Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is in Beijing for a three-day visit. The Biden administration says that her trip aims to "deepen communications between the world's two largest economies, and stabilize the relationship."

What exactly that means is unclear. But what’s increasingly clear is that China is in no mood to deepen or stabilize much of anything.

A NEW REPUBLICAN HEALTHCARE REFORM PLAN

Consider what happened earlier this week when Beijing announced export restrictions on two rare earth metals — gallium and germanium. That’s bad news for the United States and its Western partners. China produces around 60% of the global supply of germanium and around 80% of its gallium. Both minerals are critical for a range of electronic devices, military gear, and green energy components like solar panels.

So what’s the reason for China's move?

Revenge, Beijing says. Western nations have restricted China’s access to advanced computer chips that Washington and its friends fear would be used to develop the People's Liberation Army's military capabilities. China views its mineral exports as a way to retaliate in trade terms. Still, Beijing is making clear that the fight over minerals is "just the beginning." Other critical supply chains are at risk too. The timing of this announcement just prior to Yellen's visit is highly unlikely to be coincidental. In other words, Beijing wants the U.S. to understand that unless Yellen capitulates on chip exports and other concerns, there’s no deepening or stabilizing to be found.

Frankly, from a U.S. perspective, there shouldn’t be.

The FBI director has testified multiple times to members of Congress that his agents face a deluge of Chinese attacks on the country’s economic and national security infrastructure, opening a new counter-intelligence case every 10 hours. Wray has also joined British intelligence officials in saying China is the "biggest long-term threat to our economic and national security." For good measure, he's confirmed that China’s cyber operations are larger than that of every other major country — combined. Which begs the question: Why would the Biden administration even consider economic footsie with this foe?

We shouldn’t. Unfortunately, U.S. bureaucrats and their boss at the White House continue to insist that we should. In fact, they’ve coined a new phrase to describe their China economic strategy: "De-risking."

What does that mean? No one really knows. But whatever it means, you’d think that de-risking would at least remove China from our supply chain of rare earth metals. (Or antibiotics. Or solar panels.) It hasn't happened. And the Chinese aren’t buying the new de-risking phraseology. They see it as de-coupling — or the severing of China and its economy from the Western world. They’re not in favor, as you’d expect. They quite like their leverage.

And to be clear, they’ve got leverage. China dominates global trade, leaving the U.S. in the dust in many locales. Beijing is obviously not interested in going back to an era where they are a de-risked junior partner. In other words, whatever Yellen’s mission is today, whether it be deepening, stabilizing, or de-risking, she is destined to fail.

In my view, that failure would be a very good thing. Failures like hers will eventually force Western leaders to abandon their impossibly stupid strategy of have-it-all and instead they will get to the business of de-coupling.

We did it with the Soviets. We did it with Nazi Germany. And it is high time we do it with the Chinese Communists too.

Bryan Dean Wright is a former CIA Operations Officer and current host of The Wright Report daily news podcast.