After the National Security Council pushed back on criticism over the Biden administration’s handling of rising tensions with China, one policy and foreign relations expert warned that Biden tactics laid a welcome mat for further aggression.
"What we have is an administration that reacts to China's provocations by delaying measures that it would impose on China," Gatestone Institute senior fellow Gordon Chang said on "Mornings with Maria" Wednesday.
"So basically, Beijing gets a twofer: it gets to engage in flying a spy balloon over the U.S., and then we don't take measures that we should have taken on other issues," he continued telling host Maria Bartiromo. "So we have actually opened the door for more provocations, more belligerence from Beijing."
From the White House on Tuesday, NSC spokesperson John Kirby refuted claims that the administration’s not doing enough to boost defenses against China, or that they’re "bowing down" to the People’s Republic of China.
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"It boggles my mind that anybody anywhere would think that A) we're not engaging in diplomacy, and B) the diplomacy and the use of it, and the attempt at dialog and diplomacy, is somehow weakness," Kirby said at a press conference.
The Biden administration has been slammed this week for handing a "major coup" to Chinese President Xi Jinping after two senior officials made a trip to China in an attempt to ease tensions between the two countries on Sunday.
Sunday also marked the 34th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, when the Chinese military slaughtered hundreds, possibly thousands, of pro-democracy protesters.
Attempts at interactions between the U.S. and China have been thwarted by recent espionage and military events. Earlier this year, U.S. forces shot down an alleged Chinese spy balloon, and an American warship was sharply cut off path by a Chinese warship over the weekend.
Chang criticized Biden for pursuing a traditional engagement policy, which the expert claimed has not worked for nearly 50 years.
"It sounds like it should work, it sounds nice, it's great to the ear, but unfortunately it's created the disastrous situation that we now face," the Gatestone Institute senior fellow said.
"And what they are doing, although they won't say this," he added, "is that they are opening the door, as we talked about, to more Chinese belligerence. So they are creating the conditions for history's next great war. And we're getting there very, very fast."
China’s defense minister on Sunday conceded that a war between China and the United States would be an "unbearable disaster for the world" and stressed the need for both sides to improve relations that are "at a record low."
"History has proven time and again that both China and the United States will benefit from cooperation and lose from confrontation," Li said during the Shangri-La Dialogue gathering in Singapore.
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China’s main objective not only includes the takeover of Taiwan, Chang cautioned, but also the military and economic domination over America.
"Those dangerous intercepts and the global comments, the one on May 26 and the one last Saturday, that's what they're doing. We are a target," Chang warned.
Fox News’ Jessica Chasmar and Bradford Betz contributed to this report.
