House Republicans to Biden: Make Demands of Xi

House Republicans need President Joe Biden to “challenge Beijing” when he meets Chinese President Xi Jinping subsequent week in San Francisco.

The White House confirmed Friday that Biden and Xi will meet Wednesday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

During their first assembly in almost a yr, they’ll talk about commerce, Taiwan, and managing fraught U.S.-Chinese relations.

Republicans on the House Select Committee on China despatched Biden a letter Wednesday urging the president to “challenge Beijing” to show that it desires to enhance relations with the U.S., in accordance to a number of media experiences.

The gadgets, in the letter, that Biden ought to demand from Xi included:

• Release all U.S. residents deemed wrongly detained in China.
• Cease all navy operations in Taiwan’s air area.
• Establish know-your-customer necessities on shipments of fentanyl elements.
• Release and drop costs in opposition to Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai and others held by China.
• End near-collisions between Chinese and U.S. warships.

“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,” committee Chair Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., wrote, NBC News reported.

“Despite repeated concessions from Washington over the past year, Beijing has made none and continues to threaten core U.S. interests,” Gallagher mentioned in an announcement to the Washington Examiner.

“At this week’s meeting, the administration should walk away from the table if the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] proves unwilling to address even the most basic issues in the relationship, such as immediately releasing all Americans wrongfully detained in the PRC [People’s Republic of China], ceasing dangerous and unjustifiable intercepts of American forces, and halting operations in Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone east of the Median Line.”

GOP members on the China committee mentioned they agree with the administration’s “desire to deter a devastating conflict” with China however expressed issues that the U.S. has made too many concessions whereas not demanding sufficient.

Republicans criticized Biden for not sanctioning Chinese officers for the “erosion of Hong Kong’s authority” or for its therapy of Uyghur Muslims.

Biden and Xi final met in November 2022 in Bali, Indonesia, at a summit of the Group of 20 economies.

The Associated Press contributed to the story.