Solidarity Now?

Should the White House cheer on China’s protesters?

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Demonstrators hold white signs as a form of protest against lockdown restrictions in Beijing. (Photo by Stringer/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images.)

Some political choices are easy.

For instance, if a couple of famous antisemites were to drop by unannounced for dinner, any normal human being who leads a major party would turn them away without a second thought.

Easy peasy. It’s our misfortune to live in an era in which, for certain influential figures, even the easy ones are hard.

Some choices are difficult even for the most normal and earnest among us, though. The Dispatch Slack channel has become a running debate this week about the restraint the White House has shown amid a wave of unrest in China. This haunting scene from the city of Urumqi in Xinjiang touched it off.

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  1. Randall Briggs

    This is a bad time for promoting democracy in China. The Democrats spent the last half of the Cold War being soft on communist dictators, while at the same time finding much not to like about America. They opposed everything that Ronald Reagan (and Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II) did to bring down the Soviet Union. That reflexive support for (at least nominally) left-wing dictatorships is still powerful within the party. You can see it when we fail to respond strongly to absurd Chinese charges of the basic injustice of America.

    On the other hand, the GOP, once led by men and women who were proud to proclaim America's virtues and contrast them with the horrors of one-party police-states, is now muted in its criticism of dictators, especially if those dictators are men whom Donald Trump admires and/or owes money to. So all the GOP can do is say the equivalent of "Let's go Brandon."

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    Jeff Walden

    China will try to exploit whatever we say if it implies any acts on our part, so I think we don't want to engage in specifics. We should remain mostly muted on China itself. (It's much more important we not be *acting* to engage in anything, because pictures travel much better than statements by random foreign leaders. And indeed, I understand that embassy peoples, etc. have been so directed. China would *pay* for real, embarrassing photos along those lines...)

    But it seems to me, we should consistently and always be speaking to our *principles*. We can speak to the essentiality of the principles, volubly -- and dare China to connect the dots itself, for us. And if we're doing it as a simple matter of routine...well, there's no rhetorical crack China can exploit to argue for us to selectively shut up.

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  3. DTruitt

    Agreed somewhat, though different leaders will calibrate their big sticks differently. There's very little that even the best American orator can do to move the government in Beijing to relax their iron grip on the Chinese. And the risk is not so much that China would mount a military attack on the Republic of China or the US, but rather, that they'll take it out on their own people, as they did at Tienanmen Square three plus decades ago, or as Iran's mullahs are doing right now against their people.

    We need to be continuously supportive of democracy movements, but that also needs to include our putative allies who are clearly non-democratic, like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt. That's the tough part - because when one only applies their principles selectively they're not principles - they're just political propaganda.

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    Twestberg

    Well, you certainly gave all sides a fair airing before taking a position. But after quoting the "don't overthink things" line, I believe you did just that. Worrying about whether we'd look ridiculous if the protests fade after we express support, or whether somehow *this* expression of support would be of consequence in the anti-West propaganda campaign seems, to me, the definition of Overthinking It. They just don't (again, to me) come near the compelling nature of "this is right."

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    Bono Vox

    Respectfully Catman Do, speaking of strong oration (leave aside I have already said President Biden should have already gone to downtown Berlin and declared to the pathetic German peoples that “We are all Ukrainians now” and demanded Olaf Schultz send three million Freikorps east via railway to atone for the worst generation in human history), if only our doddering old prevaricator with that schmuck super polident smile had a sack and a brain with honor could declare “we the people of the United States hold these truths to be self EVIDENT that ALL men are endowed by our Creator to unalienable rights of life, LIBERTY and the pursuit of happiness…and we do not negotiate with genocidal, racists mass murderers….Chairman Mao, I mean Xi, you and your willing executioners of the Chinese Communist Corona Party TURN YOURSELVES INto The Hague for CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY…Nick, I could go on and on about the pathetic coward and brown nosed arse smelling human scum and his disgusting adulteress that live in The White House and has a Discovery like cast of imbecilic characters speaking for him in the de briefing room (KSP is Adira in the flesh), but for f sake can you at least speak of the Chinese regime as illegitimate, their rulers as literally nothing but gangsters, and a nation of victims government is in no way going to threaten to expand to Taiwan because the Pacific Fleet has surrounded a still free Island nation, and the United Nations now has a new deck of 52 of the most wanted gangsters WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE …and that skyscraper mural of Earths biggest mass murderer, like The Wall, is going to be torn down. Praise Allah Pundit, for in my country I love I can even tell one’s god and government to F off for it is my God given right…and those that deny such rights are unworthy of life. How long is going to take before Xi, like Hitler, finally answers for the evil he has committed while a President of the United States just looks the other way and makes like Tony Soprano (whatta you gonna do). Thanks for taking my rant Boiling Xi Frogs. Gotta run on. I need a new iPad

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  6. Ken Motamed

    Nick, you got it exactly right. No surprise there.

    Unlike many conservative writers who have engaged in empty virtue-signaling, you correctly pointed out the futility of support for the Chinese protesters. The only thing such support would accomplish is to antagonize Xi. It should be emphasized that the protests are against ONE policy, not the regime. And that's an important difference between the protests in China and Iran. Besides, as you pointed out, Iran is a much, much smaller threat to the U.S. than China.

    Well done, Nick, as usual.

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    Paul Montagu

    I appreciate the other point of view, but there really is no time like the present to speak truth to power and bad behavior. It sets a marker, that we support the people of China, not its oppressive regime.
    Also, for Biden, this is an excellent opportunity for a "pivot to Asia", sans China, like signing the TPP and encouraging American businesses to do business in places that aren't the Peoples Republic of China.

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  8. Belisarius.Aves

    They will not help their elderly? Nick does not go there but I will. China has a massive demographic problem that will make our ratio of retirees to workers pale. This is a government that puts millions into concentration camps. Is it that great of a leap for the CCP to decide that as COVID clearly is more of a threat to older people than younger ones (the rate of US fatalities is 74% for those in the over 65 cohort and extremely low in the under 18) they would not simply let nature take its course?

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      Dennis

      Would CCP policy be to cull the older population to alleviate demographic imbalance. Nothing in the history of the CCP suggests it wouldn’t. The Great Leap Forward minus an announcement.

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    Narwhal

    Nick asks, “Should the White House cheer on China’s protesters?”

    No. The POTUS is our chief diplomat. But, there is no reason members of Congress shouldn’t.

    Our form of government is elegant and has many benefits. This circumstance presents one of them.

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  10. Israel.D.Gale

    Multiple incorrect statements in this article. "We overestimate the influence of supportive statements by American presidents." Real life courageous dissidents such as Natan Sharansky have written about how such supportive statements have given them the courage to continue. Their courage is the only thing they've got.
    "Unlike China, there's little chance of the US going to war with Iran". Really? The US Air Force is currently planning a joint drill with Israel simulating an attack on Iran
    https://m.jpost.com/middle-east/article-723558

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    1. Ken Motamed

      So, in your vocabulary multiple means two? And talk about anecdotal evidence. Besides, there's absolutely no reason to believe rhetorical support that will not translate into anything meaningful would increase anyone's courage.

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