Blinken Gives Chinese Government His Congrats

S ecretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday congratulated China on the 72nd anniversary of the founding of the state controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, the latest in a flurry of activity that could undermine the Biden administration’s efforts to address Chinese atrocities and malign activity around the world.

The statement’s wording particularly could inflame worries that officials are willing to make concessions on core issues in order to jumpstart stalled cooperation.

“On behalf of the United States of America, I would like to extend our congratulations to the people of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the country celebrates its National Day on October 1. As the United States seeks to work cooperatively to solve the challenges we all face, we wish the people of the PRC peace, happiness, and prosperity over the coming year,” Blinken said.

In addition, China’s newly arrived ambassador to the United States, Qin Gang, tweeted a message on Tuesday evening thanking Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Kritenbrink and others for joining a virtual reception at the Chinese embassy.

Although Kritenbrink, who was confirmed to his role this month, did not appear on video, a State Department spokesperson confirmed that he “sent digital greetings to the Embassy extending his congratulations to the People’s Republic of China on their national day and wishing the people of the PRC peace, happiness, and prosperity.”

Like Blinken’s own statement, Kritenbrink’s is fairly anodyne, but it’s worth asking whether the department should have sent its greetings at all. For one, Qin arrived in Washington with a stridently anti-U.S. message. As National Review exclusively reported, during a virtual welcome event attended by members of the National Committee on U.S.–China Relations at the end of August, Qin was asked how the two countries could rebuild their relationship. “If we cannot resolve our differences, please shut up,” he advised U.S. officials, in remarks that shocked meeting participants and indicated the hard line he will take in this post.

The State Department sometimes issues statements congratulating countries on their national days, including China. Although a senior State Department official attempted to block a statement marking China’s National Day last year, amid the pandemic-era diplomatic disputes and worsening behavior from Beijing that accelerated Washington’s turn against China, then-secretary of state Mike Pompeo issued one.

The statement that he issued appears to largely resemble Blinken’s. However, the Pompeo statement differed in a few notable ways, not the least of which is its context: months of pointed rhetoric from Trump administration China hawks referring to the Chinese Communist Party as an existential threat.

Michael Sobolik, a fellow in Indo-Pacific Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council and a former Senate staffer, identified key differences in the two statements’ wording, though they are only a year apart. “It’s one thing to extend warm wishes to the Chinese people; it’s quite another to congratulate the Chinese government,” he told NR. “The bigger issue, though, is Secretary Blinken’s statement about cooperation. There are increasing indicators that the Biden administration is easing up on the Chinese Communist Party to boost their cooperative agenda with Beijing.” The Blinken statement emphasizes U.S. intent “to work cooperatively to solve the challenges we all face.”

Since the start of his presidency, Joe Biden has promised to engage in “extreme competition” with China while also finding areas of mutual cooperation. Although the administration is still undertaking several lengthy policy reviews with ramifications for the direction of its policy on China, officials staked out a number of strong stances early on. Among other things, they maintained Trump-era rules making it easier to interact with Taiwanese diplomats, upheld Pompeo’s determination that Beijing is perpetrating genocide against Uyghurs, and issued a number of sanctions targeting party-state officials engaged in human-rights abuses.

The problem for Biden is that top party officials have said repeatedly that they will not seek cooperation with Washington unless the administration reverses the policies to which they most strongly object. Qin’s undiplomatic comments were really not that far out of the mainstream, though they were put coarsely.

After Biden spoke with CCP general secretary Xi Jinping earlier this month, senior administration officials said that the president had requested the call since discussions at lower levels had gone nowhere. Although the Biden–Xi conversation initially seemed to have yielded no results, the Justice Department later announced a deal with Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, whose extradition the U.S. sought from Canada on sanctions-evasion charges, in which it would defer prosecution, allowing her to return to China. Sobolik points out that dropping the case against Meng, who was still required to admit to some wrongdoing, was one of Beijing’s major demands to deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman during her most recent trip to China. The Commerce Department has also issued licenses for American companies to sell certain chips to Huawei, which is blacklisted, and commerce secretary Gina Raimondo recently gave interviews in which she said she believes it important to foster U.S.–China business engagement as a way to manage political tensions.

Meanwhile, in a strange turn, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told RealClearPolitics on Monday that she did not know if Biden supports the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, a bipartisan bill that makes it illegal to import goods produced in Xinjiang, under the presumption that forced labor was involved in their production. Republican lawmakers and human-rights advocates have claimed that climate envoy John Kerry is lobbying against the legislation as he continues discussions with Chinese officials about working together to fight climate change.

On its face, Blinken’s statement is more or less benign, but its paean to cooperation comes at the wrong time and sends the wrong message.