The Biden administration’s priorities have been unchanged since January 2021.
Here is part of the list from the official White House website: “… actions to control the COVID-19 pandemic, provide economic relief, tackle climate change, and advance racial equity and civil rights.”
Those priorities were immediately incorporated in personnel policies through executive orders, for example, the “Executive Order on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation” that President Joe Biden signed on his first day in office. This EO directed all federal agencies to end sexual discrimination on the basis of “gender identity” or sexual orientation and opened the door with the stroke of a pen (as opposed to congressionally debated and passed legislation) to the hiring by federal agencies of people historically considered to be suffering from sexual dysphoria and mental disorders.
Similarly, Marxist “diversity, equity, and inclusion” ideology has also infused federal hiring practices. Thus, identity politics has replaced merit, competency, and experience as the primary consideration for filling job vacancies in this administration; the top priority is hiring Democrat-defined “disadvantaged groups,” including women, LGBTQI people, and racial minorities.
However, it would appear that the top priority of identity politics is not the worst problem with the Biden administration’s hiring practices. The worst by far is the apparent willful blindness of hiring managers to the potential compromise of candidates by communist China through elite capture.
Beijing’s Elite Capture
Investigative journalist and author of the best-selling book “Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win“ defines the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) strategy of elite capture as “looping in American business titans with lucrative contracts or deals that get them to look the other way as Beijing rises globally.”
Others are being captured, too, including politicians, university professors, media figures, and members of influential think tanks and other non-profit organizations, who receive lucrative Chinese contracts, sinecures, paid participation in exchange programs, free travel and gifts, and Chinese donations to various causes.
Harvard University professor Charles Lieber leaves federal court after he and two Chinese nationals were charged with lying about their alleged links to the Chinese regime, in Boston, Mass., on Jan. 30, 2020. Katherine Taylor/Reuters
Beijing has been practicing elite capture of Americans and others for decades to insidiously influence political decision-making that affects the CCP’s interests, goals, and objectives. Elite capture has paid off handsomely for China, for example, the continuation of the “most-favored nation” trade status, favorable visa policies that have enabled a deluge of Chinese nationals to attend U.S. universities and also work in the United States, and successes in minimizing U.S. responses to continuing CCP persecution of Uyghurs, Tibetans, Falun Gong, and other minorities in China.
The kowtowing to China had gotten so obvious since January 2021 that the administration seems to be willing to overlook almost any Chinese belligerence and aggression in order to reengage with Beijing and reset bilateral trade relations to the conditions that existed before the Trump administration established tariffs to counter hostile Chinese mercantilist trade practices, which have been ongoing for decades before 2016.
Consider the recent response to “balloon-gate,” during which a Chinese surveillance balloon violated U.S. sovereignty and airspace for over a week in early February while collecting data over nuclear silos and other sensitive U.S. military installations. According to The Wall Street Journal, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink conveyed “the administration’s interest in resuming diplomatic talks with China, with the understanding that U.S. sovereignty wasn’t to be violated” to an envoy at the Chinese Embassy in Washington on Feb. 9.
A violation of U.S. sovereignty elicits this tepid response from the Biden administration—the desire to “get back to business as long as it doesn’t happen again.” So much for “tough American diplomacy.”
The only way to deter belligerent conduct is to immediately impose commensurate costs on the aggressor to prevent future incidents. That’s “diplomacy 101”—although perhaps we are witnessing the long-term effects of the Chinese elite capture of the U.S. State Department and the White House, as well as the personnel policy decisions that seem to ignore conflicts of interest with the CCP.
Biden’s family has allegedly benefited from past lucrative business agreements with China, according to the New York Post. Some of that consisted of a $5 million interest-free loan the Biden family received from a Chinese energy conglomerate in 2017.
Concluding Thoughts
Clues to the Biden administration’s hiring practices can be found in executive orders that establish LGBTQI and diversity/equity/inclusion priorities throughout the federal government. Identity politics has apparently superseded merit, competition, and experience in hiring priorities.
A glaring hole in the administration’s hiring decision-making process seems to be the willful blindness to potential conflicts of interest with the Chinese Communist Party. Such conflicts could adversely impact U.S. policy decisions aimed at deterring the Chinese regime. This bodes ill for the United States as the CCP continues its belligerent actions worldwide, especially in East Asia, South Asia, and the South China Sea.
A return to merit, competency, and experience requirements over all other factors in federal hiring is sorely needed as soon as possible.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Stu Cvrk
Author
Stu Cvrk retired as a captain after serving 30 years in the U.S. Navy in a variety of active and reserve capacities, with considerable operational experience in the Middle East and the Western Pacific. Through education and experience as an oceanographer and systems analyst, Cvrk is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, where he received a classical liberal education that serves as the key foundation for his political commentary.
