Infuriating Beijing, 78-year-old President Joe Biden sent a delegation of former U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), former Deputy Secretaries of State Richard Armitage and James Steinberg to Taipei to publicly signal to Beijing that the U.S. recognizes the independence of Taiwan. If things weren’t bad enough with Russia, Biden slaps China in the face for the second time in a month, the first being at a March 16 summit in Anchorage, Alaska, where 58-year-old Secretary of State Tony Blinken accused Beijing of genocide against Muslim Uyghurs in Western China’s Xinjiang province. Since taking office, Biden has moved the doomsday clock closer to midnight, antagonizing America’s biggest nuclear-armed adversaries, Russia and China. Biden acts clueless how his offensive foreign policy toward Russia and China have endangered U.S. national security.
China sent 25 fighter jets and nuclear-armed bombers into the Taiwan strait to let the U.S. know that Taiwan is part of the Peoples Republic of China, not an independent country. Beijing’s show of force was directly related to the egregiously insulting diplomatic relations started by the Biden administration Jan. 20. Former President Donald Trump conducted tough trade relations with China but made every effort not to insult Beijing. Biden has done the exact office, accusing Beijing of genocide against the Uyghurs and calling Russian President Vladimir Putin Mach 16 a “soulless killer.” Never before in the history of U.S. foreign policy has any president acted so boorishly toward a head of state. Only yesterday, with Biden pushing things to the brink of war in Ukraine, he asks Putin for a summit. Biden thinks he can rescue his abysmal diplomacy with choreographed summit.
Biden’s situation with China could not be off to a worse start, accusing the world’s second largest economy of genocide, a label Beijing rejects. Secretary of State Tony Blinken and 44-year-old National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan displayed cosmic arrogances accusing Beijing of genocide at a get-to-know-you summit in Anchorage. Chinese Senior Diplomat Yang Jiechi was floored by Blinken and Sullivan’t inexcusable offensiveness. Jiechi told Blinken that the U.S. was in no position to lecture Beijing on human rights when Biden admitted that the U.S. was a “systemically racist” country for its maltreatment of African Americans. “The Peoples Liberation Army’s [PLA] organizing of actual combat exercises in the Taiwan Strait is a necessary action to address the current security situation in the Taiwan Strait and to safeguard national sovereignty,” said spokesman Ma Xiaoquang.
Beijing sees the U.S. pandering to the Taipei’s government, pretending it’s independent of Communist China. But the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act requires the U.S. government to recognize only one China government, the one in Beijing. “It is a solemn response and training operations are sending a signal that our determination to cur Taiwan independence” forces, Xiaoquang said, reminding Washington that Beijing views U.S. interference in Taiwan as a threat to Beijing’s sovereignty. Sending an official U.S. delegation to Taipei only reinforces Beijing’s concern that the U.S. has stabbed the Peoples Republic of China [PRC] in the back. All U.S. trade relations is predicated on a one-China policy, where the U.S. recognized only Beijing as the sovereign power of China. Sending a delegation to Taipei signals to Beijing that Biden holds loyalty to Taipei not the PRC.
When it comes to diplomacy, does Biden think that China feels differently about Taiwan than Russia does about NATO? Russia has been threatened since the end of WW II with NATO, now promising to take over Ukraine, a former Soviet satellite When Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted the Sochi games in 2014, a CIA-backed coup toppled the Kremlin-backed government of Viktor Yanukoych. One week later, Putin invaded and annexed Ukaine’s Crimean Peninsula. But when you ask any Western power, there’s no context to Putin invasion. Now Biden demands that Putin pull back Russian forces from the border near Ukraine’s Russian-speaking Donbass region, all because Ukraine’s 43-year-old President Volodymyr Zelensky continues to make overtures to NATO. Biden and Blinken have done everything possible to alienate Putin and Chinese President Xi Jingping.
Holding summits won’t rescue Biden’s abysmal diplomacy alienating two of the world’s most powerful countries. Sending an official delegation to Taipei to meet with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen kicks dirt in Xi’s face, prompting the show of force over the Taiwan Strait. Taiwan’s presidential office spokesman Xavier Chang said the delegation “again show the Taiwan-U.S. relationship is rock-solid and is a full expression of cross-party support for Taiwan in the United States.” Nothing infuriates Beijing more than hearing about the U.S. “rock solid” relationship to Taiwan. No one in Taipei really believes the U.S. would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. Like the situation in Donabass, Putin’s troops are assembled as a deterrent to NATO, not to seize more Ukraine territory. Sending a U.S. delegation to Taipei has done a big disservice to Taiwan’s national security.
