Joe Biden claims that he’s the candidate to hold China to account and put U.S. interests first. Just nine days prior to the election, not everyone in the Democratic Party appears to have gotten the memo.
Nor the memo, that is, that no patriotic official should be providing service, paid or voluntary, to the interests of communist China. Whatever one thinks of President Trump, the reality of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s global strategy is now clear. The truth is that Xi seeks to replace the U.S.-led liberal international order with a feudal mercantile order of Beijing-led authoritarianism. It is a truth evinced by China’s imperial seizure of the near entirety of the South China Sea. A truth evinced by China’s concentration camp/genocide policy against innocent Uighur Muslims. A truth evinced by China’s shredding of its treaty obligation to uphold Hong Kong democracy. A truth evinced by China’s escalating threats to democratic Taiwan. A truth evinced by China’s bad faith trade relations with impoverished nations across Africa. A truth evinced by China’s climate change deception, fisheries piracy, and riverine pollution. A truth evinced by China’s continuing (and utterly unapologetic) theft of intellectual property. A truth evinced by China’s rising threats of war against the United States. Quite simply, it is a truth that only a clown like Xi could deny. Or, perhaps also President Barack Obama and Vice President Biden’s former Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner.
I note Geithner because he is spending the weekend at the 2020 Bund Summit in Shanghai that is sponsored by the Chinese government. Chaired by Chen Yuan, a former chairman of the China Development Bank, the summit is no friend to America or rule-of-law based trade. But Geithner isn’t alone. Also in attendance is Robert Rubin, a Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. One question follows: Are Blair and the former Democratic Cabinet ministers appearing out of honest affection for the Chinese Communist Party?
It’s possible, but I suspect not.
All three politicians are known as high-paid speakers on the lecture circuit. Rubin requests a cool $30,000 to $50,000 per speech, but Blair and Geithner are in the really big leagues. Departing the Obama administration in 2013, Geithner quickly jumped into $200,000-per-speech territory. Assuming that Geithner is getting paid for his 40-minute Bund appearance, he’s doing pretty well on a per-minute earning basis! But even if he isn’t being paid directly, the communist gold investments that will reciprocate his fealty will be well earned. After all, Rubin, Blair, and Geithner are each speaking on separate “international dialogue” panels — panels which aim to paint Xi’s regime in a positive light to an increasingly skeptical world.
But maybe we shouldn’t be surprised by Geithner’s craven submission to an evil empire. Speaking shortly after the November 2012 election, Geithner was still singing the Communist Party’s tune. China’s leaders, he said, “have been willing to move on a range of things that are very hard for us, that are very important for our commercial and economic interests, and I think that basic balance is going to hold going forwards.” Even back then, those comments could have only three explanations. Either Geithner wasn’t reading his intelligence briefings, or he was a liar, or he had decided that his post-Cabinet office earnings were more important than his nation. Regardless, Geithner’s words are a sad encapsulation of Shakespeare’s old adage, “His jest will savor but of shallow wit, when thousands weep more than did laugh at it.”
At least Xi is laughing. The Biden campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Geithner’s Shanghai appearance.
