WarSclerotic

Obama Threatens China with Susan Rice Visit, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, July 25, 2016

Smart move.

It’s easy to threaten China with war. But threatening China with a Susan Rice visit has to be Defcon 2 at least. The only thing worse would be a John Kerry visit.

U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice will urge Beijing next week to avoid escalation in the South China Sea when she makes the highest-level U.S. visit to China since an international court rejected its sweeping claims to the strategic waterway.

I’m sure China will be very impressed by the incompetent lackey of a lame duck impotent administration. At least more so than until now.

With less than six months remaining of President Barack Obama’s tenure, Rice’s broader mission in her July 24-27 trip is aimed at keeping overall ties between the world’s two largest economies, which she called “the most consequential relationship we have,” on track at a time of heightened tensions. “I’ll be there to advance our cooperation,” she said.

The United States is also using quiet diplomacy to persuade claimants like the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam not to move aggressively to capitalize on The Hague ruling, U.S. officials have said.

China has responded to the ruling with sharp rhetoric. But a senior official said, “So far there has not been precipitous action” and Washington was hoping confrontation could be avoided.

“We are not looking to do things that are escalatory,” another senior U.S. official said. “And at the same time we don’t expect that they (the Chinese) would deem it wise to do things that are escalatory.”

So this is actually appeasement with the appearance of courage. That’s typical of Obama Inc. With the legal basis for resisting China’s occupation established, Obama has dispatched Susan Rice to warn smaller countries to bow to China, just as her boss is doing.

This entry was posted on July 25, 2016 at 7:20 PM and is filed under China, Obama administration, South China Sea, Susan Rice. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: China, Obama Administration, South China Sea, Susan Rice