Biden Administration ‘Naive’ to Believe China Cold War Avoidable, Former US General Says

Biden Administration ‘Naive’ to Believe China Cold War Avoidable, Former US General Says
U.S. President Joe Biden (R) and China's leader Xi Jinping (L) meet on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Nusa Dua on the Indonesian resort island of Bali on Nov. 14, 2022. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Andrew Thornebrooke
Updated:
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A former U.S. military leader is criticizing President Joe Biden’s lackluster meeting with Chinese communist leader Xi Jinping this month, following the president’s assertion that there is no cold war between the two nations.

Biden said “there need not be a new cold war” after meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi this month in Indonesia.

For those who believe the United States is already in a cold war with communist China, like retired U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Robert Spalding, however, Biden’s words were a parroting of CCP talking points.

“When Biden says that we are not going to be in a cold war with China, it’s essentially adopting or embracing what the Chinese Communist Party wants,” Spalding said. “He’s basically restating, if you will, what China is saying to us.”

“Xi says ‘this is not a cold war’ and Biden goes ‘this is not a cold war.’”

Retired Air Force Brigadier General Robert Spalding in Washington on May 29, 2019. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)
Retired Air Force Brigadier General Robert Spalding in Washington on May 29, 2019. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

CCP’s Goal

Spalding, who is also an Epoch Times contributor, said that the incident demonstrated the continued naivete of those in positions of political and economic power when dealing with the CCP and its goal of displacing the United States as leader of the international order.

Spalding said that Biden was merely repeating Xi’s frequent talking point that the United States should avoid “cold war thinking,” a phrase that the CCP often uses to give cover to its military expansion and increasing hostility towards its neighbors.

“[Biden’s comment] continues to demonstrate how naive we are with regard to what the Chinese Communist Party thinks,” Spalding said. “The Chinese Communist Party believes we’re already in a war, or that they’re in a war with the United States.”

Spalding said that the CCP had adopted a strategic doctrine of unrestricted warfare to displace the United States because its leadership believes Western democratic values to be an existential threat to communist rule. Thus, the CCP believes it must defeat the United States to prevent democratic principles from flourishing in its own society and undermining the CCP regime and its ambitions.

“They’re [the CCP] concerned that the liberties and freedoms that we enjoy are something that could potentially transfer over to the Chinese people, and so their goal is to destroy our system of constitutional government,” Spalding said.

Andrew Thornebrooke
Andrew Thornebrooke
National Security Correspondent
Andrew Thornebrooke is a national security correspondent for The Epoch Times covering China-related issues with a focus on defense, military affairs, and national security. He holds a master's in military history from Norwich University.
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