Anti-China voices in US often miss the mark but on trade, they have a point

The central premise is logical. They contend that Beijing seeks to exhaust Washington by taking contrary positions – or simply declining to act at all – on Ukraine, the Middle East, the Red Sea or any other locus of international conflict in which the US has a stake.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s administration will never be a US ally. The Biden administration’s wish to get Beijing to use its leverage to end these conflicts in a way that takes Israel’s and Ukraine’s security interests into consideration will never come true.

There’s one valid criticism of Biden’s China policy that Pottinger and Gallagher skimmed over in a way that shows how, despite keeping a distance from the Republican Party’s authoritarian extremes, they are unable to completely break free.

They call on Biden to “upgrade [America’s] bilateral trade agreement with Japan and establish a new one with Taiwan, agreements that could be joined by other eligible economies in the region”.

Trump famously despises multilateral forums and giving market access without getting many pounds of flesh in return. He made the damage that free trade did to American workers a centrepiece of the campaign that brought him to the White House.

Unfortunately, Biden’s team remains too cowed by the backlash against free trade to step up to the CPTPP negotiating table.

Pottinger and Gallagher are much more Reagan than Trump. They should know that America has enough clout to demand a high bar when it comes to CPTPP membership requirements, ones that Taiwan could meet and would be difficult for Beijing to fulfil.

They should have the fortitude to acknowledge that it’s now time for America to take the CPTPP seriously.

Robert Delaney is the Post’s North America bureau chief