I remember widespread reporting of every weird phrase and decision Trump made, selectively released in bestselling books that detailed just how crazy things were. By comparison, Biden’s tenure in office has (mostly) delivered on its promise to be boring even despite the earth shaking events (COVID, Russia-Ukraine) which have occurred. But the pendulum has swung too far, and we’re missing some important things.
Franklin Foer is one of the few authors brave enough to try and publish a book on the Biden presidency. While reading it, I was shocked to read a passage that should have been major news.
At the start of the Russo-Ukraine War, the White House got intelligence suggesting Russia had asked China for material support, and China was giving serious consideration to the request. Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan had a scheduled meeting with his counterpart Yang Jiechi in Rome on March 14th, 2022 and brought up the concern. This meeting was widely reported.
Sullivan told Yang that this issue needed to be addressed quickly — and at the highest level. He suggested that they set up a conversation between Biden and Xi. Normally, such calls were the subject of endless negotiations over picayune details. But four days after Sullivan’s meeting in Rome, Biden and Xi connected in a video conference.
What was (and continues to be) less widely reported is the meeting Biden had with Xi.
Despite the rising tensions, Biden and Xi maintained the pretense that they were old friends. Biden knew better than to quickly press Xi. He tried to build slowly, walking him through the state of the war. Russia, he seemed to be suggesting, was desperately struggling, bogged down in a war that it couldn’t win.
Then he pivoted to the intercepted intelligence and his warning: “I’m not threatening you. But if Chinese weapons are killing Ukrainians — or China is trying to unravel sanctions, the consequences for your relations with us, and the Europeans, not just with governments but with the private sector, are going to be profound. You don’t want to do this.
Biden pointed out that without his even asking or directing them to, hundreds of companies up and left Russia after the outbreak of war. And he predicted the same fate would befall China: “The pressure on companies to change their relationship with China, if you become a cobelligerent with Russia, is going to be overwhelming, and you need to understand that dynamic.”
Xi had nothing to say about the charge.
But Xi said that he wanted to address America’s own dangerous behavior in Ukraine. He said that he was disturbed that the United States was operating labs in Ukraine, where it was developing biological and chemical weapons. This was one of the most cartoonish pieces of Russian propaganda — and it was beyond disturbing to hear it emanating from the mouth of China’s leader.
Biden struggled to keep his cool. “You know better than that, this is crap. Stop mouthing nonsense Russian talking points: I know you know that, so give me a break.”
Xi, however, wouldn’t drop the argument.
Emphasis mine. To put some background to what is happening here, Russian propaganda pushed a narrative on “Ukrainian biolabs” that sought to convince people that Ukraine had a biological weapons program. This always seemed to prey upon the most credible conspiracy thinkers, because it’s claims were beyond ludicrous.
I want to highlight what is happening here — Russian Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, the Russian Ministry of Defense’s top spokesperson — is arguing that the US and Ukraine plan to train birds to selectively infect Russians with biological agents. First — Russians are a nationality and ethnicity, not a biological species. There is no way for a disease to selectively kill people because of who they pay taxes to. Secondly, WTF? Who are they trying to convince?
Well, apparently the top ranks of Chinese leadership who, according to Foer’s reporting, sincerely believe this was happening. For a moment let’s put aside the ridiculousness of the claim and focus on the seriousness of the problem that the leader of a nation with over 1 billion people believed this farce of a conspiracy. Xi recently gained an unprecedented third term as president of China, raising concerns that China was drifting back to a personality-driven dictatorship.
It is bad enough to hear that technocrats such as bankers are forced to read Xi’s Jinping thought to continue their jobs. More worrying still that Xi Jinping’s thoughts are not dissimilar from your Fox News watching Uncle who keeps bringing up chemtrails and January 6th. Imagine if he had an army, or worse still was actively purging its leadership. Imagine if the conspiracy theorist guy you knew in college was broadcasting a desire to conquer teritory they perceive as his.
It matters greatly that Xi Jinping brought this up to Biden. It indicates not only that these conspiracy theories are taken seriously in China, but also that they believe it is a conversation worth having with the President of the United States. What does that say about their current decision making?
The Big Picture
Noah Smith took a look at the production capabilities of the emerging geopolitical alignments in the world. And his conclusions were sobering.
The Allies won World War II largely on the basis of its manufacturing output. The US could produce a new B-24 bomber every 63 minutes from just one factory. The Axis Powers — primarily Germany and Japan — could never have competed with this.
After 20 years of outsourcing, the US and Europe find themselves in a scary position — the countries that have been happy to pick up the slack are aligned with policies of wars of conquest. Worse still, they promote bullshit. It takes careful diplomacy and critical thought to avoid war. That is hard to do if the YouTube comments section is taken serious to enough to spend time with the President of the United States talking about birds that carry bacteria to Russians. But make no mistake, should miscalculation lead to war in Taiwan, the US won’t have its historical advantage of industrial supremacy. That will rest instead with countries whose leaders believe obvious bullshit.
This isn’t to say the US is somehow above the fray. As I said at the start, we very recently had a national leader who believed weird shit too. But he lost the election, and now he DJs at Mar-a-Lago. But dictatorships like Russia or China don’t have similar turnover in leadership. Bad leadership can come with far higher consequences and no means to turn down the pressure.
