Vice President Biden’s Greatest Blunder

Xi Jinping,

69, general secretary, is the most formidable Chinese leader of the post-Mao era. Mr. Xi has taken a third term as head of the Communist Party without designating an obvious successor, a move that eviscerates the party’s decadeslong efforts to ensure regular leadership succession and prevent a return to Mao-style dictatorship. Since taking power in 2012, he has reversed the party’s embrace of collective leadership, concentrated decision-making authority in his own hands and scrapped constitutional term limits on the presidency. Having dominated the latest leadership shuffle, he enjoys a firm hand to pursue his agenda, which includes a more egalitarian society, a state-led economy and a muscular foreign policy—under the stewardship of a strong, centralized party.

The old-fashioned communist thug’s determination to reassert state control of the economy threatens all of the progress the Chinese people have enjoyed since the late 1970s.

Back in 2012, the American official tasked with managing the relationship with Mr. Xi completely missed the significance of his rise to power. In February of that year, then-Vice President Joe Biden of the U.S. spoke at a luncheon in Los Angeles for then-Vice President Xi Jinping of China.

After calling it “an honor” to welcome Mr. Xi, Mr. Biden said, according to a transcript published by Congressional Quarterly:

I was asked today what it’s like to spend so much time with Vice President Xi, both in China and here, and I indicated then and I’ll say it again — it’s been a great pleasure getting to know him personally.

The Vice President and I have gotten to spend more time with one another than I think either of us anticipated when both our Presidents indicated and instructed us to get to know one another better…

Mr. Vice President, you and I have spent a substantial amount of time together, and that’s fairly rare in modern diplomacy. And let me add that we’ve all been touched — and I mean this sincerely — by your interest in our country, your desire to meet our people, and by the personal relationships you’re forging here. It’s made a deep impression.

By now let’s hope even Mr. Biden realizes that Mr. Xi’s interest is in rejecting our country’s model of openness and liberty. But at the time Mr. Biden went on and on about his special relationship with China’s new strongman and even implausibly claimed that Beijing had “taken concrete steps to enforce intellectual property rights.” That line would be hilarious today if the absence of a rule of law in China hadn’t had so many destructive consequences. Mr. Biden concluded his remarks:

I strongly believe, and I think Vice President Xi does as well, that the honest, sustained dialogue we’ve had this week can and will build a stronger relationship that benefits both our nations and our people.

And ladies and gentlemen, it is now my great pleasure to introduce to you the Vice President of China, a man you are going to learn a great deal more about for a good number of years, ladies and gentlemen, my friend, Vice President Xi.

Such foolish comments were valuable to Mr. Xi as he was just beginning to tighten his iron grip on power over the Chinese people. A few days before that 2012 luncheon Paul Eckert reported for Reuters:

… as the man who is set to run China until 2023 takes measure of the United States, he will be sized up not only by Americans but – and perhaps more important for him – by a powerful audience back home in China.

“This is largely a PR visit – something to show the leadership back in Beijing that he’s prepared for leadership, that he can handle the United States,” said

Walter Lohman,

director of Asian studies at the Heritage Foundation. The United States and China are the world’s two biggest economies.

Xi will remain China’s vice president for 13 months, but in autumn will inherit the first top title from President

Hu Jintao

— that of head of the Chinese Communist Party — before being anointed state president in March 2013.

In 2012 Mr. Xi certainly showed the bosses in Beijing that he knew how to handle Joe Biden. A decade later Mr. Xi’s control of the regime is so complete that he now seems confident handling just about anyone, however he wishes. The Journal’s James T. Areddy reports:

Choreography of the congress that extended Xi Jinping’s rule of China was briefly disrupted over the weekend by a highly unusual and unceremonious exit from the proceedings by Mr. Xi’s predecessor, 79-year-old Hu Jintao.

The midmeeting departure of Mr. Hu on Saturday highlighted 69-year-old Mr. Xi’s supremacy…

Midway through the otherwise carefully choreographed closing session of the congress on Saturday, Mr. Hu was helped out of his chair next to Mr. Xi and inexplicably led out of the hall… Footage shot by foreign media in the hall, which wasn’t included in the official China Central Television broadcast, showed Mr. Hu seemingly reluctant or unable to stand up when an aide tried to lift him off his chair.

In the commotion, Mr. Xi leaned toward Mr. Hu and appeared to speak with him, pulling back a document Mr. Hu set his hand upon. Mr. Hu was ushered off the center dais, briefly looking back at Mr. Xi and patting outgoing Premier

Li Keqiang

on the shoulder as he walked out, unsupported.

***

In a Possibly Unrelated Story

Speaking of Poor Biden Judgment
Sen.

Chuck Grassley

(R., Iowa) recently wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland and other officials saying that whistleblowers have disclosed to his office important evidence held by the FBI regarding an interview with a former business associate of the Biden family:

The evidence within the FBI’s possession that I am referencing is included, in part, in a summary of Tony Bobulinski’s October 23, 2020, interview with FBI agents. In that interview, Mr. Bobulinski stated that the arrangement

Hunter Biden

and James Biden created with foreign nationals connected to the communist Chinese government included assisting them with potential business deals and investments while Joe Biden was Vice President; however, that work remained intentionally uncompensated while Joe Biden was Vice President.

***

James Freeman is the co-author of “The Cost: Trump, China and American Revival.”

***

Follow James Freeman on Twitter.

Subscribe to the Best of the Web email.

To suggest items, please email best@wsj.com.

(Lisa Rossi helps compile Best of the Web.)