Biden Ignored a Geopolitical Crisis in His U.N. Speech

Fox’s Jacqui Heinrich makes an important observation about President Biden’s speech to the U.N. General Assembly this morning:

His administration, which held a series of high-level meetings between U.S. and Chinese officials in Beijing this past summer, is currently engaged in a process of seeking détente with Beijing. Although Xi Jinping and top CCP diplomat Wang Yi skipped the U.N. gathering this year, Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Chinese vice president Han Zheng on the sidelines of the U.N. proceedings yesterday.

Beijing is currently dangling the prospect of Xi’s participation in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco this November. The Biden administration has consistently telegraphed its desire to secure a meeting between the two leaders, while Chinese officials have played hard to get.

Consider that the recent flurry of diplomatic activity has featured visits by senior U.S. officials to Beijing, without a corresponding series of meetings in Washington; also consider that Blinken’s sit-down with Han yesterday took place at the Chinese mission to the U.N., rather than at the Manhattan hotel where Blinken hosted other meetings this week. Beijing is also demanding more concessions: Earlier this month, China’s Ministry of State Security espionage service made its first post to a Chinese social-media site, effectively saying that the U.S. would need to offer “sincerity” to secure another Biden-Xi sit-down meeting. The last one occurred last November in Bali.

It’s noteworthy that Biden declined to say a single word about Taiwan, which is obviously one of the world’s preeminent geopolitical fault lines right now. His speech came a day after the Chinese Communist Party’s armed forces sent 103 jets into Taiwan’s air-defense identification zone — which is a new record that surpasses even the Chinese tantrum that followed then–House speaker Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.

No doubt, the White House has tracked that development. Yet, while Biden made strong remarks about supporting Ukraine in its fight to defend its national sovereignty, he said nothing about Taiwan, although he made general comments about standing against aggression.

Instead, he conveyed a message that’s clearly intended to further his administration’s diplomatic overtures to Beijing: “I want to be clear and consistent: We seek to responsibly manage the competition between our countries so it does not tip into conflict. I’ve said we are for de-risking, not decoupling on China.”