RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://nypost.com/2023/06/19/blinken-ruffles-feathers-by-stating-us-does-not-support-taiwan-independence-after-meeting-chinas-xi/

WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised eyebrows Monday, telling reporters the US “does not support Taiwan independence” after meeting in Beijing with officials including Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Blinken’s statement ruffled the feathers of many Republicans in Congress, who viewed the statement – and the secretary’s inability to re-establish military-to-military communications – as an inappropriate kowtow to America’s greatest adversary.

“Blinken flew to Communist China to appease Xi Jinping and state the Biden administration does not support Taiwan’s independence,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said on Twitter. “Why won’t this administration stand up to bullies and stand for freedom?”

The Taiwan issue is among the most contentious in the US-China relationship, with Xi making it his No. 1 priority to “reunite” Taiwan with China — though the island about 100 miles off the country’s southeastern coast has never actually been part of it.

Rep. Ben Cline (R-Va.) tweeted that Blinken’s statement was a “dangerous display of weakness towards our adversaries on the world stage.”

“The Biden admin is giving China a green light to increase its intimidation of our ally, Taiwan,” he said.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/secretary-of-state-blinkens-peculiar-visit-to-china/

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken traveled to China this past weekend for meetings with senior Chinese officials, months after canceling his trip there in the wake of the Chinese spy balloon encroachment of U.S. airspace. He met with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang for hours, followed by a meeting with China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi. It was uncertain whether China’s President Xi Jinping would agree to give an audience to Secretary Blinken until, with about 45 minutes notice, Xi and Blinken ended up meeting for about a half hour.

Secretary Blinken conveyed the same message in person to China’s leadership that the Biden administration has been uttering for months. Keep the channels of communication open “to ensure competition does not veer into conflict,” Blinken told Wang Yi.

China’s message during Secretary Blinken’s visit was also the same as its leaders have uttered many times before. According to China’s view of why tensions between China and the United States have risen so sharply, the U.S. has failed to show due respect for China’s vital national interests, particularly regarding China’s territorial claim to Taiwan. “State-to-state interactions should always be based on mutual respect and sincerity,” President Xi remarked.

A few days before Secretary Blinken’s visit, China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang spoke more bluntly during his phone call with Secretary Blinken. He demanded that the United States “show respect” for China’s core concerns and “stop undermining China’s sovereignty, security and development interests in the name of competition.” That is a bit rich coming from the country which sent a spy balloon over U.S. sovereign airspace earlier this year to surveil sensitive U.S. military sites, and which set up a secret Chinese police station on U.S. soil.

There was not a single reported acknowledgement of responsibility by China’s leaders, much less an apology, for China’s invasions of U.S. sovereignty and security. Then again, they see no reason to do so with President Biden in the White House. President Biden showed how weak and out of touch with reality he is when he said, shortly before Secretary Blinken’s arrival in China, that the spy balloon incursion was more “embarrassing” for China’s leadership “than it was intentional.”

Secretary Blinken’s face-to-face meetings with China’s leaders were not only a waste of time. As Republican Representative Elise Stefanik of New York warned, Secretary Blinken’s trip would only serve to “legitimize” the Chinese Communist Party’s “continued subversion of our sovereignty.”

The Biden administration would rather patch things up with China as an end in itself than confront the Chinese regime’s increasingly provocative actions. Recently, for example, one of China’s warships came within 150 yards of an American destroyer conducting a freedom-of-navigation exercise with Canada in international waters. And one of China’s jet fighters flew directly in front of an American surveillance plane flying in international airspace. The Biden administration’s response was a feckless call to “keep the lines open with the Chinese to make it clear how unacceptable those particular intercepts are.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/god-save-the-queen-and-bidens-foreign-policy-blinken-china-iran-deal-ukraine-79c598c0?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

‘God save the queen, man!” said Joe Biden, in an unexpected windup to remarks in Connecticut about gun control last week. Like many of his utterances, the strange outburst prompted widespread confusion. What could this latest eructation from the presidential brain mean?

He knows that Elizabeth II, for 70 years the usual subject of the prayer, is already beyond the good Lord’s earthly protection, surely? He was at the funeral, and apparently awake throughout. Perhaps with all those tasteful Pride Month displays around the White House last week, his loyalty has been captured by a queen of the drag variety. Or maybe it was just an indication that he’s decided the nation needs to amp up the deference it’s been showing the first lady, and a more regal honorific than “Dr. Jill” will now be expected.

But to me the remark made a curious sort of sense, inadvertently reflecting the confused, uncertain and slightly out-of-touch approach to the rest of the world that characterizes the administration’s foreign policy.

What else could explain the news last week that the Biden team is putting together a deal that isn’t a deal with the ayatollahs in Iran?

The plan, according to multiple reports, is for Iran to agree not to enrich its uranium too close to the 90% level needed for weaponization and to release some American hostages, in exchange for sanctions relief and other assistance.

Aside from the naiveté you need to think that Tehran will abide by an agreement that doesn’t even require a signature, the tentative deal betrays trademark confusion and inconsistency in Biden administration policy.