods, but since Trump tried to make some noise about it, nothing has been really accomplished.
I prefer to call China-bashing what it really is – racism.
Screaming “China bad” is really a dog whistle, as they say.
Some are alarmed, in particularly the chicken hawks of the MIC.
But others don’t mind, as that means they get better profit margins on their drop shipping business.
Maybe, but even the MIC realizes it’s dependence on China.
“We can de-risk but not decouple” from China, says Raytheon chief:
https://www.ft.com/content/d0b94966-d6fa-4042-a918-37e71eb7282e
A country with ” Free Trade” policy is like a person with HIV infection.
The Free Trade Ideology is America’s HIV.
The Free Trade Agreements and Treaties we have, and the Free Trade Organizations we are in, are
America’s AIDS.
Viewed this way, the dependency on China for manufactured goods at all levels is not the problem, it is a symptom of the disease, which is Free Trade. ” Chinese Economic Aggression” is just an opportunistic infection because we have no social-economic antibodies against foreign economic aggression, just as a person with HIV-AIDS has no antibodies against Pneumocystis pneumonia, Caposi’s sarcoma, etc. We really shouldn’t blame the Pneumocystis pneumonia or the Caposi’s sarcoma for infecting someone with AIDS, and we really shouldn’t blame China for infecting a country with Free Trade.
The answer is to abolish Free Trade, not to whine about Xi being a “dictator” or about China being “unfair”.
Blinken’s statement-reading at his press conference in China had the tone of a 7th grader who was reciting a forced apologize.
Not sincere at all.
So it would seem. That’s really tough for Little Antony.
I was just watching a vid on Blinken’s body language during that presser.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLuzzvZgpvU
She was not impressed, either.
It is hard to tell where the incompetence in the Biden administration comes from. At times it seems like it is coming from Blinken and Nuland, whereas other times it seems to be coming from the muddled commander in chief himself. That leaves open the possibility that it is all of the above. The US is getting nothing positive for all of this belligerence (except of course for the arms industries). And now the rumors are swirling that NATO troops will enter western Ukraine. That would be the ultimate blunder on Biden’s part, and a most likely disastrous one indeed.
Blinken and Nuland are political appointees, hand picked by Biden. They might get away with a little bit of policy freelancing, but they wouldn’t hold their positions unless they were going to work on Biden’s vision of foreign policy. Biden has always considered himself a foreign policy guy so it’s reasonable to assume that even in (or perhaps because of) his addled state, we’re seeing the man’s vision for the US in the world.
Biden does not have his own vision. He is a figurehead carrying out long-term US foreign policy.
Has anyone read The Grand Chessboard? (Zbig B. 1997)
Never forget that Blinken and Nuland … and Sullivan … are ideologues … Neoconservatives of the Leo Strauss school and I think members of PNAC. To them the Ukraine project is as much a crusade as a policy as it furthers the goal of cutting Russia down to size. The ultimate goal of those who think as they do, and there are all too many of them in government, is the preservation and expansion of US hegemonic exceptionalism. Biden has been “all-in” on Ukraine at a minimum since his Vice
Presidency. Unfortunately, none of them appear capable of seeing past or through or around their ideological blinkers. We are stuck with them as long as BIden is president.
Nuland is married to Robert Kagan a founding member of the PNAC.
She and her husband, and the rest of the warmongers of PNAC should be run out of DC on a rail – and fast. But that will never happen.
True, however Nuland et al. continued at the State Dept. under the Trump regime. Trump also appointed rabid neocon Bolton. The only difference between Clinton/BushJr/Obama/Trump/Biden is the superficial blah blah.
“Fat Mike” Pompeo wanted to put a hit on Julian Assange, just like HRC. There is no substantive difference. What do we think this is? A democracy or something? ;-)
Aurelien’s latest:
“In the endless, vicious, mud-wrestling contest which is US policy-making, one tendency or one interest group will from time to time score a temporary victory, which other groups will then immediately seek to undermine and reverse. (The fact that even the President has agreed to something is no guarantee that it will actually happen.)”
And if the president is barely even there, then what?
I remember candidate Biden running as “the foreign policy expert” – the adult in the room that knew all the world leaders personally and would undo all the diplomatic damage done by Trump.
Biden has always been obnoxious in his need to show himself to be the tough guy; he is always leading with his poorly disguised inferiority complex. Bragging to his donors about how much of a stud he was by blowing his newest Corn Pop’s “two boxcars worth of spy equipment” out of the air is just another example of this. You can always count on him needlessly challenging someone to a push up contest.
Two box cars worth of spy equipment was a new twist, though. That balloon must have been the size of the Hindenburg.
The equipment was bulky but lightweight. More seriously, Biden has some mannerisms for talking with common people that he developed over the years, so he uses informal locutions that stress his background as “a boy from Scranton”. Thus “two boxcars worth”. Harris has her own “common touch” mannerism.
It also used to be that meetings with donors were discreet, a safe venue, with some leaks from time to time. But for such meetings, I would guess you would need a serious posture to flatter the self-esteem of the donors, “we are the inner circle”. Biden is too old, mentally, to adapt to the audience, and someone was not amused.
The Chinese have noted in the past that the United States promises one thing in private and then goes out and does the exact opposite. That is one of the reasons they had been refusing to meet with American officials.
Here, the United States practically begged for this meeting with Blinken to try to mend Sino/American diplomatic relations. After the meetings Blinken claimed that there had been diplomatic progress.
If you know Chinese culture you know that causing a person to lose “face” is just about the worst thing you can do to a Chinese person. But that is what they did.
So what does Biden do? The very next day Biden hurls an insult at Jinping.
This type of “saying one thing, doing the other” was the very reason that China had gone cold on diplomacy in the first place. So right after Blinken’s meeting, what does Biden do? He does the same thing all over again.
I am continually astonished by the behavior of those in charge in the Collective West.
How did we ever sink to such a level?
It occurs to me that the dictator part, while eye-catching and annoying, may not be the bigger insult. But I don’t think anyone in position of power, dictatorial or otherwise, likes people saying that they have no control over their subordinates (regardless of whether it is true or not). Chinese culture may amplify that, but I don’t think Westerners enjoy this very much either. I think it’s probably safe to say this is simply stupid and careless, because if they were simply out to provoke Xi, they wouldn’t have bothered to send Blinken and disavow Taiwanese independence. It really does seem like the US government was trying to at least temporarily soften up China, only to bungle it immediately. Incredible.
If I were the Chinese foreign ministry, I would cancel all the “working groups” which had been agreed to during the meetings.
Send the message: Actions have consequences.
I think that is perceptive: to be described as a dictator who then has no control with an implication therefore of incompetence is definitely insulting. It also implies that the broader CCP and government structure is dysfunctional. That goes beyond just insulting President Xi.
With any other leader I would imagine that such comments would be scripted and planned. But with Biden, who knows. Your view on this being accidental may well be right.
Or it may just be that Blinken had no authorization to say what he said and it is Biden who cannot control his subordinates! The evidence suggests to me that the administration is deeply dysfunctional.
Either Biden cannot control his subordinates, or Biden (and/or handlers) cannot control himself. Or both. Yes, it paints a picture either way…
On this occasion, given the effort it took to get Blinken into China, my money is on the big guy slipping in to his tough guy act. Too many examples in recent memory of Joe’s handlers having to try and walk back extravagant statements to believe otherwise.
But hey, at least he doesn’t have an embarrassing spray tan. And he waited his turn. Can’t have anyone getting too uppity and thinking they’re bigger than the system. Lots of PMC rice bowls depend on its collegial competition and our overlords can be placated by the belief that none of their peers has gained a lasting advantage.
This is how I’m leaning too. The softening up didn’t work as planned so Biden immediately swung in the other direction. Blinken’s been on his humiliation tour and the Chinese poured a lot of salt in the wounds with how he was greeted and waiting until the last minute to give him 30 minutes of Xi’s time. As is Biden’s personality, instead of learning from the experience and quietly trying to build on whatever might have been achieved on the trip, Biden blew it all up.
About a day before the Anchorage meeting the USA sanctioned two senior Chinese government officials. Calling Xi a dictator is about on par with this.
I get the impression that the USA is incapable of diplomatic behaviour. The Chinese have been very patient. This patience may be running out.
Biden is an old man with dementia. The fault here lies with those who don’t have the decency to put him out to pasture. He could easily die on the campaign trail. Then what?!
Harris.
Biden is a lazy, petulant child, but Obama and Shrub gobbled up the low hanging fruit of military adventurism. Some of it’s because there is no Grenada.
An interesting theory, but wasn’t like half Latin America available (at least pre-Russian SMO)? I can’t shake the idea that there are/were some Ukrainian rice bowls under threat of being smashed that got us here. Spitballing here of course. It sure is difficult to explain the utterly irrational and self destructive foreign policy of the current administration.
It would be far too obvious. The tv addled need a villain. Venezuela would fight back. Iraq in 2003 was a joke.
The Nazi-Paperclipping Deep State assassinated every Kennedy, King, Kennedy, X, Wellstone, etc. that we tried coming up with. Kill or otherwise neutralize every leader that people try to emerge and people are left milling helplessly around. And offer cardboard replica fake leaders like Clinton and Obama to teach people that betrayal is all they can ever expect to get.
That’s how we were sinked to such a level.
Biden has no interest in peace just crushing his enemies
US war with Russia and China is inevitable and probably sooner than folks think.
A real pity as it was avoidable with some basic diplomacy
> “That’s what’s a great embarrassment for dictators, when they didn’t know what happened,” Biden told the gathering for 130 guests in a private home.
I can’t really find words for this. Biden doesn’t know what day it is, what town he’s in, the name of the British PM, where to sit, or which way to walk off stage.
True, we are in the Twilight Zone. We have a senile puppet emperor who doesn’t know where he is, and can’t read a teleprompter correctly. It’s elder abuse to prop him up as emperor. If we don’t like it, we can “vote” for a drug-addled, obese orange freak. But they call this “democracy” and any country the US does not like is a dictatorship/autocracy.
Exactly!
> China’s foreign ministry described as “extremely absurd and irresponsible” the remarks from Biden-
See how propaganda works or was Chat GTP consulted? Nothing was described and a quick read by the newspaper’s customers will leave some with the impression that China’s foreign ministry was “extremely absurd and irresponsible”.
Anyhow, war with China is off the table. Raytheon has thousands of suppliers in China and cannot make bits of war shit without them.
America seems to have had the luxury of playing foreign affairs as a “game”. Given the country’s geopolitical position and strength a case can be made for saying that none of it traditionally mattered, or at least that it was relatively risk free. No foreign invasion since 1812 and all wars after that have either been expeditionary, internal or aggressively oriented against neighbours and indigenous peoples. I know that Armageddon has been a distinct possibility since the nuclear age but that seems to get factored out of the equation. As other commenters have noted, foreign policy then only matters with respect to how well it plays at home and the extent to which it enables the money go round of the rent seeking congressional, banking, political, military industrial complexes.
Unfortunately, America seems to have learned a lot of this from Britain. Similarly, we have had no real invasion threat since 1066 (one might split hairs by counting 1588 and the “friendly” invasion of 1688) and the last battle on our soil at Culloden in 1745 was really a very small scale civil war type affair. Nevertheless, our political and media class loves to pump up threats and use them as a way to try to stay relevant. A difference though is that even at the height of British power there was a Concert of Europe and other European Great Powers had to be treated more or less as equals in the European arena, even if a different attitude prevailed outside Europe. So the need to do diplomacy was never fully forgotten, albeit imperfectly executed at many times. America seems to have had the luxury of not needing traditional diplomacy at all.
The fall of an empire so used to getting its own way in all theatres will get very messy. Arguably, the decline of the British Empire was a large part (not the only one, of course) of the trigger for the two world wars of the past century which were also associated with Germany and America’s rise. Right now, we are also seeing the unraveling not just of US hegemony but of the entire West. There might possibly be something in Thuydides’ trap, although nothing is inevitable. If it is true though, then we are seeing it play out in real time and the US / western elites do not fill me with confidence that they know how to avoid it. In fact, they seem positively to be courting it.
“Never underestimate Joe’s ability to f**k things up” –Barack Obama
Maybe it’s time for the White House to roll out the AI Biden. It would have to be better.
The MIC runs the whole show and has for decades. Nothing will happen until there is a collapse of this Empire of Lies.
Speaking of MIC, I believe it was Eisenhower who coined the term. Nowadays,I would call it the Military/Security/Surveillance/Espionage/WMD complex.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyBNmecVtdU
MICIMATT = Military Industrial Congressional Media Academia Think Tank. This was coined by Ray McGovern.
Yes, good one! Thanks for reminding me.
I think you left out “Intelligence” in McGovern’s formulation. A Freudian slip no doubt, as there is no real intelligence in any aspect of it.
Biden has repeatedly blurted out inappropriate comments. Biden blurted out that the US was willing to go to war to defend Taiwan. The problem is that his government contains neocons that would like nothing more than that exact policy. And work to take advantage of Biden’s incompetence to pursue their interests.
Bidens incompetence and inconsistencies actually increase the optionality of all actors. China rather likes the opportunity these brain dead provocations to ratchet up tensions, imo.
It’s not China ratcheting tensions, that’s our job as declining hegemon. China knows time is on their side. They are waiting, growing and arming. Our warmongers understand all this–if we’re gonna get ’em, the sooner the better.
Biden just got Xi confused with Corn Pop, that’s all. Or was it Frosted Flake?
We talk about Trump’s narcissism getting him into trouble, but Joe’s tendency to shoot off his mouth about what a big man he is has proven to be a problem for him and now the country.
Are the hair transplants and the serial facelifts and the dental overlays not evidence of narcissism?
My understanding is there is a fair bit of plastic surgery among older pols, although most opt for the “make me look more rested” level of intervention. Maggie Thatcher had major dental work. If you have to smile a lot and are not in the UK, having not great looking teeth might be something the image consultants would want addressed. But to your point, I doubt that Biden made these changes to try to please crowds.
It appears the US Government has warring factions, and no discipline.
That’s the fodder for Civil wars.
Nothing the US says or does can be relied on as policy.
Aurilian has a post where a US Gov’t official describes the CIA and NSA allied against the Pentagon and ??? during one presidency’ then the Pentagon and NSA allied against the CIA and ???. The external enemy (Talban?) was apparently a second though at best.
Civil war requires operational abilities not in evidence in the US since at least the turn of the century.
I expect it will take external organization to impose capabilities, but the autochthonous North American cultures as they’ve evolved will be very difficult to motivate.
Social collapse and political disintegration strike me as more feasible with the level of willful ignorance required for respectability.
I find the “triumphalism” of the US backing down at (the usually restrained) MoonofAlabama a bit weird.
In my opinion, Blinken’s visit and post-visit declarations were just standard American delay tactics (see Minsk II but for China). Blinken is trying to bide time so that DC can somehow fix the Ukraine situation.
Biden just said the quiet part out loud.
DC cannot fix the Ukraine situation. To fix one must control. We do not control. Russia holds the cards. All of them.
Ol’ Blinkie’s visit was basically superficial fluff. The “foreign policy elite” (CFR, Atlantic Council, NSC) plan for war with China.
This is an outstanding documentary from the great John Pilger that should be a must-see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAfeYMONj9E
U.S. administration seems to meet the classic definition of insane: Doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. However maybe they are just pretending to expect different results.
Definition of insane: Doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. No. See below.
Definition of insane: Doing the same thing over and over while imagining different results. Yes. See below.
Definition of stupidity: Doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. YES!
Biden seems to swing between rictus grin and age rage. Not good for diplomacy.
Biden was elected receiving 306 votes. Who is he to be calling someone a dictator?
The US is an oligarchy (dictatorship of plutocracy) Our “democratic” choice: a senile, crooked career politician, or an obese, drug-addled orange freak. Elections Inc for 2024 will likely just be a re-hash. It’s a Freak Show
Katie Halper had Anuad on her show recently. I have always enjoyed his tweets but not heard him talk. If you care to get to know a little more about his views, he is the first half of this show. I really found this chat informative.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJbz4zRJGM0
The Adbusters article they highlight is frightening… almost like undisguised and willful insanity. How can anyone actually believe that?
The USA orders ala carte from the diplomacy menu, shoots the waiter who follows them out to the parking lot and take the money.
The USA has been the Libya of the New Barbary Pirates for quite some time, and the Blob, the EU, and Japan are getting nervous as the nations get tired of paying the gabebble/protection money have formed new cooperatives.
Hold on a minute. How is this oral flatulence any different than some of the acts — i.e discussing Iran invasion plans on the golf course — that form the basis for ciminal charges against his predecessor?
The failing NYT reports this morning that their usual anonymous briefed-on-the-matter sources were “surprised” that Biden would discuss this “sensitive information in a public setting” when it was “the American government’s private assessment” [emphasis added].
Aside from the diplomatic train-wreck with a trading partner that most Americans literally can’t live without, Biden has just handed his rival a complete sauce-for-the-gander defense in the Court of Public Opinion.
It’s always a statement at fundraisers. Hillary insulting the Deplorables, Romney insulting the 47%. They just can’t help themselves when it’s kneepad time.
Invoke 25th amendment now! Harris can’t be worse than Biden over next 1+ year! (Only half sarcasm)
“That’s what’s a great embarrassment for dictators, when they didn’t know what happened,” Biden told the gathering for 130 guests in a private home.
As if Grandpa Joe knows what day of the week it is, c’mon, you just know that line is going to come back and bite him in the arse in the near future.
I think the discussion is missing a crucial fact that makes Biden dangerous. Biden is neither senile nor stupid but he does have a deep prejudice which fuels his hawkishness and prevents him from thinking straight.
Biden can only imagine that if another country does not have layers of Anglo Saxon institutions like the US, then it’s basically a form of dictatorship. That is, a single minded outlook rather than diverse views among elite factions.
Contrary to Biden’s assumption, there is vigorous debate among elites in China. Yet, Biden’s dictator remark is dangerous because it lends support to the Chinese hawks.
These hard liners are of the opinion that the US will not allow China to rise peacefully because the American economy must continually expand its influence and control of foreign markets and governments in order to survive. This is no secret because most American elites have been saying the same thing for more than a century. Thus, China is automatically a threat.
The question becomes, should the US be open to diplomacy and compromise and accommodate China peacefully? However, in the words of Donald Rumsfeld, “We have a choice–either to change the way we live, which is unacceptable; or to change the way that they live, and we chose the latter.” I think Biden and his administration are as arrogant as Rumsfeld, and Biden is likely to get us all killed.
The US will sanction anyone, whenever, wherever and however..but please China keep buying our corn and soybean….
I wonder if this is a statement Biden is going to regret.
Certainly his statements about Saudi Arabia have backfired and the US is on its way to losing influence in the Middle East, in no small part thanks to him burning bridges with MBS.