President Joe Biden declined during a phone call this year with Chinese President Xi Jinping to confront the authoritarian leader over allegations the Chinese Communist Party has lied repeatedly to the global community about the coronavirus pandemic.
This is frustrating for a number of reasons, but most especially because Biden, the self-styled foreign policy tough guy, made it a point during the 2020 campaign to accuse then-President Donald Trump of not doing enough to hold China accountable for the viral outbreak that has claimed more than 2.8 million lives.
Biden’s admission that he hasn’t even raised the issue with the Chinese president came Tuesday during a press briefing.
A reporter asked, “You mentioned 554,064 American dead from COVID-19. A lot of families want to know how this happened, how it got here.”
“Have you had a chance to speak to any of your international partners, any of — President Xi, who I know you go way back with?” the reporter asked. “Have you had the chance to ask him if these reports are true, that China maybe misled the world at the beginning?”
“No,” the president responded, “I have not had that conversation with President Xi.”
Biden’s Feb. 10 phone call with Xi saw them discussing a number of issues, including “protecting the American people’s security, prosperity, health, and way of life” and “preserving a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
Absent from their conversation, however, was any mention of the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to block the international community from investigating the virus’s origins. Absent was any mention of China’s continued efforts to blame the pandemic on the U.S. military. Absent was even a mention of allegations Chinese authorities arrested and silenced the whistleblowers that tried to warn the outside world about the disease when it first appeared.
Remember, the phone call with Xi came almost one year after Biden accused Trump of not doing more to hold China accountable for the deadly outbreak. Biden claimed in April 2020 Trump was too weak to confront China over its censoring of COVID-19 research that could’ve gone a long way toward mitigating what eventually became a global crisis. Biden went so far as to say the then-U.S. president was concerned more about protecting his precious trade deals than saving lives.
“As I speak,” Biden said in a campaign video, “China is censoring research on COVID-19, making it harder for the rest of us to beat the virus. President Trump is not doing enough about it.”
He added, “The uncomfortable truth is that Donald Trump left America exposed and vulnerable to this pandemic. He ignored the warnings of health experts and intelligence agencies and put his trust in China’s leaders instead. And now, we’re all paying the price.”
The then-Democratic presidential candidate continued, boasting of the health measures the Obama administration had in place in China before Trump took office.
“When the coronavirus started to spread,” Biden said, “the CDC wanted to get into China to get information that could save American lives. China said ‘no,’ and Donald Trump didn’t insist on access. … because he was more worried about protecting his trade deal with China than he was about the virus that had already come to America. “
Biden added, “In February, on the same day I was calling for CDC access, President Trump was applauding Xi Jinping for his work on the coronavirus. That’s not being tough on China.”
The message concluded with Biden explicitly promising that he’d be tougher on China than his opponent.
“When I’m president,” he said, “I will put the CDC officials back in China and insist the Chinese keep their commitment rather than trusting Beijing with the health and safety of the American people.”
He concluded, “And I’ll demand independent international investigation into the circumstance of the COVID-19 outbreak and China’s response. I’ll always protect the American people. I promise you that.”
On Tuesday, Biden revealed he has not even brought up the topic of China’s duplicity with the Chinese president.
Maybe he’ll get around to it eventually. Maybe.
