Çchicken when it comes to the genocide of the Uighur people in China, Biden has some problems making his point.
The president was in Milwaukee last night answering questions during a televised city hall event, when the host, CNN’s Anderson Cooper, asked if Biden talked about human rights violations in China during his call last week with Xi Jinping. What followed was a confused response to the violent repression of the Uighurs in Xi. During a devious explanation of how the Chinese leadership sees the world, Biden said “Culturally, there are different rules that each country and its leaders must follow”.
Many interpreted this as a kind of justification for the Chinese Communist Party’s initiative to eliminate Turkish minorities in Xinjiang. If that were true, the president’s comment would run counter to what he said earlier about the plight of the Uighur people. In fact, Biden, who already in August called the Xinjiang crisis a genocide, ended up telling Cooper, “There will be repercussions. AND [Xi] He knows that. “While it is possible that his comments on cultural norms were a clumsy attempt to protect Xi from criticism, it is more likely that the president put his foot in his mouth when trying to explain his obligation to talk about human rights abuses.
Still, the incident sheds light on the broader confusion of the Biden government when it comes to confronting Xi. If the president believes the CCP is committing genocide (White House press secretary Jen Psaki recently confirmed that he is), he should lead with a clear condemnation of the mass atrocities of the Chinese regime, not a recount of the time he has spent. he spent meeting the man in charge of 21st century concentration camps, as he did last night. He should defend his conclusions about this barbarism, and that an understanding of the regime’s conduct should play a role in all the decisions he makes regarding Chinese politics.
The new team took drastic steps to put human rights first in foreign policy making. In the Gulf, this has resulted in a freeze on arms sales to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, due to concerns that these weapons will be used to target civilians in Yemen. The State Department signaled its desire to build an international partnership to deal with the military coup in Burma – Biden even made a brief statement on the podium announcing sanctions to the responsible official. No one can accuse the Biden government of shirking bold statements about human rights abuses.
This human rights-oriented approach has also guided its involvement with China. Both Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken mentioned the serious human rights abuses in Beijing during their calls with their Chinese counterparts, and both raised these concerns consistently in their public speeches. On several occasions, Blinken has confirmed that he agrees with his predecessor’s discovery that Beijing is committing crimes against humanity and genocide against Uighurs. The government also made it clear that the US is competing with China, even “extreme competition”, as Biden said recently.
But these officials apparently have a hard time answering the question that flows logically from their condemnations: can the United States seek some form of involvement with a regime that conducts forced sterilizations, systematic rape and other unspeakable horrors?
Blinken thinks the United States can deal with such a regime, even if it exterminates one of the minority ethnic groups under its control. He told Mary Louise Kelly of NPR yesterday: “This has been a challenge for American administrations, going back decades and decades, and we have to be able to find ways to do both.” Kelly then asked whether the United States should boycott the Beijing Olympics in 2022. Blinken emphasized the need to avoid importing goods produced by Xinjiang’s forced labor system. “But we have to be able to do several things at the same time,” he said, pointing to Russia to show that Washington can strike deals with the regime it condemns simultaneously, and apparently echoing Biden’s recent promise to “work with Beijing, when it’s in America’s interest to do that. ”
Vladimir Putin has relentlessly pursued his political opponents with arbitrary arrests and murders. But the Chinese campaign to exterminate the Uighurs represents an international emergency of a different category and of much greater scope. Despite clear evidence, such as testimonies from distressing victims, that these crimes are indeed taking place, Beijing has recruited dozens of countries to endorse its actions as a benign counterterrorism campaign and has run a global disinformation campaign to challenge the allegations it faces. The Chinese leadership’s control over Xinjiang demonstrates technological sophistication and diplomatic skill that has so far protected it from international resistance.
Can the United States “do several things at the same time” with respect to the mass atrocities of the Chinese party-state? No, if your priority is to make Beijing an international pariah, rather than a champion of multilateral action on climate change and global public health.
The Biden government promised to boost the international response to the Uighur crisis in a way that the previous one, due to the constant need for US allies, failed. But Biden and Blinken cannot claim to do so if their rhetoric about cooperation with the most influential genocide perpetrator in the world does not match the urgency with which they must act, and if Biden continues to confuse the questions with such clear answers.