Monday is Memorial Day, and there will be no Morning Jolt until Tuesday. Enjoy your weekend and take a moment to remember the fallen. On the menu today: A week after President Biden predicted U.S.–China relations would “thaw,” the U.S. State Department warns American business that Chinese state-sponsored hackers are attempting to insert malware into the computer systems of critical U.S. infrastructure. Great call, Mr. President! Meanwhile, a notoriously uncompetitive Republican chooses not to torpedo his party’s chances in the 2024.
Biden Predicts ‘Thaw’ with China; China Responds by Sending Hackers and Malware
Last week at the G-7 summit, President Biden seemed exceptionally optimistic about an imminent thaw in U.S.–China relations:
At the Bali conference, that’s what President Xi and I agreed we were going to do and meet on. And then this silly balloon that was carrying two freight cars’ worth of spying equipment was flying over the United States, and it got shot down, and everything changed in terms of talking to one another. I think you’re going to see that begin to thaw very shortly.
The State Department is warning American firms to be on guard for a new type of malware that it says a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group has been trying to insert into the computer systems of critical infrastructure across the U.S, including in Guam.
The presence of the suspicious computer code was announced on Wednesday by Microsoft in a warning it issued to private sector users of their software. Guam is the location of a critical U.S. Marine base that would respond to China if it attacked Taiwan.
The National Security Agency also issued an alert to electrical utilities, nuclear power stations, water systems, railways and other key sectors that could be vulnerable. . . .
The news comes as U.S. and Chinese officials are holding their first cabinet level meetings in Washington during the Biden administration, with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo meeting with her counterpart, China’s Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao. U.S. officials said that the two officials had “candid and substantive discussions” on Thursday and that Raimondo “raised concerns” about recent government actions against U.S. companies operating in China.
While dismissing the “silly balloon” that did indeed steal intelligence from several sensitive U.S. military sites, Biden tells us we should get ready for a thaw and better communications with China, and China responds by instructing its state-sponsored hackers to spread malware into our systems. President Biden gets his lunch money stolen on a regular basis. (I can hear it in the comments section already: “Ten percent for the big guy! Ten percent for the big guy!”)
The Chinese government likely has corners that are itching for a conflict with the United States and corners that would prefer to avoid a conflict with the U.S. — for simplicity’s sake, let’s refer to them as hawks and doves. The loudest and most influential hawkish voices are likely to be found within the People’s Liberation Army and the Ministry of State Security, which operates as a sort of combined FBI and CIA for the Chinese state. The loudest and most influential dovish voices are likely to be found within the Chinese Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Commerce, and business communities.
This is the case in just about every country. Soldiers train to fight, so they aren’t afraid to fight and sometimes want to demonstrate their capabilities. Spies train to steal secrets and sabotage things, so they instinctively see that as the most effective tool. Diplomats train to talk, so they want to talk, and businessmen and commerce officials train to negotiate deals and make money, so they want to negotiate deals and make money. A government official’s role often predetermines how they see the world.
America’s ability to influence the inner workings of the Chinese government is very limited, but it is in the U.S. interest to strengthen the hand of the doves and to reduce the potential for armed conflict. If we can increase the leverage of the doves, we ought to do that. Maybe summit meetings are a way to make the Chinese Foreign Ministry and its diplomats look effective and influential. There is nothing inherently wrong with diplomatic summits with the leaders of hostile states. Ronald Reagan resolutely, even vehemently opposed the Soviet Union, but he was willing to hold regular summits with Mikhail Gorbachev.
If holding regular diplomatic meetings and summits with Chinese counterparts will strengthen the arguments of the doves, it is worthwhile. In this context, maybe it makes sense for the administration to invite Xi Jinping to Washington or for Biden to offer to travel to Beijing. If the doves appear to be generating useful results, Xi may be more inclined to listen to them instead of the hawks.
But there are a lot of “ifs” in the preceding sentences, and the Biden administration is dropping promised repercussions on the Chinese government in a desperate-looking effort to secure Chinese cooperation for a summit. And considering how Biden’s team keeps getting taken to the cleaners in negotiations with Russia, it is reasonable to conclude that when this administration’s diplomats sit down at the negotiating table with ruthless opponents, they’re just out of their league and easy pickings.
It is entirely possible that there isn’t much point in talking to Xi Jinping. Mike Gallagher, the Republican chairman of the new House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, looks at all of the available evidence and China’s behavior and concludes Xi aims to “subordinate and humiliate” the West. We’ve seen plenty of America’s enemies see diplomacy as a way to string us along, and to chuckle as we make concrete concessions in exchange for promises our enemies never intended to keep.
Of course, the American people and the world would be better off if the president could articulate the strategy behind our ongoing engagement with China, what we expect to achieve, what we’re willing to do to maintain stability, and what we see as nonnegotiable.
Instead, President Mumbles keeps describing deals that the U.S. State Department says don’t exist.
One Small Thing Goes Right for Pennsylvania Republicans
For a while there, it looked like the 2024 Republican candidates up and down the ballot were going to be a collection of those who lost similar bids in recent cycles.
I’m not vehemently opposed to a candidate who loses running again. But if he ran and lost, I want the returning candidate to talk about what he thinks he did wrong, what he learned, and what he will do differently this time around. Not enough resources put into get-out-the-vote efforts? Ineffective advertising? Got out-hustled by the opposition? Far too many candidates effectively argue, “The electorate will wake up one morning, realize what a terrible mistake they made by rejecting me, and beg me to forgive them.”
There’s Trump, of course. J. R. Majewski — the QAnon enthusiast who misrepresented his military record, will run in Ohio’s 9th congressional district again. Last year, he lost by 13 points. In Washington’s 3rd congressional district, Joe Kent is running again; last year he lost a seat in an R+5 district that mainstream GOP congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler had held for twelve years. And there have been rumors that either Blake Masters or Kari Lake or both will run for Senate in Arizona.
But thankfully, one of the most astonishingly uncompetitive Republicans is deciding not to ruin his party’s chances this year, at least for now:
Doug Mastriano, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump in last year’s race for governor but lost in a landslide, said in a livestreamed appearance with his wife that he will not run for Senate “at this moment the way things currently are.”
Thank heaven for small miracles. David McCormick, who narrowly lost the GOP Senate primary to Mehmet Oz, is considered the leading candidate in this year’s primary. I’ve heard some Republicans contend that if McCormick had been the candidate against John Fetterman last year, he would have won. That’s difficult to prove, and McCormick has his own potential issues Democrats would have demonized — he ran the world’s biggest hedge fund, etc. But McCormick does, you know, have roots in the state. Whether or not you think that should matter, it mattered to Pennsylvania voters:
In CNN’s exit poll of the race, 56 percent of voters said Oz had not lived in Pennsylvania long enough to effectively represent the state. Fetterman won that group by a margin of nearly 70 percentage points.
Speaking of losers, back on April 26, Kari Lake declared, “This primary is over. It’s time to rally around President Trump.” Keep in mind, not a single person will cast any ballots in the 2024 Republican presidential primary until January 2024.
Also note that Lake’s final lawsuit challenging the 2022 election results was rejected. In other words, there was a time period where Lake argued that the 2024 Republican presidential primary was over, but the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial race was not. Perhaps she is a confused time traveler.
Do you ever get the feeling that some of these people really dislike having a government where leaders are selected through elections? That they just want to be in charge, and are irritated at the thought of having to adjust or moderate any of their positions or agenda, just because the voters in their district or state don’t agree with them?
ADDENDUM: Dan McLaughlin sharply observes that if President Joe Biden abided by the ethical rules that progressives are demanding of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, the president would have to recuse himself from any decision involving China or Ukraine. After all, companies with close ties to the governments of China or Ukraine made massive payments to Biden’s family members, so it represents a potential conflict of interest.