Josh Rogin is a rare voice of sanity at the Washington Post. He may lean left but has done honest, important reporting on COVID-19 for nearly two years. And in Friday’s edition, he shared some disquieting information in a short but pertinent column.
Discussing Marco Rubio’s Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which I covered Thursday night, Rogin elaborated on why President Joe Biden and Democrats would oppose something so righteous and presumably non-partisan.
“Administration sources confirmed that in an October call between Deputy Secretary of State Wendy R. Sherman and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), the other co-sponsor, Sherman made it clear that the administration prefers a more targeted and deliberative approach to determining which [Chinese] goods are the products of forced labor. She also told Merkley that getting allied buy-in was critical and more effective than unilateral action,” Rogin relayed.
“In other words, while the administration supports the legislation in public, they are asking Democrats to essentially water it down in private. Sherman’s specific criticism relates to a part of the bill that would require a presumption that all products coming from Xinjiang are tainted by forced labor unless the importer can prove otherwise. This happens to be the exact provision corporations are also objecting to. Maybe it’s a coincidence.”
Wendy Sherman should have resigned before agreeing to lobby in favor of Uyghur forced labor.
Disgraceful conduct from the Biden White House. https://t.co/W8VIWsZAuP
— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) December 3, 2021
Weakening legislative efforts to punish China for the ongoing Uyghur genocide is certainly not what Biden promised as a presidential candidate. In fact, the Democratic nominee insisted that he, unlike then-President Donald Trump, was tough on China.
“I had spent more time with Xi Jinping than any other world leader by the time we left office,” Biden yelled at a primary debate. “This is a guy who doesn’t have a democratic bone in his body. This is a guy who is a thug who in fact, has a million Uyghurs in reconstruction camps, meaning concentration camps.”
At the State Department a few months ago, Biden promised, “We’ll also take on directly the challenges posed by our prosperity, security, and democratic values by our most serious competitor, China. We’ll confront China’s economic abuses; counter its aggressive, coercive action; to push back on China’s attack on human rights, intellectual property, and global governance.”
And yet, his administration has proved all year they’re unwilling to confront Beijing in consequential ways.
The vital investigation into the origins of COVID-19 was effectively dropped, and Biden never mentioned China’s refusal to cooperate with the WHO’s investigation during last month’s virtual meeting with Chairman Xi Jinping. The president also failed to mention China, Hong Kong, the Uygurs, or COVID’s origins during his September address to the United Nations.
In defending his ignominious decision to withdraw all U.S. military forces from Afghanistan, Biden argued that China wanted U.S. troops there because Beijing saw Afghanistan as a quagmire tying up American resources.
Of course, he was wrong, as he always is on foreign policy. China is rapidly expanding its footprint in Afghanistan by, among much else, developing plans for its Communist firms to mine Afghanistan’s rich lithium deposits.
The Chinese government is thrilled the U.S. no longer has a presence in Afghanistan.
Related: The Taliban Makes China Its Main Ally
When Xi and Biden held their teleconference in November, Xi called Biden “old friend,” and the president thanked him.
In a speech nearly a decade ago, Biden said, “I believe that a rising China is a positive development — not only for China but also for the United States and the world.”
And in 2019, Biden infamously declared: “China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man.”
Even the proposed “diplomatic boycott” of the 2022 Beijing Olympics is irrelevant because the Chinese government disinvited our politicians before Biden announced the decision. We should fully boycott the rogue regime’s propaganda fortnight; instead, the Genocide Games go on with sponsorship by goose-stepping American corporations.
The world watches what the United States does. When the Biden Admin demonstrates that we are weak, our adversaries know they can roll the United States. https://t.co/EuHopza3JD
— Mike Pompeo (@mikepompeo) December 3, 2021
Standing up to an aggressive totalitarian regime requires sacrifice. A tougher stance against Beijing now will benefit future generations, allowing the U.S. to set moral values on the world stage instead of noxious dictators.
If Biden and his acolytes do see a rising threat from Beijing, they don’t act like it. The president seemingly reserves his anger for unvaccinated Americans, border patrol agents, and Peter Doocy more so than for China’s nefarious actions.