President Joe Biden’s administration repeatedly urged China to persuade Russia not to invade Ukraine, according to The New York Times ...
President Joe Biden’s administration repeatedly urged China to persuade Russia not to invade Ukraine, according to The New York Times — and it was a move that “mortified” former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.
In an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Haley said the Biden administration should have known both China and Russia were our enemies and “how they coordinate.”
This was borne out by the Times’ report on Feb. 25, which said “U.S. officials got intelligence showing Beijing had shared the information with Moscow, telling the Russians that the United States was trying to sow discord — and that China would not try to impede Russian plans and actions, the officials said.”
During the interview, host Chuck Todd said “one could argue that there’s been 20 years of appeasing” Russian leader Vladimir Putin and asked whether this had been “a mistake from the get-go.”
Haley said the problem wasn’t appeasement but misplaced trust.
“I’ve always said that you cannot trust Russia. You cannot trust Putin,” she told Todd.
“You can’t trust Xi [Jinping]. You can’t trust China. This is — it’s common sense. I’ve dealt with them at the United Nations. You never negotiate, you never deal with your enemies. You can’t trust them,” she continued.
Haley said “that’s why I was mortified that Biden went so far as asking China for help with Russia. I mean, you never ask an enemy for help with another enemy. I never told China anything that I didn’t want Russia to know. Because you know how they coordinate.”
She said that was the “same reason why it’s unthinkable that Biden would be coordinating or even thinking of getting back into the Iran deal with the Russians and Chinese at the table,” particularly since they’re far closer to each other than either one is with Washington.
“When Biden went and told China what was going on and asked for help with Russia, what did China do? China ran and told Russia,” Haley said.
“I watched at the United Nations, those two countries are getting incredibly close. They don’t like each other. They don’t trust each other. But they both want to destroy the West. Why are we waiting for that to happen?”
She predicted that if China takes Taiwan, “this is going to blow up.”
“Right now, Taiwan’s manufacturing half of the semiconductor chips. What do Americans use? They use their phones, they use their computers, they drive cars,” Haley said. “All of that will be disrupted.
“Why are we relying on China to give us medical supplies when we saw how they handled COVID in the world?
“We’ve got to wake up. America has to wake up. And we have to start being smart to deal with these tyrants. We can’t let them continue to run all over us.”
“Mortified,” I suppose, is the perfect word if you were once the United States’ ambassador to the United Nations.
“Aghast” or “alarmed” should work for the rest of the country.
Joe Biden was swept into office, in part, on a promise to get tough with the Kremlin and the CCP. As Russia threatened to subsume Ukraine, then, where did he turn? Beijing, of course, as guileless as Candide.
Apparently, getting tough with big, nasty foreign powers isn’t as simple as calling a young voter a “lying dog-faced pony soldier.”
Why should we be surprised, then, that Putin chose this time to invade? If Biden can’t tell our enemies from our friends, there’s going to be plenty to be “mortified” about over the coming two-and-a-half years, sadly.
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