2023 has been something of an annus horribilis for Sino–American relations, replete with bad behavior on the part of the Chinese Communist Party. We’ve seen the confirmation of secret CCP police stations in the U.S.; the Chinese military’s carrying out dangerous maneuvers in international territory; Chinese refusal to engage in basic military-to-military talks; a spy balloon transiting the continental United States, hovering over sensitive military sites; new revelations on the cover-up of pandemic origins; and the Wall Street Journal’s reporting on the existence of a Chinese surveillance station in Cuba. Since the rise of Xi Jinping, Beijing has become increasingly aggressive, expansionist, and assertive abroad. Its actions from the advent of the pandemic have proven it to be an untrustworthy actor on the world stage, and an anti-American one at that.
The Biden administration, however, begs to differ. It has consistently downplayed or even excused these actions in its effort to conciliate Beijing, which hasn’t reciprocated. The diplomatic fantasy of mollification renders the saga of the spy balloon as merely a “silly” incident that was “more embarrassing” for China than it was “intentional.”
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