Only two days before the opening ceremony at the Beijing Winter Olympics, 68-year-oldChinese President Xi Jinping and 69-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin met to coordinate their response to the Ukraine crisis. Both leaders agreed to oppose any U.N. Security Council sanctions 79-year-old President Joe Biden intends to impose on the Russian Federation. Biden and his 59-year-old Secretary of State Antony Blinken have been threatening crippling sanctions against the Russia Federation if Putin invades Ukraine. Biden was the first and only Western leader to predict two weeks ago that Putin would invade Ukraine, sowing panic in Kiev. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, 43, told Biden last week that he didn’t see any Russian invasion as “imminent” as Biden said. Yet U.S. officials and the fake news continue to push the Russian “imminent” Russian invasion theory.
Biden has watched his Ukraine policy unravel as Xi Jinping and Putin agree that China would veto any attempt by the U.S. to impose sanctions on the Russian Federation, for whatever reason, invasion or not. All the threats of sanctions by Biden and Blinken have turned an easily solvable problem into a crisis, potentially leading to military altercation between Russia, the U.S. and NATO. Putin has asked the U.S. and NATO to honor security guarantees, banning Ukraine from NATO membership, but, more importantly, stop supplying Ukraine with offensive and defensive weapons with which to attack the Russian Federation. Biiden thought he had leverage over the Russian Federation with possible sanctions until China said they would veto any attempt by the U.N. Security Council to punish Moscow. U.S. and NATO want Putin to withdraw over 100,000 troops from the Ukrainian border.
Putin has told Biden repeatedly that he has no intent of invading Ukraine but Biden insists that an invasion is “imminent.” While Biden backtracked lately about an “imminent” Russian invasion, he’s lost his leverage in Ukraine because China backs Putin’s attempts to resolve the Ukraine situation. As Putin and Xi see it, the U.S. has provoked a military confrontation by exploiting Ukraine as an armed U.S. and NATO base. Putin has asked the U.S. and NATO for legally-binding guarantees to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO and scale back NATO expansion into Eastern Europe. U.S. and NATO rejected Putin’s calls for legally binding security guarantees, leaving the current Ukraine situation in limbo. China confirmed “understanding and support” for the Russian Federation in their standoff with the U.S. and NATO over growing tensions in Ukraine and Eastern Europe.
Biden painted the U.S. into a corner by alienating Russia and China since taking office Jan. 20, 2021. Without Russian and Chinese cooperation, Biden finds himself scrambling to find any support resolving the Ukraine situation. Alienating Russia and China was a big mistake, pushing both superpowers into a strategic alliance against the U.S. and NATO. So whatever Biden does to de-escalate the crisis in Ukraine, he has only limited clout because Moscow and Beijing are now aligned against Washington. Biden has nothing to lose compromising with Putin, to offer some assurance that Ukraine would not, for the foreseeable future, join the NATO alliance. When it comes to arming Ukraine, the U.S. loses nothing by agreeing to stop supplying Ukraine offensive and defensive weapons. Yet so far, Biden and Blinken have told Putin to pound sand when it comes to any security concessions.
Unlike the U.S. that’s diplomatically boycotting the Beijing Winter Games, Putin is part of Xi’s VIP delegation, working on other foreign policy matters before the opening ceremony. Biden chose to boycott the Beijing games, all because of what he calls human rights violations against Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang Provicne in Western China, the crackdown against pro-democracy groups in Hong Kong and ongoing issues with Taiwan. Voluntarily boycotting Beijing’s Winter Olympics gave Putin the perfect opportunity to join forces with Xi against Biden’s hostile foreign policy toward both countries. So U.S. national security has been severely compromised under Biden wrecking U.S.-Russian and U.S.-Chinese relations. Biden’s decision to boycott the Winter Games was a shortsighted mistake, making resolving the Ukraine situation all the more difficult.
Biden’s hostile relations toward China and Russia have severely damaged U.S. national security. Highlighting today the successful Pentagon strike against the current leader of the Islamic State in Syria doesn’t reverse the amateur blunders made by Biden with Russia and China over the last year. Senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, both agreeing that Russia had a right to security guarantees from the U.S. and NATO. But because Biden boycotted the Beijing Games and has allowed relations with Russia and China to deteriorate over the past year, the U.S. has been left in the cold. Without pragmatic and workable relations with Beijing and Moscow, Biden has left U.S. national security in shambles. All of Biden’s threats of Security Council sanctions against Putin are now vanquished. China and Russia showed Biden that no one operates in a vacuum.
