China demands reversal of tough Trump policies

FPI / August 5, 2021

Geostrategy-Direct

From the beginning of the Biden administration in January 2021, the communist government in Beijing has sensed weakness and has continued to capitalize on that vulnerability, analysts say.

Last week, at a second showdown with Team Biden this time in Tianjin, China demanded that the U.S. reverse hard-line policies put in place by former President Donald Trump.

This despite major U.S. concessions days earlier.

The demands included lifting restrictions on visas for Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials and halting the prosecution of a top executive of Huawei Technologies — a leading Chinese telecommunications company whom the U.S. government has linked to electronic espionage.

China made the demands soon after U.S. federal prosecutors dropped federal charges against Chinese military researchers at U.S. universities who were accused of hiding their close ties to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

Beijing also wants the United States to stop “suppressing” Chinese businesses and hindering Confucius Institutes, Chinese-run cultural centers at American universities that critics say have been used as government influence tools.

China also called on the Biden administration to remove Chinese propaganda outlets from the list of foreign missions.

On the dropped prosecution of Chinese researchers, the U.S. Department of Justice gave no reason in court filings why it would not pursue the visa fraud and other charges against researchers in California and India. Scientist Tang Juan, who worked at the University of California, Davis, was scheduled for trial on charges of visa fraud, but the case was unexpectedly dropped.

Meanwhile, the woke United States military under Team Biden has adopted an inadequate information strategy to contend with China’s growing military clout, critics say.

That lame strategy, critics added, now extends to space.

In a memorandum to senior Pentagon and military leaders last month, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin outlined what he called key elements of “responsible behavior in space.”

“As more actors come to space, the domain is changing, with an increased risk of collisions, as well as of miscalculations or misunderstandings,” Austin said in the July 7 memo cited in a report for the Washington Times by security correspondent Bill Gertz.

“It is incumbent on the department to continue space leadership through demonstrating and acknowledging responsible behavior in space.”

The memo directed all Pentagon and military agencies to conduct space operations in line with “tenets of responsible behavior.”

Space forces will operate in, from, to and through space with “regard for others” along with “a professional manner.”

The Austin memorandum was signed around the same time that Rear Adm. Michael Bernacchi, Space Command’s director of strategy, plans and policy, warned that China is engaged in a large-scale, rapid buildup of space warfare capabilities.

Free Press International