As the fourth Biden cabinet member prepares for another trip to Beijing, one foreign policy expert raised red flags about the upcoming visit.
"This is starting to look like really light strategy and light policy," Atlas Organization founder Jonathan D.T. Ward said on "Mornings with Maria" Friday. "And I think that's really a genuine concern."
Following in the footsteps of notable Biden admin figures such as climate czar John Kerry, Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen and Sec. of State Antony Blinken, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo will spend three days in China next week.
In a statement posted on their website, the Department of Commerce said Raimondo plans to meet with senior Chinese officials and U.S. business leaders to discuss "constructive discussions on issues relating to the U.S.-China commercial relationship, challenges faced by U.S. businesses, and areas for potential cooperation."
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"It may be preparation for Xi Jinping to meet with Biden this autumn in the United States," Ward pointed out. "But I think the real issue here is that now that diplomacy is the sort of centerpiece of the Biden administration's approach to China, I think they're not really explaining to the United States, to the American people, the nature of this contest, the level of threat that really exists."
Ward also noted how "we no longer hear about" China’s military buildup, human right "atrocities" or a strategy to overcome their global economic contest.
"Americans, at this point, do understand that China is our greatest threat. The Russia-China access, all of what they are doing, I think, at this point is clearly understood," Ward said.
"And yet, this spate of high-level diplomacy," he further criticized, "which seeks to achieve precisely what as National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said with regard to this trip, we view them as a method of managing a complex relationship, a competitive relationship, so that competition doesn't tip over into conflict."
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But if the purpose is to avoid conflict, the foreign policy expert argued, then U.S. officials must stop making "concessions."
"If we're failing to actually articulate a theory of victory in the toughest geopolitical contest of our lifetimes, certainly and definitely since the early Cold War, then what really are we doing?"
