U.S. President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden depart the White House in Washington en route to Florida on Sept. 2, 2023. (Anna Rose Layden/Getty Images)
The upcoming summit between President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping puts the United States at a moral and bargaining disadvantage before the two even step into a room together.
This should be clear from official denials by Beijing of its established genocide against the Uyghurs and demands by the regime that the Biden administration show “sufficient sincerity” before the talks take place. On Oct. 29, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned that the “road to the San Francisco summit will not be a smooth one,” implying that Washington must cave on certain demands even before meeting with Mr. Xi.
Over recent months, the Biden administration sent a long line of cabinet officials to Beijing to essentially beg for the summit. Who knows what they gave away in the process, other than American dignity. California Gov. Gavin Newsom visited Beijing, promoted one of China’s auto manufacturers, and met with Mr. Xi after promising not to bring up human rights issues.
The Biden administration bent over backward to please Mr. Xi while the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) seeded conflicts around the world, including Russia against Ukraine, Hamas against Israel, and drug smugglers against over 73,000 Americans who died from fentanyl overdose last year. Fentanyl precursors mostly come from China. These deaths are a fraction of the 1.1 million Americans who died from COVID-19, all without a proper investigation in China or compensation that should be in the trillions of dollars.
Beijing apparently wants President Biden to play dead while the CCP walks all over us and our allies in a public manner. The regime has played the Biden administration while threatening U.S. partners Taiwan and the Philippines with military force, and engaging in weapons and other trade with “axis of evil” countries Russia, Iran, and North Korea. The CCP flouted international law in the South China Sea and against its own people, up to and including genocide.
As such, a presidential meeting with Mr. Xi at this moment in history is worse than inappropriate. It should be considered criminal complicity. It sends a message that Mr. Xi is a legitimate leader with whom to do bilateral business and that the United States is weak relative to China. Over the last decades, including during President Biden’s vice presidency and when the Biden family reportedly did millions of dollars worth of business with China, Beijing has become stronger and more totalitarian.
Then-Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping accompanies then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden to view an honor guard during a welcoming ceremony inside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Aug. 18, 2011. (Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)
The “sincerity” that Beijing demands of President Biden before talks likely include unilateral concessions hidden from the American people, including on Taiwan, the South China Sea, forced technology transfer, and the opening of American markets. All are at the core of shifting geopolitical power from Washington to Beijing. Submitting to any of them will increase China’s power relative to the United States, thus making it easier for Beijing to extract yet more debilitating concessions in the future.
One of the reasons that the United States is at a bargaining disadvantage relative to China is that President Biden is desperate for high-profile international peace deals because his voters are desperate for peace. Peace is good, but desperation shows weakness.
Flashy international meetings help President Biden’s image with swing voters, especially if they appear to solve problems like those the CCP has caused. But as should be clear from Mr. Xi’s meeting with President Barack Obama in 2015, when Mr. Xi promised to stop hacking the United States and not to militarize “his” South China Sea islands, Mr. Xi’s promises cannot be trusted. He clearly broke them in the South China Sea agreement in 2016 and the hacking agreement in 2018. These violations occurred with little consequence—and on President Biden’s watch as vice president. There is next to nothing the United States can gain from granting a meeting between President Biden and Mr. Xi—there is much to lose.
Mr. Xi is not beholden to voters and so does not have democratic constraints, including the need to show progress toward peace. He is thus at a bargaining advantage coming into negotiations that will be compounded in the negotiation process. Once in the room, President Biden will be even more desperate to walk out with an agreement so that he doesn’t appear the sucker.
The Biden administration will argue that “engagement” and “talks” with a “competitor” are always good. But the CCP should be considered a “criminal” entity and “adversary” of the United States, not a competitor. The upcoming summit hides this fact and ennobles a man who should instead be locked up for the good of his country and the world.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Anders Corr has a bachelor's/master's in political science from Yale University (2001) and a doctorate in government from Harvard University (2008). He is a principal at Corr Analytics Inc., publisher of the Journal of Political Risk, and has conducted extensive research in North America, Europe, and Asia. His latest books are “The Concentration of Power: Institutionalization, Hierarchy, and Hegemony” (2021) and “Great Powers, Grand Strategies: the New Game in the South China Sea" (2018).
