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FOREIGN POLICY

Chasing the Dragon by Peter Schweizer

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17026/chasing-the-dragon

[The Biden Executive Order] order reverses a previous directive by the Trump administration last May, which found that “foreign adversaries are increasingly creating and exploiting vulnerabilities in the United States bulk-power system, which provides the electricity that supports our national defense, vital emergency services, critical infrastructure, economy, and way of life.” [Emphasis added.]

These systems are, of course, highly computerized and the Trump administration’s goal was to prevent the Chinese, America’s greatest geo-political and economic rival, from having their hands in it. Biden’s order strips that protection with the stroke of a pen.

So, where was the constituency for allowing the Chinese access to the market for providing critical equipment to run and manage the US power grid? Who was clamoring to undo protections from cyber-warfare directed against America’s power system?

[B]y cancelling the pipeline, Biden is not preventing any energy production of fossil fuels in Canada. He is simply shifting that consumption to China.

Economically, all Biden’s order does is damage America’s energy production and give the US less control of energy markets, and give China greater leverage.

With this one order, on his first day of work, Biden has given the communist government of China… a more favorable market for buying the oil that makes it the top producer of carbon-dioxide in the world. It is difficult to see how such moves, done unilaterally and without negotiating anything at all in return, make sense to the security of the U.S.

The timing alone raises questions about exactly which supporters Joe Biden was making happy.

On his first full day in office, President Joe Biden signed a massive executive order that, among other things, killed the Keystone XL pipeline project. Buried in that same order were two short sentences that will allow the Chinese government to get into the American electrical grid.

Located at Section 7(c), the order reverses a previous directive by the Trump administration last May, which found that “foreign adversaries are increasingly creating and exploiting vulnerabilities in the United States bulk-power system, which provides the electricity that supports our national defense, vital emergency services, critical infrastructure, economy, and way of life.” [Emphasis added.]

Biden’s New Asst Sec of State Worked for Islamic Terror State That Funds Hamas “I was inspired by the Palestinian intifada.” Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/02/bidens-new-asst-sec-state-worked-islamic-terror-daniel-greenfield/

“I was inspired by the Palestinian intifada,” Hady Amr wrote a year after September 11, discussing his work as the national coordinator of the anti-Israel Middle East Justice Network.

Biden has now chosen Amr as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israel-Palestine.

“I have news for every Israeli,” Amr ranted in one column written after Sheikh Salah Shahada, the head of Hamas’ Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, was taken out by an Israeli air strike.

Amr warned that Arabs “now have televisions, and they will never, never forget what the Israeli people, the Israeli military and Israeli democracy have done to Palestinian children. And there will be thousands who will seek to avenge these brutal murders of innocents.”

He also threatened Americans that “we too shouldn’t be shocked when our military assistance to Israel and our security council vetoes that keep on protecting Israel come back to haunt us”

The future State Department official was making these threats less than a year after 9/11.

Hady Amr had accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and coordinated an organization that had accused Israel of “apartheid” making his appointment, like that of Maher Bitar, an anti-Israel activist appointed as the Senior Director for Intelligence on the NSC, a statement about the Biden administration’s hostile relationship to the Jewish State.

Arming Taiwan Against China Is A Smarter Strategy Than Sending U.S. Troops By Sumantra Maitra

https://thefederalist.com/2021/02/02/arming-taiwan-against-china-is-a-smarter-strategy-than-sending-u-s-troops/

President Biden shouldn’t make empty promises. The strategy should be about bleeding China if they overstretch, rather than committing American lives to a potentially attritional war.

Largely unreported in corporate media, last week Chinese fighters apparently simulated sinking a U.S. carrier in an attack. On Jan. 23, according to intel sources, cockpit chatter highlighted a command to simulate targeting the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier group.

China has been in news over sporadic border clashes with India and a flyby of Taiwan on the day of President Biden’s inauguration. But a direct simulation of a strike on a U.S. carrier group signifies that Beijing now considers even a limited military clash with America over Taiwan within the realm of possibility.

That brings us to the biggest foreign policy question, which the Biden administration is likely not yet ready to face. What happens the day after China launches an invasion of Taiwan?

So far, the Biden administration’s reaction has signaled rhetorical continuity with the Trump era. American foreign policy wonks, despite all divisions, are bipartisan about the China threat. One might not hear it much in public, but despite being divided between realists who prefer a narrower national interest-based approach, and liberals and neoconservatives who prefer interventions and democracy promotion, foreign policy circles so far are united in their threat appraisal of the rise of China as the largest threat facing the United States.

Biden’s Mideast Policy – Reassessment or Repeat? Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

https://bit.ly/2McRa4h

Track record

President Biden’s foreign policy and national security team reflects a resurgence of the State Department’s worldview. An examination of this worldview and its track record is required, in order to avoid past mistakes.  

This track record consists of such critical issues as:

*In 1948, the State Department led Washington’s opposition to the recognition of the newly established Jewish State, contending that the Jewish State would be helpless against the expected Arab military assault, would be pro-Soviet, would undermine US-Arab relations,  destabilize the Middle East, threaten the US supply of oil and cause severe long-term damage to US interests.  Deputy Secretary of State, Robert Lovett, claimed: “recognizing the Jewish State prematurely would be buying a pig in a poke.”

*During the 1950s, the US courted Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, considering him a potential ally and extending non-military aid, while Egypt evolved as a key ally of the USSR, supporting anti-Western elements in Africa, intensifying anti-US sentiments among Arabs, and attempting to topple every single pro-US Arab regime.

*In 1978/79, the US betrayed the pro-US Shah of Iran, while embracing Ayatollah Khomeini – including intelligence sharing during the initial months of the Khomeini regime – under the assumption that he was controllable and seeking freedom, democracy and positive ties with the US.

Biden’s Got a Berlin Problem Brewing By Dalibor Rohac & Ivana Stradner

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/01/bidens-got-a-berlin-problem-brewing/

The rise of a German politician with a record of Putin pandering is bad news for the new administration.

T hose who expect President Joe Biden to singlehandedly fix the transatlantic relationship are in for a disappointment. Although the new administration in Washington takes a far more sympathetic view of Europe than its predecessor did, it is not clear that the sentiment will be reciprocated — especially in Berlin.

Following nearly two decades of Angela Merkel’s leadership, Armin Laschet, premier of Germany’s most populous state, Nordrhein-Westfalen, was elected on January 16 as the new leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Barring large swings in polls before the parliamentary election in September, Laschet is on track to become Germany’s next chancellor.

That is bad news for efforts to repair the U.S.–EU relationship. The presence of Laschet at the helm of Europe’s largest economy would give a boost for those in Europe who are reluctant to take their obligations within NATO seriously and would risk tethering the EU closer to both China and Russia.

Much as Biden and Laschet are likely to see eye-to-eye on climate change and other “multilateral” issues, the presumptive German chancellor is a man of little patience with those who see the promotion of democratic values as integral to foreign policy. As such, he is likely to frustrate U.S.-led efforts to hold Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and other dictators accountable for their domestic and international practices.

China Doesn’t Have to Lift a Finger to Push Biden Around by Gordon G. Chang

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17012/china-push-biden

“Xenophobia” has been a constant Biden theme… Within moments [of President Trump’s “travel ban” last January] … Biden went on the attack. “This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysterical xenophobia and fear mongering to lead the way instead of science,” he said. There was nothing “xenophobic” about Trump’s travel ban. It was imposed on arrivals from the country where the disease first appeared. The ban, therefore, saved lives, and it would have saved even more if it had been stricter, announced sooner, and had been more rigorously enforced…. [If Biden] had been president then, the disease would almost certainly have spread faster in America. He was, during the campaign, against all such travel prohibitions.

Now, Biden is supporting another Chinese propaganda campaign…. The Chinese regime, which to this day uses geographical names for strains of virus, has been trying to ban any identification of China with the pandemic. Biden, with his executive order [rejoining the World Health Organization (WHO)], is doing Beijing’s work as Chinese leaders try to deflect blame.

This decision was especially hideous because WHO was complicit in China’s deliberate spread of the disease. WHO disseminated Beijing’s position that the coronavirus was not readily contagious even though the organization’s senior doctors knew it was highly transmissible. Moreover, WHO championed the Chinese campaign against travel bans. Americans died because of these and other indefensible actions on the part of WHO, and now Biden will go back to legitimizing and supporting that organization.

So far, Biden has taken steps that certainly encourage Beijing. His rejoining the Paris Agreement, his cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline, and his repeal of the ban on Chinese equipment in the American electrical grid, among others, favor, directly or indirectly, Beijing. Also of great concern is the failure of Commerce Secretary nominee Gina Raimondo to confirm that Huawei Technologies will remain on the department’s Entity List.

The Biden administration has just endorsed one of China’s most vicious attack lines against the United States.

The new administration’s actions look as if they are setting a pattern for its responses to Beijing on the disease and other matters.

On January 26, Biden signed his executive order titled “Memorandum Condemning and Combating Racism, Xenophobia, and Intolerance Against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States.”

Biden Admin Will Have to Thread Needle as it Resumes Palestinian Aid Congress warns resumption in aid could violate American law Adam Kredo

https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/

The Biden administration will have to walk a fine line when it resumes U.S. aid to the Palestinians due to an American law that blocks funding until they end a policy known as “pay to slay,” in which Western aid money is used to care for imprisoned terrorists and their families.

Republican lawmakers say a resumption in U.S. aid to the Palestinians could violate the Taylor Force Act, which mandates the Palestinian government stop using Western aid dollars to pay terrorists and their families. Congressional leaders told the Washington Free Beacon they will be closely watching the administration to ensure it does not violate U.S. law. The State Department maintains any resumption in aid will be done in compliance with the law, which does include exemptions for humanitarian assistance.

The Biden administration’s decision sets up an early showdown between the State Department and Congress over the future of U.S. foreign policy regarding the Palestinians and their continued support for terrorism. The Free Beacon first reported in October that the Palestinian government has continued paying terrorists despite the passage three years ago of the Taylor Force Act, according to findings that were published in a non-public State Department report sent to Congress.

“The resumption of any U.S foreign assistance that indirectly funds the Palestinian Authority’s pay-for-slay terrorist program would violate U.S. law, betray our Israeli partners, and put Americans living in or visiting Israel in harm’s way,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) told the Free Beacon.

Javad Zarif’s Chutzpah By Jimmy Quinn

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/01/javad-zarifs-chutzpah/

Desperate to win sanctions relief, Iran’s foreign minister pens a falsehood-riddled essay in an American magazine.

T he foreign minister of Iran has a message for President Joe Biden: If you lift all of your sanctions and shut up about Tehran’s support for terrorist groups and its development of ballistic-missile technology, we’ll let you back into the 2015 nuclear agreement . . . maybe.

Tehran’s cosmopolitan, English-speaking, sometimes openly anti-Semitic top diplomat Javad Zarif made this incredibly bold argument in a piece published by Foreign Affairs magazine last week. One wouldn’t be mistaken to think that he’s beginning the negotiations with a high asking price — and without much to justify it. Iran’s been battered by the Trump administration’s sanctions, so much so that its support for paramilitary groups across the Middle East seems to be constraining its ability to finance its response to the COVID crisis.

It’s not immediately clear whom the essay is intended to sway. If the target audience is U.S. officials, it’s hard to imagine these lofty demands playing a larger role than does the Biden administration’s already obvious intent to reenter the agreement. And amidst pressure from congressional Republicans, Israel, and U.S. allies in the Gulf, it’s just as difficult to believe that Zarif’s bluster alone would convince the new team to drop its inhibitions against doing exactly what the foreign minister demands — that is, reentering the agreement with absolutely no preconditions:

The U.S. Government Shouldn’t Send Communist China Americans’ DNA And Health Info By Ben Weingarten

https://thefederalist.com/2021/01/25/the-u-s-government-shouldnt-send-communis

The Biden administration must take serious steps to ensure China ceases its exploitation of the COVID-19 crisis in ways that threaten our national security.

Some two decades ahead of schedule, on Jan. 12, the Trump administration declassified its Indo-Pacific Strategic Framework, a document outlining its national security strategy regarding Asia. The document is critical, and the timing of its declassification was telling.

As National Security Advisor Robert C. O’Brien noted in a statement announcing its release, the framework “has provided overarching strategic guidance for implementing the 2017 National Security Strategy within the world’s most populous and economically dynamic region.”

By making the document public just before Inauguration Day — as with its other recent actions and revelations regarding Communist China — the outgoing Trump administration delivered a message to its would-be soft-on-China successor: Do not deviate from the course we have charted in countering our most formidable adversary. A return to appeasement becomes more difficult when the extent of the Chinese Communist Party’s malignant endeavors are laid bare, and the American people can see that there has been a robust plan for confronting it.

Progress Subverted by Bureaucracy

The Trump administration has taken yeoman efforts to implement this strategy, for which America has benefited immeasurably while effectuating a sea change across the federal government in thought and action concerning China. It appears, however, that pockets of resistance remain. Indeed, even the most determined of administrations with the best of strategies can find their plans at times subverted by an obstinate permanent bureaucracy.

Biden’s First Signal on China: Fond Memories by Gordon G. Chang

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16986/biden-china-signal

In “Four Principles to Guide U.S. Policy Toward China,” the Atlantic Council’s Ali Wyne suggests a weakened America needs to accommodate the People’s Republic of China.

China also cannot get along with the United States, which maintained China-friendly policies for more than four decades. In fact, People’s Daily, the most authoritative publication in China, in May 2019 carried a piece that declared a “people’s war” on America.

China’s “unrestricted warfare” on the United States has taken a toll. Recently, Chinese leaders deliberately spread the coronavirus beyond their borders, making deaths in America mass murder as well as “genocide,” as that term is defined by Article II of the 1948 Genocide Convention.

Moreover, in late January of last year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in the International Falls Port of Entry in Minnesota seized 900,000 counterfeit $1 bills, made in China…. Nobody, in China’s near-total surveillance state, can counterfeit American currency without authorities knowing about it. [C]ounterfeiting another country’s currency is considered an act of war.

Leaders of democracies, despite all the good will in the world, will find they cannot cooperate with thugs.

“I was asked a long time ago when I was with Xi Jinping,” said President Joe Biden in his first hours in office, as he swore in officials, “and I was on the Tibetan plateau with him, and he asked me in a private dinner he and I and we each had an interpreter he said can you define America for me, and I said yes and I meant it. I said I can do it in one word, one word: possibilities. We believe anything is possible if we set our mind to it, unlike any other country in the world.”

In Beijing, Communist Party leaders must be ecstatic. For one thing, during the 10-minute ceremony Biden mentioned no other country.

Moreover, ruler Xi Jinping will think the Tibetan plateau reference significant. Biden’s words, after all, came one day after then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a determination that China was committing crimes against humanity, including genocide, against minorities. Pompeo’s declaration presumably includes the minority Tibetans. Beijing is suppressing them in many of the same ways as it is liquidating Uyghurs, the focus of his historic statement.

Xi and other Chinese leaders will doubtless take Biden’s fond recollection as a sign the new president is not serious about China’s atrocities against minority peoples.