House Republicans sent a letter to President Joe Biden on Wednesday urging him to confront Chinese President Xi Jinping on human rights violations and improving United States relations at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum being held in San Francisco next week.
Republicans on the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, created earlier this year to address Beijing's influence, told Biden to re-engage with Xi to defend American interests.
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“While we share your desire to deter a devastating conflict with the PRC, we are concerned that the recent prioritization of bilateral engagement has come at an unacceptable cost to 'competitive' or defensive actions that have been delayed, scuttled, or otherwise dropped in an effort to get the PRC to the table — all for poorly defined benefit,” a copy of the letter obtained by the Washington Examiner reads.
Led by Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), over a dozen members signed the letter and praised some of the Biden administration's earlier actions against China. These include sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act over China’s human rights abuse in 2021, and building on a previous executive order to prevent U.S. investments in the military-industrial complex of the PRC. However, Republicans cited “an overwhelming decline in these actions in the last 18 months” from the Biden administration.
“Despite repeated concessions from Washington over the past year, Beijing has made none and continues to threaten core U.S. interests,” Gallagher said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “At this week’s meeting, the administration should walk away from the table if the CCP proves unwilling to address even the most basic issues in the relationship, such as immediately releasing all Americans wrongfully detained in the PRC, ceasing dangerous and unjustifiable intercepts of American forces, and halting operations in Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone east of the Median Line. Short of clear commitments on this low-hanging fruit, APEC needs to be the end of the road for zombie engagement.”
Republicans listed ten demands they want Xi to oblige by before the end of the APEC summit in California, next week.
Some of the actions they requested from China include preventing the flow of fentanyl precursors into North America, dropping the charges against Hong Kong tycoon Jimmy Lai who was detained in 2020 for comments made to foreign media, and releasing others from detainment.
Other demands state: “Cease all military operations in Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone east of the Median Line” and “Cease all present and future harassment of Philippine naval re-resupply efforts around the Second Thomas shoal.”
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The specifics of Biden and Xi’s meeting have yet to be announced, but they are expected to meet on the sidelines of the two-day APEC summit.
“We urge you to demand Xi Jinping come to APEC with meaningful deliverables on the items below, which represent the bare minimum for Beijing to demonstrate good faith,” the letter reads. “If Xi fails to deliver, your administration must end its pursuit of zombie engagement and shift gears to a more assertive posture in order to defend American interests and values.”