Biden Administration’s China Summit: What’s At Stake?

Will the Biden Administration finally meet with China? Is Biden striking a tough stance? Or is China running the show? That and more on this week's China news headlines. Welcome to China Uncensored, I'm Chris Chappell. This week marks the first high-level meeting between the Biden administration and Chinese officials. And a lot is at stake. The first, I gotta tell you, YouTube has been demonetizing us a lot. For this show to continue, we need your support on the crowdfunding website Patreon. For as little as a dollar an episode, you can help us continue to uncensor China. Visit Patreon.com slash China Uncensored for more. So as I said, this is the first showdown between the Biden administration and China. The meeting happened in Alaska. This is a big deal. Biden has not made his administration's China policy clear yet. He's still reviewing a lot of Trump administration China policies, from bans on Chinese apps like WeChat, tariffs, to even whether to label the Chinese Communist Party's persecution of Uyghurs as genocide. Some people have the impression the Biden administration is soft on China. That's because of past China failures from key administration officials, as well as the fallout from the Hunter Biden scam. But President Biden doesn't want to be seen as soft. So in the lead up to the first meeting, the Biden administration struck a tough stance. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made his first trip to Asia. And it all about China. First stop was Japan. Blinken was joined by US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Their goal? Building alliances to counter China. A warning to China from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday, as he cautioned it against using coercion and aggression. Blinken was specifically calling out the Chinese regime's actions in the South China Sea. We're united in the vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific region, where countries follow the rules, cooperate whenever they can, and resolve their differences peacefully. And in particular, we will push back if necessary when China uses coercion or aggression to get its way. China was obviously not happy about that. But then he was off to South Korea. He had a pretty similar message. China is using coercion and aggression to systematically erode autonomy in Hong Kong, undercut democracy in Taiwan, abuse human rights in Xinjiang and Tibet, and assert maritime claims in the South China Sea that violate international law. And speaking of Hong Kong, the Biden administration has just announced their first Chinese sanctions. They're sanctioning 24 Chinese and Hong Kong officials over the latest crackdown on Hong Kong's democracy. Which is great news. However, these officials were already sanctioned by Trump. All of these officials, who include senior Chinese lawmakers and Hong Kong-based security officials, had already been hit with sanctions by the Trump administration. Trump's sanctions froze the US assets of these 24 officials, banned them from entering the US, and stopped Americans from doing business with these officials. Biden's sanctions now also punish any foreign financial institutions that conduct business with these officials, even if those institutions aren't American. The new sanctions were made under the Hong Kong Autonomy Act, bipartisan legislation that was passed last year. The Trump administration had also used that act to sanction many high-ranking officials, including Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam. We did an episode last year on why these sanctions are so powerful. So it's nice to see Biden and Trump agreeing on so many things. But the Biden administration's ramp-up to this high-level meeting wasn't just about Hong Kong. Days before the meeting, the US government also approved the export of sensitive submarine parts for Taiwan. That will help Taiwan protect itself from a potential Chinese invasion. Unless those sensitive submarine parts are screen doors. A big question on everyone's mind is how Biden will handle Trump's tariffs on China and the Phase 1 trade deal. But according to National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, that won't be a focus in the talk. Instead, he suggested the talks will focus on big-picture strategy and American value. At a White House press briefing, he said, This is our effort to communicate clearly to the Chinese government how the United States intends to proceed at a strategic level, what we believe our fundamental interests and values are, and what our concerns with their activities are. I hope that clear communication involves telling the Chinese government to stop committing genocide. And after the break, Apple may be getting nervous about slave labor in China. Welcome back. It looks like Apple has cut ties with the Chinese company Ofilm. They make selfie cameras for the iPhone, and may have been using slave labor from Xinjiang. Apple's massive supply chain has a lot of links in China. That's why Apple has lobbied so hard against the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. Meanwhile, Ofilm told investors it had lost a particular overseas client, but didn't name him. So why did Apple drop Ofilm? Well, according to reports, Apple dropped Ofilm a few months ago. That would have been after Ofilm was listed in this report as a company that used Uyghur slave labor. So good on Apple for doing something about it. But considering how widespread Uyghur forced labor is, Apple will need to do a lot more than drop one supplier to make sure its iPhones aren't made with some kind of slave labor. Speaking of the Uyghurs, Australia joins Turkey in refusing to call China's persecution of Uyghurs a genocide. I mean, you don't want to be seen as doing business with a country that commits genocide. So just don't label it a genocide. So despite the 3 billion dollars lost in the trade war China launched against Australia, clearly there are still enough people in the Australian government who hope to one day get rich again by working with China. And some good news for people who still want to travel to mainland China for some reason. It's easier to get in as long as you get vaccinated. But only with the Chinese vaccine. At least one of the Chinese vaccines is only about 50% effective. But hey, the Communist Party would rather people use their vaccine and be more at risk than the alternative, remember everyone? According to Chinese state-run media, vaccine nationalism is bad. But if you do get into China after taking one of their vaccines, no word yet on whether or not you'll be exempted from the anal swab. And now it's time for me to answer a question from a member of the China Uncensored 50 Cent Army, fans who support the show on Patreon. Today's question comes from Arpanet at CERN. Hey Chris, any update on when slash if the China Uncensored merch store will be back? I'm still itching to grab some for my friends and fam. Also, great job as always to you and the team. Well thank you, and great question. We actually do have a merch store on our website, ChinaUncensored.tv, but it's only in soft launch. You can buy one of our t-shirt designs now, but we're waiting to do a big public launch after we get our new China Uncensored logo and graphics. That's being done by the same team that made the America Uncovered graphics. Once we have that done, we'll do a video about the merch store, so stay tuned. And remember, the reason we're able to update our graphics is thanks to the amazing support from viewers like you on Patreon. Because of YouTube demonetization, we wouldn't have enough money to run the show, let alone improve the look of it. So a big thank you to everyone who contributes on Patreon. If you'd like to join Arpanet at CERN as a member of the China Uncensored 50 Cent Army, head over to Patreon.com slash China Uncensored to learn more. Once again, I'm Chris Chappell. Thanks for watching China Uncensored.