I think President Biden is demonstrating real leadership in the way he has responded to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the shocking violence in Israel and the Gaza Strip. In his remarks to the nation last evening, he quite correctly argued that Russia and Iran (acting through proxies) are determined to disrupt and destroy neighbors that happen to be democracies.
But Biden did not mention China’s role in all this. Not even once. Yet China is clearly supporting Iran by buying about 80 percent of its oil, a source of billions of dollars in revenue for Tehran which it uses to support Hamas, Hezbollah and other proxy forces. China also is clearly supporting Vladimir Putin, who was in Beijing at the same time that Biden visited Israel, seeking to ingratiate himself with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Chinese support for Putin has been very important–the Chinese also are buying Russian oil and selling automobiles in Russia now that Western companies have withdrawn. And it quite clearly is providing lethal aid in the form of drones, which have become ubiquitous in the Ukraine conflict. On the propaganda front, China has refrained from criticizing either Russia or Iran, trying to hide behind a facade that it is a true peacemaker.
So why didn’t Biden mention any of that? I assume it’s because he is trying to obtain a face-to-face meeting with Xi on the sidelines of a major gathering of Asian leaders in San Francisco beginning Nov. 15. I’m concerned that Biden believes that he has a personal relationship with Xi and can persuade him to back down from his clear path of confronting American interests around the world and even inside the United States in the form of penetration of our computers and misinformation on social media, as Michael McLaughlin and I describe in Battlefield Cyber: How China and Russia Are Undermining Our Democracy and National Security, seen here. Biden has said he has spent more time face-to-face with Xi than any other American leader. Biden thinks that a personal relationship with Xi will be effective in moderating Chinese behavior.
That’s where Biden is completely mistaken. Xi has unleashed a global effort to subvert democracies and, as a hard-line Marxist-Leninist, to destroy Western capitalism. He is an ideologue and he is supporting authoritarian regimes in Moscow and Tehran as they seek to rewrite the global map. It’s time for President Biden to wake up to acknowledge that reality.
