CCP warns Biden not to cross communists' 'red lines'

FPI / February 4, 2021

China's senior official on foreign affairs on Feb. 1 instructed Joe Biden and his team to play by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rules and not cross any of the communist nation's "red lines."

“The United States should stop interference in the affairs of Hong Kong, Tibet, and Xinjiang,” Yang Jiechi said, calling the issues regarding the three regions China’s “internal affairs.”

Yang also warned Biden's team that it should “strictly abide by the One China principle” with regards to Taiwan, a self-ruled island that Beijing claims is part of its territory.

The Trump administration routinely called out China and imposed sanctions for its human rights violations, but the CCP expects Biden to back off when they order him to do so.

Speaking at a virtual event hosted by New York-based nonprofit the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, Yang said Hong Kong, Tibet, and Xinjiang (where the communists have over 1 million Muslims in concentration camps) “constitute a red line that must not be crossed. Any trespassing would end up undermining China-U.S. relations and the United States’ own interests.”

The Trump administration confronted China on its human rights abuses against Falun Gong adherents, the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, Muslim minorities, Tibetans, and Uyghurs, by imposing visa restrictions and sanctions against CCP officials responsible for the abuse.

In one of his last acts as secretary of state, Mike Pompeo designated China's persecution of Uyghurs and other majority-Muslim ethnic minorities as genocide and “crimes against humanity.”

Yang called on Biden to “restore” the China-U.S. relationship to a “predictable and constructive track of development.”

Yang also criticized the Trump administration, saying that its “misguided policies” had led the bilateral relationship to “its most difficult period” since the two countries established diplomatic ties.

Under the Trump administration, the Department of Justice brought more indictments related to China’s trade secrets theft and related crimes in 2019 than during the eight years of the Obama administration.

“Bottom line: Beijing is ready [to] cooperate only on China’s terms,” wrote Scott Kennedy, senior adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Free Press International