[Red State] NBC broke a fascinating story about Joe Biden and China, according to their sources. This raises all kinds of questions, including about who is in charge at the White House.
Joe Biden wanted to speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the days after the U.S. military shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon off the coast of South Carolina — even saying publicly that he expected to do so — but his top national security advisers talked him out of it, according to two senior administration officials and one former senior U.S. official familiar with the discussions.
Biden believed his relationship with Xi could help tamp down the newly escalated tensions with Beijing if he had the opportunity to speak directly and smooth things over, the officials said. But the president’s advisers made the case to him that it was not the right time for a leader-to-leader conversation, the officials said. Instead, Biden’s advisers told him, the best course of action was to begin outreach to Beijing with lower or midlevel officials, and work the way up to the top, according to the officials.
The first question I have is who spied on who here? It’s the Chinese who spied on us and have been making all kinds of aggressive moves. Yet Biden acts like we’re the ones in the wrong here. Like he has to go "smooth things over" (in the words of the officials) and kowtow to the Chinese.
As I reported at the time, Biden said the U.S. wasn’t "looking for conflict". But that’s the exact time you’re supposed to make a strong face to the Chinese, not act like everything is normal when they’ve made some pretty offensive and aggressive moves toward us. This is the height of weakness from Biden, and it’s a big loss of face to the Chinese. No wonder they think they can run right over him. He also said the relationship hadn’t taken a "big hit" and he knew that because he spoke to them.
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