Calling Biden's Bluff

Tom Friedman took the measure of the first high level meeting between Chinese officials and the top foreign policy people from the Biden administration and concluded that China does not respect us.

He remarked:

At last week’s Alaska meeting between America’s and China’s top diplomats, Chinese officials made it quite clear that they no longer fear our criticism, because they don’t respect us as they once did, and they don’t think the rest of the world does, either. Or as Yang Jiechi, China’s top foreign affairs policymaker, baldly told his U.S. counterparts: “The United States does not have the qualification … to speak to China from a position of strength.”

Of course, Friedman defaults to anti-Trumpery and affixes the blame to people who were not there. In truth, the Chinese were showing contempt for the Biden administration, led by man suffering from senile dementia, a man whose administration is being run by Kamala Harris and Susan Rice. What conclusion would you draw from the fact that Harris is taking calls with foreign leaders, while Biden stays in the cellar.

Then again, the Biden administration is the most diverse in American history. Is there a downside to diversity? 

Hiring to fill diversity quotas, which is hardly new in America, has produced an administration that is short on qualifications and long on looks. We all feel especially virtuous for having so much diversity in the cabinet and so many women in charge. Jen Psaki does not much care about the national debt because we have a female treasury secretary. We all understand that women are strong and empowered, so we feel very good about ourselves.

The problem is, however much self-esteem we gain for having a diverse cabinet, we would do better to ask how we look to the world. Do we look strong and empowered or do we look weak and decadent? Our thought leaders believe that diversity is our strength, but, what happens if our opponents see diversity as our weakness? After all, China does not give anyone any special advantages for filling a diversity quota. 

Meritocracy in China is sacred. The same is not the case here. We believe that granting college admissions on the grounds of merit produces inequity, and we can’t have that. 

We should stop asking whether we have reached peak diversity and ask ourselves how we are presenting ourselves to the world? We might believe that diversity is our strength, but that is manifestly untrue. In more pedestrian terms, it is a bluff. And, over in Alaska China just called our bluff. 

At the same time Russian president Putin is moving tanks to the border with Ukraine. Is he testing American resolve or is he showing that our straw man president is an empty headed empty suit surrounded by people who were hired to fill diversity quotas?