House China select panel warns Biden against ‘concessions’ to Xi Jinping

WASHINGTON – Republicans on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party cautioned President Biden in a letter Thursday against continuing his “repeated concessions” to Beijing at his upcoming one-on-one with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“We are concerned that the recent prioritization of bilateral engagement has come at an unacceptable cost to ‘competitive’ or defensive actions that have been delayed, scuttled, or otherwise dropped in an effort to get the PRC to the table — all for poorly defined benefit,” they wrote, using China’s official acronym.

Biden is widely expected to meet with Xi in San Francisco on the sidelines of next week’s APEC Leadership Summit, which will bring together the heads of state of participating Asia-Pacific nations.

In their letter, the committee members further questioned Biden’s move to speak with the leader of America’s top adversary, stating that “in many ways, the summit marks the culmination of efforts by your administration … to engage with [China] in the hopes of ‘building a floor under the relationship’ as officials have described it.”

Led by Chairman Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), the bipartisan CCP select committee focuses on the increasing tensions between the US and China and develops policy suggestions for managing the competition between the two.

In the Thursday letter, Republican members of the group listed 10 demands they suggest Biden make of Xi “before the end of the APEC summit.”

Those demands include the release of all US citizens wrongfully detained in China, an end to “all near-collisions and unsafe intercepts” with American forces at sea and in the air and suspension of a key program in the PRC’s forced-labor programs in Xinjiang.”

Other demands include Xi allowing “all exit-banned US citizens to leave [China] immediately”; establishing “‘know-your-customer requirements” on Chinese shipments of fentanyl ingredients; ceasing “all military operations in Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone,” which Beijing does not respect; and to stop “all present and future harassment of Philippine” ships in the South China Sea.

“Despite repeated concessions from Washington, Beijing has taken no action to stem the flow of deadly fentanyl precursors to North America, no action to increase market access in line with its trade commitments, no action to reduce tensions in the Taiwan Strait or to stop its dangerous military provocations in the South China Sea, and no action to stop its unprecedented campaign of espionage against the United States,” the GOP members wrote.

“On the contrary, many of these problems have only gotten worse, especially over the past year,” they added.

While the group noted Biden’s more recent actions — or lack thereof — toward China, they noted that “this was not always the case,” and expressed hope that the president could return to a more stern approach to Beijing.

The moves they applauded included Biden’s sanctioning of Chinese officials “for eroding Hong Kong’s autonomy” and “for genocide in Xinjiang,” as well as expanded restrictions on American investments in China’s “military-industrial complex” in his first year in the White House.

“Despite these early steps, your administration presided over an overwhelming decline in these actions in the last 18 months, particularly those related to human rights,” they wrote. “With notable exceptions such as strengthened semiconductor export controls and new restrictions on outbound investment — which we have strongly supported — self-censorship of defensive actions appears to have skyrocketed.”

Next week would be the second time Biden and Xi have met in-person since Biden took office in January 2021. The two previously met last November during a Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia.

With a presidential election 12 months away, the Republicans told Biden next week “presents a final opportunity to reverse your misguided policy.”