Fiasco In Anchorage

On Thursday, delegations headed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi met at the Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage. It was the first such meeting of the Biden administration. There were both public and private sessions. The parties agreed that the public session would begin with a two-minute statement by each. Blinken spoke for two minutes, after which Yang contemptuously ignored the agreed-upon protocol and delivered a 20-minute attack on the United States. From there, things went from bad to worse.

The London Times, which, like pretty much all mainstream European news outlets, favors the Democrats, reports:

The Chinese side came to the talks in Alaska prepared to counter every US rebuke with one of their own. To the charge of Chinese cyberattacks, Yang said that “the US is the champion” while in response to the repression of Uighurs being labelled as genocide, he said that the US was guilty of the slaughter of black Americans.

The Chinese are not stupid. They know that the Democrats’ peddling BLM mythology disables them from defending the United States against such attacks, and they take full advantage of the Biden administration’s weakness.

Blinken went just a little over the agreed two minutes for opening remarks. Yang then lectured the US side for nearly 20 minutes.

“The United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength,” said Yang, who was accompanied by Wang Yi, a state councillor.

He criticised what he said was America’s struggling democracy and its poor treatment of minorities.

The Daily Wire reports on the meeting from a perspective less friendly to the administration:

The meeting in Alaska came at the request of the Biden administration and was their attempt at trying to restart bilateral relations with China. Instead, after addressing some issues that the administration had with China, China openly mocked and attacked the U.S.
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“Biden is weak. And many other countries are happy about it,” former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell said. “And the woke US media is too partisan to report fairly.”

One of the Biden administration’s most contemptible themes is its declaration that “America is back.” It was during the Obama administration–when, of course, Joe Biden was vice president–that America retreated from the world, appeased its enemies, and let its defense capabilities wither. The Donald Trump administration took important steps to strengthen our armed forces and, unlike Obama and Biden, stood up to both Russia and China, advancing American interests under the banner of “America first.” The only thing that is “back” under Joe Biden, or whoever is running U.S. foreign policy these days, is weakness. And the Chinese know it.

Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Rebeccah Heinrichs told The Daily Wire in a statement:

….Rather than staying focused on giving China specific demands and conveying our seriousness, the US team insulted half the Americans who voted for Trump and was glad for his administration’s foreign policy approach by saying “America is back.” America never left. And it’s the approach from the last administration that returned our focus on China and power and away from merely abstract ideas when we deal with other nations.
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We have external threats like China but critical race theory and identity politics at home makes us a splintered, self-loathing mess. The CCP knows this. It’s why they used all those BLM talking points in Alaska. So, just as important as it is to counter China with power, Republican officials and anyone else who will listen has to do what they can to end the anti-American indoctrination at home.

Center for Security Policy President Fred Fleitz — former NSC Chief of Staff, CIA analyst, and House Intel Com staff member — effectively said that the Biden administration was responsible for the meeting being a disaster.

Fleitz wrote in a series of tweets:

Blinken foolishly did not anticipate that the Chinese officials would retaliate in their remarks responding to him. This gave the Chinese officials a rare opportunity to dress down the Secretary of State before the press. Blinken was visibly unnerved by the Chinese response. Blinken’s response was defensive and incoherent. He also repeated Biden’s silly “America is back” theme.

Most disturbing, despite Blinken and Sullivan’s criticism of China, there was not one word on Beijing’s criminal negligence that allowed the coronavirus to become a dangerous pandemic or any criticism of China for its continuing refusal to fully cooperate with international investigations of the origins of the virus, including inspections of the Wuhan biolabs.

This press event in Alaska was a debacle that will build a perception that the US is returning to Jimmy Carter-like incompetence in foreign policy. America’s enemies are watching and planning how to cash.

It is early, obviously, but at this point Jimmy Carter is looking like a best-case scenario.