Janet Yellen must not go to China
Tom Rogan
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Josh Rogin reports that certain Biden administration officials are considering sending either Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo or Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to Beijing.
Rogin argues that it would be a serious mistake to send either official before Secretary of State Antony Blinken has made his own visit, which remains as yet unplanned. Rogin notes that “Beijing’s pattern has long been to lure American administrations into economic dialogues that go nowhere, but that end up delaying United States action to hold China accountable for its unfair trade practices. There’s no reason to fall for this ploy yet again.”
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I couldn’t agree more.
If anyone goes to China in the coming weeks or months, it must be Blinken. He was scheduled to visit Beijing until the Chinese spy balloon incident occurred. But in response to U.S. support for Taiwan’s democracy and new constraints on China’s access to high-tech Western goods, as Rogin notes, Xi won’t even speak to President Biden.
Put simply; the Chinese are playing hardball, waiting to see whether this will break down the U.S. executive bureaucracy and lead to new concessions.
As China’s current diplomatic antics suggest, hardball is Xi’s favored strategy. Washington would be exceedingly foolish to give in to Beijing’s gambit. That would only encourage China’s belief that it can adopt the same strategy toward the U.S. that it applies to Europe — a strategy of increased economic trade and investment in return for silence and appeasement on other issues. It’s a strategy that has worked for China. Look no further than French President Emmanuel Macron, who is now little more than a Chinese ambassador extraordinary when it comes to Beijing-related international issues.
U.S. policy toward China should instead center on a simple guiding principle: cooperation with Beijing where possible, alongside recognition of its threat as a prerequisite.
China cannot be allowed to believe that its dangling of trade engagement will earn it technology, espionage/security, or Taiwan-related concessions of substance (beyond, perhaps, a reciprocal cooling of military activity in the Taiwan Strait). To engender that belief would only increase Xi’s appetite for escalation to the cost of critical U.S. national security interests.
Any U.S. movement in this direction would also send a terrible signal to U.S. allies that are already flirting with China concessions.
America’s two closest allies, the U.K. and Australia, stand out as examples of concern here. Washington’s signal of appeasement would also undermine much-needed efforts by EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock to restrain Macron’s influence in shaping the EU’s China policy.
Once Xi takes Biden’s call, Blinken can then go to China. Until then, Xi can continue to navel gaze about China’s structural challenges. And the U.S. can start to get real about the unprecedented challenge a war over Taiwan would entail.