Editors at National Review Online take aim at a top Biden administration official’s latest interaction with communist Chinese leaders.
It’s not often that Washington’s accommodation of Beijing’s wishes takes the form of something approximating an actual kowtow.But that’s what seemed to take place this weekend in the Chinese capital as Janet Yellen met Chinese vice premier He Lifeng. In a video from the start of their meeting, Yellen bows three times as she shakes the hand of He, who stands straight up.
The Treasury secretary spent two days there, meeting senior Chinese officials for talks on the bilateral economic relationship. But her overarching goal in making the trip was to continue the administration’s apology campaign. High-ranking U.S. officials have made a series of visits to Beijing to jumpstart diplomatic exchange after China’s government withheld it in retaliation for America’s handling of the deliberate Chinese provocation of the spy balloon.
The White House has also made significant policy concessions, including delays of human-rights sanctions and export controls. This new stance secured a meeting between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese general secretary Xi Jinping last month. And later this month, John Kerry, the special climate envoy, will make his own trip to Beijing.
While Yellen said at the end of her trip that she had discussed China’s crackdown on America’s firms, Chinese firms’ shipping of matériel to the Russian military, and human-rights abuses, her tone was mostly conciliatory.
Notably, Yellen said that the two sides agreed to set up a channel where Chinese officials can raise U.S. actions that they view as concerning so that “we can explain and, possibly in some situations, respond to unintended consequences of our actions if they’re not carefully targeted.”
Under both the Trump and Biden administrations, the U.S. government has implemented sanctions, export controls, and other tools of economic statecraft to target malign Chinese behavior.
