Unable to conduct U.S. foreign policy without alienating U.S. adversaries, 100-year-old former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger visited Beijing as a private citizen to stem what looks like under 80-year-old President Joe Biden a run-up to war. Biden, his 60-year-old Secretary of State Antony Blinken and 45-year-old National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan have done everything to antagonize China since taking office. Kissinger is responsible in 1971 of opening up diplomatic window with Communist China, over 20 years since the 1949 Maoist Revolution. For whatever reason, Biden has provoked China by breaching the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, signed into law by former President Jimmy Carter, recognizing only one China and ending the 1954 Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty. Biden said Sept. 23, 2022, that he would commit U.S. troops to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion.
Kissinger’s trip to Beijing followed 79-year-old former Secretary of State and now Climate Czar John Kerry who tried to find common ground with Beijing on climate change. Kerry wanted to restored military cooperation between Communist China and Ul.S. but was unable to do so. China wants the U.S. to end its Trump-era tariffs that collect billions from China for agricultural and technology trasnfers. Kissinger’s visit helps reacquaint China with old fashion U.S. diplomacy. For whatever reason, Biden, Blinken and Sullivan have developed a more vitriolic one, driving a wedge between U.S.-Chinese relations. “It is impossible to try to transform China, and it is even more impossible to contain China,” said 69-year-old Senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi. Yi told China’s Xinhua state news agency that U.S.-Chinese relations required Kissinger-like diplomacy from a different era.
Yi was around when Kissinger presented an accommodating attitude with Chairman Mao Zedong when they worked on the contours of diplomatic and trade relations in 1971. “U.S. policy toward China requires the diplomatic wisdom of Kissinger and the political courage of Nixon, Wang Yi said. Kissinger met Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu, trying to reestablish military cooperation to avoid any miscalculation currently baked into U.S.-Chinese relations. Li had refused to meet with 70-year-old U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to try to reestablish military cooperation. Blinken also tried to get a military cooperation agreement. Li told Kissinger that the wanted to “work with China to implement the consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries and promote healthy and s table development of relations between the tow countries and their militaries,” Xinhua quoted Li saying.
Biden opened diplomatic relations with China soon after taking office, hosting a March 18, 2021 summit in Anchorage, Alaska. Attended by Blinken and Sullvan, both accused Beijing of genocide against Muslim Uyghurs and a brutal crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong. Yi told Blinken and Sullivan they shouldn’t lecture China on human rights when Biden admitted that the U.S. has :”systemic racism,” treating Blacks poorly in the U.S. Yi didn’t sit idly by while blasted by Blinken and Sullivan for hypocrisy. Seniding Blinken and Sullivan backfired on the White House, damaging U.S.-Chinese relations. Li told Kissinger that before military cooperation can continue, Biden needs to end sanctions over China buying military hardware from the Russian Federation. Biden made diplomacy difficult pushing Chinese President Xi Jinping to denounce Russia.
Biden can’t fathom that the world’s most populous nation doesn’t support his proxy war against the Russian Federation. Chinese President Xi Jimping, 70, considers himself an economic, strategic and military ally of the Russian Federation. Since 70-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin waged war Feb. 24, 2022 in Ukraine, Biden has pushed Xi to denounce China. Xi wants Biden to respect China’s foreign relations, whether or not it matches U.S. foreign policy. Biden knows that Russia, China, India, Brazil and South Africa are part of the BRICS economy bloc, something that won’t change because of the Ukraine War. “History and practice have repeatedly proven that neither the U.S. nor China and afford the cost of treating each other as opponents,” Kissnger said. “If the two countries go to war, it will not bring any meaningful results to the people of the two countries,” Kissinger said.
Sending everyone but Biden to engage China in direct diplomacy has failed for the U.S. government. Kissinger was on a goodwill mission watching his peaceful legacy wrecked by the Biden administration. Kissinger tried to invoke the same steady diplomacy that resulted in President Richard Nixon opening in 1973 full diplomatic relations between the two nuclear-armed superpowers. After Blinken and Kerry failed to put U.S.-Chinese relations on an even keel, it took someone of Kissinger’s stature to salvage deteriorated diplomatic relations. Kissinger has his own relations with China, able to invoke an earlier time when both countries appreciated the opportunity to work together. With the U.S. at war with the Kremlin, Xi sees the prospects of war with the United States as a real possibility. Kissinger tried his best to restore the kind of diplomacy that can lead to cooperative relations.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma .
