Xi Jinping Rises as Biden Dithers

 Xi Jinping Rises as Biden Dithers | Power Line (powerlineblog.com)

It all began with Biden’s disastrous decision to abruptly withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan in August 2021. The move came as a thunderbolt, telegraphing Biden’s weakness and incompetence to the world. And he’s done nothing since to alter that perception.

 The utter failure of the Anchorage, Alaska, meeting between top U.S. and Chinese diplomats held in March 2021 set the tone for relations going forward. Diplomacy flew out the window at the get-go and did not return. The hostility coming from the Chinese was impossible to miss. It was made immediately and abundantly clear that then-Chinese Director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi had neither fear, nor respect, for U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. 

"It was especially disturbing because the situation with former President Donald Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had been so completely different. In the photographs below, the same Yang who displayed such contempt for Blinken and to the United States of America, is shown smiling and bowing before Pompeo. 

"Since that time, the weakness exhibited by the Biden administration on the world stage has only emboldened the Chinese and their undisguised goal of surpassing the U.S. as the world’s greatest superpower is moving forward with surprising ease.

"Last week, we learned that China had brokered a deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia to restore diplomatic relations. According to the Wall Street Journal:

The deal signals a sharp increase in Beijing’s influence in a region where the U.S. has long been the dominant power broker, and could complicate efforts by the U.S. and Israel to strengthen a regional alliance to confront Tehran as it expands its nuclear program. It comes as the U.S. has been trying to broker a peace deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel, an effort now clouded with uncertainty.. . .