The Duran Podcast - China controls summit in SF. Biden press conference disaster

Episode Date: November 17, 2023

China controls summit in SF. Biden press conference disaster

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the big summit, the talks that took place between Xi Jinping and President Joe Biden. The dictator and Joe Biden, let's talk about it. It did not go well, did it? Well, you spoke about the talks between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden. I have to say, having seen what happened yesterday, I wonder whether that is even a correct way of describing what happened. Certainly there was a summit meeting. Certainly the two men participated in that summit meeting. But I do actually truly wonder what role the President of the United States,

Joe Biden, played in it. Because it seems to me, based on what I saw from the images, and pictures of the president in action, both in the moments before the actual meeting and in his press conference. I have very, very serious doubts indeed that he is capable of conducting a summit meeting with someone like Sishin Bing. I'm choosing my words extremely carefully now, but look at the images. You see him going into the meeting. You see Blinken, he's secretary of state, who to be very clear is no Bismarck. called Talleyron, but he's basically managing him. I mean, that is how it looked. That is the image that the pictures gave. So we have then an exchange between Biden and Xi Jinping, or so we're told,

from the various readouts. But if you read the readouts, it does look to me very much as if whatever it was that Biden said was entirely formulaic. I get the sense that any serious discussion that took place probably was conducted on the American side by Blinken. And I don't think anything of substance came out of the meeting at all. And that was the view that I expressed yesterday in my video, in my channel. And today I see that there's a big article in the national interest, which says essentially the same thing. And it also points out because it passes the readouts that both the Chinese

and the Americans have produced following this meeting. That it's absolutely clear that the Chinese and the Americans are talking at complete cross purposes. The Chinese are focusing on certain commitments that they believe Biden made to them at the meeting in Bali last year. You know, this is the G20 meeting in Bali last year. The Americans say absolutely nothing about this. They talk in cliches and formulas. because, to be frank, I think that's all that they can come up with. Biden probably confirmed and admitted and agreed that he stands by the commitments,

the five knows, as the Chinese put it, no recognition of Taiwan, no support for Taiwanese independence, no, you know, competition, spiral out of control with China. So he probably said that he agreed with all of that. that he said in Bali last year. But as this person who's written this article in the national interest points out, the American readout says nothing about any of that, whereas the Chinese readout is full of it.

And if you also read the Chinese readout, the impression I get is that basically what happened was the SishuPin came along, delivered this lecture, wagged his finger at Biden and the Americans, He said you're doing all these bad and foolish things. We've got to put the relationship back on track. And the Americans just sat there and listened to it all and weren't really in a position to be to interact with him. So I don't really think that proper talks between Biden and Xi Jinping is a proper way to define what happened yesterday. I'm trying to figure out why the U.S. was chasing after China for this summit meeting.

I mean, I understand, I mean, from watching your videos, from my own research into seeing the statements and the videos that we've done on the Duran, I think it's safe to say that the Biden White House is looking for some sort of management of the escalation so that they don't get into a number. Another third conflict. I think there is a realization in the Biden White House that, that yes, they want to escalate with China. Yes, they want a conflict with China in and around Taiwan. But at this moment in time, they've got Project Ukraine. They got the war in Israel and the Middle East, a possible war with Iran. For this year, at least, an election. For this year, at least, let's just try to manage. our own escalation. It's kind of weird to say because the U.S. knows that they're escalating. Maybe they don't know, but the other ones that are escalating. And yet they're also chasing after the Chinese to almost tell the Chinese, help us manage our own escalation so that it doesn't go too far to the point of conflict just yet because we can't handle a third conflict. I mean, do you understand what I'm saying? I think that was one of the main purposes. But is there any other reason for why the U.S. was chasing after China, why Biden was chasing after China so

hard to get this meeting? I think there is, but let's actually unpack what you said, because first of all, it is important to stress. I've seen some articles, especially in the British media, pretend otherwise, but it is absolutely clear. There's no doubt about this at all that it was the Americans who sought this meeting. The Chinese played very hard to get. The Americans sent this troop of people to Beijing over the course of the last few months. I mean, what had happened after the balloon incident was that the Chinese basically cut off all communications with the Americans. They were furious about the kind of comments that Biden was making. So, you know, about Xi Jinping. So they cut off all communications. The Americans got extremely worried about this. We had Janet

Yellen going to Beijing. We had Blinken going to Beijing. They moved heaven and earth. to get this summit going. Bill Gates went there. Other American business people went there. As we know, Gavin Newsom went there, and he clearly was working with the administration as well. And they moved heaven and us to get C.C. Shipping to come to San Francisco to attend the summit.

And the Chinese played very, very hard to get. They kept us all guessing right up until almost the last moment about whether or not Xi Jinping was actually going to come. And what we also know, and this is an important thing to say, is that the Chinese, in terms of the optics, drove a ferociously hard bargain. They insisted that the streets of San Francisco must be completely cleaned out, and they were. they basically said no protesters, no protesters anywhere near Xi Jinping or his motor gate, and there were none. We had all these people from the Chinese community in San Francisco, which is a big community, as we all know, coming out, waving the Chinese flags, so that it looks as if Xi Jinping has this enormous support in the United States,

amongst people of Chinese origin at the least. The Chinese insisted that the media, take place before the APEC summit itself so as to make it absolutely clear that, you know, Xi Jinping is not just one amongst many Asia-Pacific leaders that the president of the United States is meeting. He is far in a way the most important. They insisted, apparently, that the venue be away from San Francisco itself. So that was why it happened. the Philadelphia estate. I mean, they were put in complete control of all of the optics. So people in China, they see all of this. They see, you know, Xi Jinping's motorcade with all the red flags there. They have this meeting. And then, of course, directly after the meeting with Biden,

in what I think is an astonishing demonstration of power. And I think this is partly what the Chinese were up to. You had this meeting at the Regency High Act in San Francisco with all the business leaders there, Cook of Arapol, Elon Musk, they're all there and they make this great, they give Xi Jinping a standing ovation and it's become clear to the people across the world in China in the United States that Xi Jinping and the US-China relationship has the support. of the American business community. So, I mean, it is, you can see how the Chinese control the summit. And they did it because the Americans pleaded with them for it.

So why did the Americans do all of this? Why did they engage in all of these concessions? I use a very simple answer. Partly, it is what you said. They don't want another crisis at this time. Project Ukraine has gone hideously, disastrously wrong. They have another crisis. in the Middle East. Biden's poll numbers are in a critical state. So they don't want another

crisis, especially in the year, next year, which is the year of the coming presidential election in November. So they don't want that to happen. And at the same time, and I think equally important, within the United States, it's clear that there is still a big China lobby, people who want to maintain good business relations with China. And they are important people. They are people who are important Democratic Party donors. They are people who the United States government cannot simply ignore. The Democratic Party cannot simply ignore.

And of course, Janet Yellen, who is the Treasury Secretary, she has her other concern, which is that the United States is now running massive budget deficits. It needs to raise funds to keep the government going, especially with all the problems in Congress. So she needs to try to persuade the Chinese to go to resume buying treasury bonds. And note that when Xi Jinping arrives at the airport, who is there to greet him? It's Janet Yellen. Yeah. They need money. They need money. The government needs money. The Biden campaign needs money. They need money and and and and and and and and they need to to make sure that that, that they don't they don't end up in another, um, quite, uh, conflict. I was going to say

quagmire. A conflict when maybe quagmire is the correct word. Yeah, but you know, they control the, the, the ability to not end up in another conflict. I mean, it's, it's in their control. And I think Xi Jinping actually said as much in his statement. He said, we have two choices. We can either learn to. live together? Or this can be a zero-sum game and you guys continue escalating and so be it. I mean, it doesn't get more clear than that. Absolutely. And can I come back and say, make the previous point of the Chinese through controlling all the optics at the summit, through getting all the business people to give

Xi Jinping a standing ovation, they gave a tremendous demonstration of their own power. And I think, you know, in terms of competition, what they're basically saying, look, we don't want to supplant you. We don't want to replace you as the world's leading country. This is not what we are about. The world, the planet is big enough for both of us. But if you come after us, if you start turning ugly against us, we are supremely powerful and we can deal with. We can deal with. it and that was you know that is the underlying message that the chinese conveyed across over the course of the summit now you're absolutely right the administration has the power to control this thing but this is where we come back to the problem at the core of the administration and i have to say

this straightforwardly the core of the problem is the president even if there were some people like say yellen in the administration who wanted to pursue a genuine detent and rapprochement with the Chinese, it is impossible. It is structurally impossible because we saw the president, as I said, I have serious doubts about whether or not he's, whether he's really capable of conducting a summit meeting with Xi Jinping. And then he gave this utter car crash of a press conference afterwards. And I mean, it was embarrassing. It was a very You could see Blinken's face through it. I mean, many people have commented about this. The president was barely in control of what he was saying. He's clearly being managed now.

I mean, the overall impression was that he really has no control over himself, let alone over the United States government. And, I mean, he blurts out state secrets in a press conference. I mean, imagine if Donald Trump had done something like that, what people would have been saying. But, you know, the president does that, apologizes to his own secretary of state whilst doing it, making the secretary of state even more embarrassed. He uses the dictator words to describe Xi Jinping just after he's had a press conference with him. I mean, the whole thing is an utter car crash. So let's assume. Let's just guess for a moment that, you know, there's all these people in the administration who are coming along to the president and saying to him, well, you know, we need to have a better relationship with the Chinese.

How can the president assume control of the government and actually force that policy, even if he agreed with it? And on the basis of what we saw yesterday, I doubt that he does, by the way. My sense is that his feelings about China remain as viscerally hostile, as always. But even if that was his policy, how is he capable of enforcing the policy on the administration? One gets the sense that he's not ultimately the person who's making the big decisions. And he's certainly not the person who's capable of enforcing the decision. decisions. The American system is based on the president, taking an active control and supervising and running the government. If the president doesn't run the government, then nobody does.

The Secretary of State can't act in his place. The National Security Advisor can't act in his place, even if they tried to, other parts of the bureaucracy would be fully justified in saying, well, we're not going to listen to what you say because you have no authority to give us orders. So we see that even and as at the same time, as the president comes along, tells Xi Jinping, according to the Chinese read, well, about Taiwan, we're not going to support in Chinese independence. We're not looking to create problems with you over Taiwan. We know that other parts of the government are now working hard

to get a $10 billion arms package to Taiwan. And that is exactly what is going to enrage the Chinese. And Xi Jinping himself actually said to Biden, according to the Chinese readout, that arms deliveries to Taiwan are for the Chinese a red line. and that Taiwan remains for China the most sensitive issue. So even if the president, against his own instincts, were to agree that detent with China at the present time, was the most important thing, it's one has to doubt, based on what we saw yesterday, that he would be in a position to enforce that against the other people in he.

his government, the hardliners in his government that want to pursue further escalation. Yeah, the whole thing is dysfunctional. And the Chinese saw that. They realized that. I wouldn't be surprised if another reason they decided to actually take this meeting, Xi Jinping actually prowling to the U.S. is because he wanted to see it firsthand for himself. I would not be surprised if they also said, you know, these guys, have lost complete control of everything. Let's just go see how bad it really is. I would not be surprised if that's a part of it as well.

And they probably left that meeting, just shaking their heads going, yeah, it's worse than we thought. They probably said it's worse than we thought. And I think that's just on a final note. I think that's the problem is that what you said is Biden doesn't have control of the government. That's obvious. I mean, everyone knows that. But the question comes up, who does? You know, it's the same thing that we're seeing with, that we saw with Ukraine. You know, I was, I put out a tweet the other day where before this meeting took place. And I said,

you know, Putin and Biden, they had a meeting in June 2021, a summit meeting in Geneva. The talks went well, but there were differences. That was the conclusion. And they had a virtual meeting in December 2021. And then we had the conflict in February 2022. So I mean, we've been down this, this road before. And the question arises, there's a part of the administration that wants to have these meetings and these talks that that wants to try and open up some dialogue, even if they are getting pressured from the business community. Okay. But then there's another part of the administration that wants to send money to Taiwan. And there's another part of the administration. that wants to create trouble in the Asia Pacific.

And there's another part of the administration that wants to give money to the military and just so complex. I mean, the whole thing is just so freaking dysfunctional. And even people like Blinken, even people like Blinken who are at the meeting, he's trying to manage Biden so that things don't go off the deep end. But you know, if there's going to be escalation with China,

he's going to be the first person to get on CNN and say, yes, Xi Jinping is a dictator. He's done it before. I mean, even the people in attendance are talking out of both sides of their mouths. They don't have any clear position. You're absolutely right in everything you've said. Now, bear in mind, the entire world, every country in the world, every government in the world has seen those pictures of the president. They've watched the press conference.

What the president of the United States does in a press conference is followed and watched by everybody. The Russians will have watched it. The Chinese obviously have, you know, everybody, the North Koreans, the Syrians, the Saudis, the Indians, everybody is going to be tracking and observing this. And of course, it gets even worse because, of course, the Chinese are going to go back to Beijing. Beijing is going to go back to Beijing. He's going to brief the Politburo there. And the Chinese are going to share their impressions of this meeting with their great. friends who are, of course, the Russians. Now, you're absolutely correct. The whole thing is now completely dysfunctional. You talked about those disastrous meetings that took place in 2021, the one in June 2021 and the one in December 2021 between Putin and Biden. Those meetings ended up making the relationship worse because the Russians who sensed that a crisis was coming look to get some kind of reach some kind of understanding with the president and they had these encounters with the president and they seemed to come away with the impression from both of those meetings that some kind

of an understanding was reached and they saw the policy then move in the opposite direction and that undoubtedly soured the relationship between the Americans and the Russians even further. It's worse now. And I'm going to say something else. I think this summit meeting in San Francisco is going to ultimately lead to a further deterioration of relations with China. I think this is a thing people need to understand because the Chinese having met Biden, having explained things to Biden, having discussed everything with Blinken, will have come to the conclusion that the administration is incapable of pursuing a policy of detente and reprosishment with them. So they're going to intensify from this point onwards the steps they're going to be

taking to secure their own position, to build up their forces, to make the proper trade relationships, especially with the Russians to make sure that they get the necessary, you know, raw materials and food supplies in case there's a major crisis over Taiwan. But let's talk about Ukraine as well. There's been no contacts between Biden and Putin since the conflict, you know, the military side of the conflict began in February 2020. And I think we can now see why, because the Russians aren't particularly keen, have shown no real desire at the moment to talk to Biden. But how does the administration? set up a meeting between Biden and Putin at this time.

How do they get Biden to telephone Putin to talk about the problems in Ukraine? I mean, the risks of doing that of exposing Biden to a summit meeting or even a prolonged conversation with Putin, especially when there's a conflict like the one we're seeing underway. the risks are simply enormous. And there are various parts of the US bureaucracy, some of them, are bound to oppose it anyway. And if Biden cannot speak to Putin, what other Western leaders are able to? Given that Biden can't come to an agreement with Putin and given that it is the United States that has been driving this whole thing right from the outset. Any, from the first, French or Italian or heaven helpers, German leader that tries to communicate at this time with Putin

and tries to reach an understanding with him. Assuming that they even wanted to do that, knows perfectly well that they risk having the rug pulled underneath them by the United States because they can talk to Biden. They can reach some kind of understanding as they think. with Biden, but they have no certainty that that understanding will stick. So we have total paralysis in diplomacy. You know, we've been talking about the paralysis in U.S. diplomacy that has been the hallmark of this administration. We now see an important reason why that is so.

How dumb are the European Union leaders who actually follow? Biden, the collective West leaders that actually follow this ban. And, you know, the U.S. can make it through the year with Biden. But another four years of Biden, if that's possible. Well, that is entirely wrong. No country, no country can take on another four years of this guy. Well, I agree with that. And I mean, I think you're absolutely correct. I mean, it has already brought Europe to the point of disaster that they made that disastrous choice. And, you know, we can discuss and analyze that in another program.

But the United States, as you correctly say, is in a stronger position because it's a much more powerful country than any European country who, and all of them put together, to be frank. And it's got, you know, the enormous resources that the United States does in fact have. but no country can function like this indefinitely. I mean, this is a problem. There is now a problem at the heart of the American government, which has to be resolved and has to be resolved fairly soon. A year of it is already stretching it, but taking it beyond that, I think,

is going to become increasingly dangerous for the United States, and of course, for the world. All right, we'll leave it there. The durand.locals.com. We are on Odyssey, Rumble, bitch, shoot, telegram, rockfin, and Twitter X, and go to the Duran shop. 20% off, use the code.

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