Zombie Engagement With Beijing

The Wall Street Journal | Rep. Mike Gallagher

The Biden administration seems determined to revive an approach to China that has failed for 30 years.

President Biden foresees a “thaw” in relations with Beijing. The State Department wants to “move beyond” what Mr. Biden now calls the “silly balloon” and get “back to Bali,” where in late 2022 the president apparently enjoyed a brief honeymoon with General Secretary Xi Jinping. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen suggests that we needn’t fret about our economic dependence on China, as the costs of decoupling would prove “disastrous.” 

If this script sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve seen this movie before. For more than 30 years, Washington has pursued economic engagement with communist China on the theory that economic growth would lead to political liberalization. We now know that prosperity has served only to embolden Mr. Xi’s worst authoritarian instincts.

The scene isn’t confined to economics. Nearly a decade ago, President Obama engaged with Mr. Xi in the hope that he wouldn’t militarize newly constructed islands in the South China Sea. The president in 2015 also announced a cyber agreement with Beijing, believing that it might slow the party’s cyberwar against American companies. Each gambit failed.

Read the full op-ed HERE.