On October 24, a Chinese J-11 fighter jet recklessly maneuvered within ten feet of a U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber flying in international airspace over the South China Sea, endangering the crew of the American plane. There have been provocative Chinese intercepts of U.S. planes and vessels in the global commons for decades, but now the pace of the belligerent actions has increased.
What was the response of the Biden administration?
President Joe Biden has desperately tried to arrange a meeting with Chinese ruler Xi Jinping. They have finally agreed in principle to meet next month in San Francisco during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. The agreement came during the just-concluded visit of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Washington. Wang met with Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.
Biden meeting Xi at this time would be a mistake. There is nothing good that can come of this discussion.
Foreign policy experts, of course, hail the upcoming meeting. "The key word here is 'stabilization' of bilateral ties—not really improvement, but stabilization," Yun Sun of the Stimson Center told the Associated Press. "The world needs the U.S. and China to take on a rational path and stabilize their relationship, offering the region and the world more certainty."
Sun is wrong on all counts.
For one thing, Sun's goal is the same as Beijing's. The official China Daily ran this headline on October 28: "China FM Says His Visit Aimed at Stabilizing China-US Ties." Anything Beijing wants cannot, by definition, be good for America.
Moreover, improving ties for more than a few months is not possible. How, exactly, can Biden "stabilize relations" with a militant regime that has declared America to be its enemy?
Worse, China's regime thinks it is already at war with the U.S. With COVID-19, it deliberately killed more than 1.1 million Americans. Each year, it continues to steal hundreds of billions of dollars of U.S. intellectual property. It maliciously attacks the U.S. almost every day with propaganda. It has continually interfered in American elections and has openly and covertly advocated the overthrow of the U.S. government.
Repeated pleas from American presidents have not worked. Obviously, talking, reasoning, and negotiating with the Chinese regime have not persuaded it to stop. Neither has cajoling, "engaging," or placating it.
Take the case of fentanyl, one of dozens of opioids that gangs design and make in laboratories in China. The Chinese surveillance state knows and approves of the activities of the drug gangs, and Beijing also gives them diplomatic support. Moreover, Chinese central government and Communist Party media outlets support their crimes. Even China's private companies, like TikTok, participate in this propaganda barrage.
Furthermore, Chinese "money brokers," using Chinese banking apps, launder fentanyl proceeds through China's state banking system. The Communist Party of China now operates a near-total surveillance state and tightly controls all of its banks, so no one could transfer sums through their networks without the knowledge and cooperation of the regime.
Beijing, unsurprisingly, has not cooperated with American efforts to stop fentanyl trafficking. So far, federal authorities have prosecuted and imprisoned Chinese individuals handling fentanyl and other drug money. Both the Trump and Biden administrations have tried, to no avail, to talk with Xi Jinping about ending fentanyl production.
Now, therefore, is the time to use all the resources of the federal government. The Secretary of the Treasury, for instance, can designate, pursuant to Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act, Chinese banks to be of "primary money laundering concern." Designated banks can no longer clear dollar transactions through New York, where every dollar transaction clears.
Such designations would put the large state banks out of business everywhere outside China. If large state banks were to fail, so would China's state-dominated banking system. The failure of the banking system would undoubtedly mean the end of the Chinese economy and financial system. The end of the political system would soon follow.
Is this response "disproportional"? It is hard to compare the lives of Americans with the stability of relations with China. Provisional CDC statistics suggest about 70,000 Americans last year died from doses of illegal fentanyl.
In any event, it is better to take foreign policy advice from The West Wing's fictional President Jed Bartlett than from the failing Biden national security team. "What is the virtue of a proportional response?" Bartlett asked in Episode 3 of Season 1, titled "A Proportional Response." "Let the word ring forth from this time and this place, Gentlemen. You kill an American, any American, we don't come back with a proportional response. We come back with total disaster!"
Aggressors understand only one language. "The use of overwhelming force against China is absolutely necessary," said James Fanell of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy to Gatestone. "The world has witnessed the failure of the 'proportional' response in Ukraine."
"The U.S. must recognize there can be no compromise with a China that threatens us now in the Western Pacific and, left unchecked, can threaten the American homeland soon," Fanell, a former U.S. Navy captain who served as director of Intelligence and Information Operations at the U.S. Pacific Fleet, said. "We must act now to defend our interests and those of our allies."
America must defend its interests now. The Chinese regime is at this moment putting in place the infrastructure in America to attack America. There are hundreds if not thousands of Chinese males of military age, who are almost certainly saboteurs, coming through the open U.S. southern border.
In Reedley, California, near Fresno, authorities found a secret Chinese lab with at least 20 pathogens and almost a thousand mice that had been genetically engineered to spread disease.
America is about to be hit, so why should Washington delay taking action by trying to fruitlessly talk to a malignant Xi Jinping?
Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China, a Gatestone Institute distinguished senior fellow, and a member of its Advisory Board. F
Dr David Salinger