Whining about the Weather

Let’s see. Joe Biden sent the internationally recognized buffoon named John Kerry to China to engage them in its war against the weather. Chinese officials, fresh from their victory in Afghanistan, were happy to humiliate the hapless Kerry. They spoke to him via Zoom. Obviously, they wanted to follow American covid protocols!

The Washington Free Beacon assessed Kerry’s diplomatic mission:

Chinese diplomats relegated Biden climate czar John Kerry to a Zoom conference the same day China joined Taliban leaders in a photo-op to pledge "friendly relations" with the terror group.

Kerry was denied face-to-face interactions with senior Chinese officials such as Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Vice Premier Han Zheng. China instead dispatched a junior-level climate official to meet with the former secretary of state in the city of Tianjin. Kerry’s bungled visit coincided with Beijing's open-arms embrace of Taliban leadership at an in-person visit in Qatar, affirming China’s interest in furthering "friendly relations" to fill the vacuum in Afghanistan left by America's withdrawal.

Kerry met separately with Yi and Zheng over Zoom. The Chinese officials reportedly bristled at Kerry’s suggestions to decouple climate change from other issues fraught with tensions between China and the United States, leaving no immediate results from the meetings. One expert told Voice of America the Taliban received a better welcome than Kerry. The Biden climate czar, however, said the meetings proved "very constructive and detailed," but deferred to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and President Joe Biden to set a timetable for further talks with the Chinese.

The visit also may deal a major blow to Kerry’s broader climate agenda with China. The administration's attempts to broach climate change with Beijing have already invited scrutiny due to the Chinese green energy industry’s links to slave labor. 

Let’s see, we walked out of Afghanistan, leaving the Taliban government free to enter the Chinese Belt and Road initiative. During our two decade stay in that country we did nothing to access its ample supplies of rare earth minerals.

Apparently, while the Biden administration wants to lecture China about its persecution of a Muslim minority group, the Taliban does not care. Figure that one out. The Biden approach to international relations, centering as it does on occupying the moral high ground on a series of issues, like the weather, does not appeal to the hard nosed Chinese. The Biden approach manifests girl power-- made manifest in its retreat from Afghanistan.

The Chinese government is normally very interested in the power of ceremony. Allowing an American diplomat to travel half way around the world and they refusing to meet with him in person suggests gross disrespect. 

It is almost as though China is showing off its enhanced status on the world stage. And of course, the Chinese will never allow themselves to be lectured by a bunch of buffoons about human rights or solar panels or even Islamic terrorism. They are more interest in hard power, in the power of economic growth and prosperity. They leave the soft issues to an administration that prides itself on its girl power.

Criticism bespeaks contempt, and to the Chinese it threatens face. In response to American criticism they showed contempt for Kerry and for the United States. It’s a clear indication of the message that China drew from the Biden administration Afghanistan debacle. They were treating America as a lower status nation.

Relations between America and China have gotten so bad that President Biden himself felt a need to have a telephone conversation with Chinese president Xi Jinping. Jonathan Swan of Axios described the deteriorating relationship, based not just on Afghanistan, but on constant American hectoring on matters that the Chinese consider none of our business.

Let's not forget the Trump administrations openly belligerent attitude on matters like tariffs and sanctions. These latter policies have been applauded in American for looking like tough talk. As noted here, if you want to analyze the success or failure of the policies, you should ask whether you are happy with the pushback--for example, in the new diplomatic and commercial ties between China and Iran, and between China and Afghanistan.

Swan explains the reason for the telephone call:

The official said that "lower-level engagements [between Chinese and U.S. officials] have not been very fruitful. And, candidly, we've not been very satisfied ... with our interlocutors' behavior."

• Top Chinese officials have snubbed and lectured top Biden aides, and Beijing has used Biden's botched withdrawal from Afghanistan as a propaganda coup — to elevate doubts about the competence and staying power of liberal democracies in general, and the U.S. in particular.

• When climate envoy John Kerry visited China last week, senior Chinese officials emphatically rejected Biden's proposal to deal with climate cooperation as a freestanding issue, apart from other, more contentious matters.

• Worse, they would only meet speak with Kerry by video call, sending a junior official to meet the former secretary of state. (These Chinese officials had no problem, however, meeting a Taliban delegation in person just weeks earlier).

• This follows the March summit in Alaska, where top Chinese officials hectored Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan in front of the news cameras — breaking with agreed-upon protocol.

In the meantime, to put things in something of a real world context, we can ask how the American effort to compete against China in 5G technology is working out. That is, if we move away from soft issues to hard economic competition.

Apparently, not very well. David Goldman has the story in the Asia Times:

Nokia departed this week from the US industry umbrella organization that’s promoting a software-based alternative to Huawei’s state-of-the-art 5G infrastructure – a blow to the credibility of a project that’s had trouble getting off the ground.

Eighteen months ago the Trump administration dropped plans to create an American national champion to counter Huawei’s dominant position in 5G broadband infrastructure. Instead, it endorsed a software-based approach known by the acronym O-RAN – Open Radio Access Networks.

Cheap generic computer components driven by sophisticated software would replace the dedicated processor chips and radio modems that Huawei, Ericsson and Nokia build into 5G base stations and receiving devices – and would bypass Huawei’s superior technology and enormous patent portfolio.

Trump’s economic advisor, Larry Kudlow, quoted O-RAN enthusiast Michael Dell – by coincidence a leading provider of generic components – to the effect that “software eats hardware.” America’s tech companies exited most of their manufacturing businesses after the 2000 recession and concentrated on more profitable software.

By the end of 2020, China had built nearly 700,000 5G base stations, or 70% of the world’s total, compared with only 50,000 in the United States. China will build another one million during 2021, providing 5G service to all cities with populations of 250,000 or more.

Huawei has about three-fifths of China’s 5G infrastructure market and appears to suffer from no constraints in semiconductor availability for the buildout. Meanwhile, O-RAN has yet to get beyond initial tests.

Sweden’s Ericsson, Huawei’s largest competitor, waved off the O-RAN project as infeasible, but the number three telecom equipment provider, Finland’s Nokia, joined the US industry umbrella group promoting the software approach.

Apparently, the Trump tough talk has not been working out all that well. The only value in macho posturing lies in whether you have anything to back it. Apparently, we do not. Note Goldman's remark that Huawei does not seem to be having any problem acquiring semiconductors. American industry cannot say the same. Could the semiconductor shortage be part of a response to our efforts to punish China?

There may be a good reason why we are reduced to whining about the weather.