Henrico Times

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Rob Wittman (VA-01) joined ‘Mornings with Maria’ on Fox Business today to discuss U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s upcoming trip to China, the latest failure of the Biden administration to project American strength to Chinese Communist Party officials.

“Based on previous visits by Secretary Blinken and Secretary Yellen, I'm not sure what's going to be accomplished because none of these visits, including Secretary Raimondo’s, have set preconditions. For this meeting, if she wants to talk about business interests, there should be a precondition that China will stop intellectual property theft, they will honor … our businesses and how they operate in China.

“If you don't [set those preconditions] then you are essentially going to be subservient to China — and that's exactly what they want. This is an opportunity for [the Chinese Communist Party] to show that they're in a position of power [and make it appear as if] the U.S. in a position of weakness.

“That's not the way to do diplomacy. And you don't go there saying we'd like all these glowing outcomes to be there. Instead, [we should say that these are the] preconditions under which we're going to meet, and we expect that China's going to commit to not stealing intellectual property.

“It doesn't seem like anything substantive comes out of these meetings. These are all for appearance, and I would argue it's to China's advantage for the appearance to be that our U.S. officials are going to China at the bequest of China. That's not the way to have the upper hand in these discussions or even to be on a level playing field in these discussions. No preconditions set, it seems like [the Biden administration is] doing everything [they] can to try to appease China instead of standing up to China.”

Watch here.

Original source can be found here.