On Dec. 16, 2024, the U.S. Treasury Department celebrated the seventh meeting of a joint economic working group with China. According to Treasury’s press release, both sides “shared views on areas of cooperation,” while the U.S. side “expressed its continued concern” about Beijing’s nonmarket policies and “the support of some Chinese firms” for Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Only in Washington could such drivel be mistaken for success.
The United States has complained about Beijing’s nonmarket practices for decades. Bilateral dialogues to fix the issue have been worse than useless — they have allowed the Chinese Communist Party time to delay Washington while it has grown wealthier and stronger. Equally misguided is President Joe Biden’s undue deference to Chinese President Xi Jinping on his strategic assistance of Russian President Vladimir Putin. This is not a matter of “some Chinese firms” helping Russia destroy Ukraine. It is a systems-level face-off. Xi has said as much to Putin.
Why splice a press release from an outgoing administration in its final days? Because eight days before publishing those words, the Treasury Department was hacked by Chinese state-backed actors. Apparently working groups and “mechanisms for communication” aren’t catechizing the CCP into a responsible stakeholder.
The Biden administration, however, has been blind to this reality.
“Managed competition” has been Biden’s watchword with the CCP. Consider Treasury’s defense of its working group with Beijing: it “provides a mechanism for communication … and has served to stabilize the relationship by mitigating the risk of miscommunication or unintended escalation.” If only that were true. Biden has spoken repeatedly about winning the 21st century, but he has never said a word about winning America’s new Cold War with the CCP. He has refused to admit it even exists. Ironically, that lack of clarity is crippling America’s ability to lead in this new century.
Of course, Biden’s remaining time in office is short. When President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House on Jan. 20, he will face one of the most important choices of his presidency: Will he continue the failed approach of engaging the CCP to change it, or will he adopt a new approach to America’s adversaries founded on strength and predicated on victory?
Trump’s approach to the CCP in his first term was decidedly closer to the latter than the former. He hit Beijing with tough tariffs, punished China for its crackdown in Hong Kong, threatened Xi with war if he attacked Taiwan, and called out the party’s genocide of Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
Notably, Trump also tried to ban TikTok during his first term — an eminently justifiable step, given the threat Beijing’s control of the app poses to America’s democracy. Today, however, the president-elect is trying to save TikTok from a looming ban. How this issue plays out will be an early indicator of which path Trump takes. In his filed amicus brief with the Supreme Court, Trump reiterated that “the national security concerns presented by ByteDance and TikTok appear to be significant and pressing.” He also, however, made his preference clear for negotiating a political agreement that allows TikTok to operate in America.
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Thankfully, the TikTok law provides the incoming administration a path to safely save TikTok. If Trump successfully finds a qualified buyer for the app, he will be remembered as the president who made social media safe for Americans.
Doing so, however, will require Xi’s cooperation, as Beijing has slapped an export control on TikTok’s algorithm. Here, Trump would do well to avoid Biden’s error. Playing nice with America’s adversaries telegraphs weakness. Projecting strength and signaling resolve to Xi in ways that feel uncomfortable may be necessary, if Trump is to save TikTok from extinction in America and, more importantly, win Washington’s new Cold War with Beijing.
Michael Sobolik is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and the author of Countering China’s Great Game: A Strategy for American Dominance (Naval Institute Press, 2024). Follow him on X @michaelsobolik.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
