When an unnamed "senior administration official" briefed reporters last Friday about National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan's trip to the People's Republic of China -- to meet with Foreign Minister Wang Yi -- there was one significant word he never used: genocide.
"I expect these meetings will cover roughly the same format as we have in previous rounds, discussing key issues in the U.S.-China bilateral relationship and advancing counternarcotics cooperation, military-to-military communication, and AI safety and risk discussions," this official said.
"Mr. Sullivan," the official said, "will raise U.S. concerns about China's support for Russia's defense industrial base, the South China Sea, and various other issues."
"And I expect they will also discuss cross-Strait issues," said this official.
Three days later, White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby gave reporters an on-the-record briefing on Sullivan's trip to China. His description of what Sullivan would discuss with Wang was virtually identical to the description given in the background briefing.
Kirby -- like the unnamed official who gave the background briefing -- never used this word: genocide.
Now, go back to Dec. 6, 2021 -- two months before the 2022 Winter Olympics were scheduled to begin in Beijing.
In her briefing that day, as this column has noted before, then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced that the Biden administration would engage in a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics. They would do so, she explained, because the People's Republic of China was engaging in genocide.
"The Biden administration," she said, "will not send any diplomatic or official representation to the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games given the PRC's ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses."
So, has China stopped perpetrating this genocide?
This April, as this column has noted before, Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a press conference to mark the release of his department's 2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. "Rohingya in Burma, Uyghurs in Xinjiang -- each victims of genocide and crimes against humanity," Blinken said in that press conference four months ago. "The United States will continue to raise our deep concerns directly with the governments responsible."
The report on China that Blinken released that day said: "Genocide and crimes against humanity occurred during the year in China against predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang."
"Significant human rights issues," it said, "included credible reports of: arbitrary or unlawful killings by the government; enforced disappearances by the government; torture by the government ..."
The day before President Donald Trump left office, as this column has noted before, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement declaring that the Chinese Communist Party was engaging in an "ongoing" genocide against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
While continuing to engage in this genocide, China has hauled in massive amounts of money from the United States. Since January 2021 -- the month of President Joe Biden's inauguration -- the United States has imported approximately $1.6658 trillion in goods from China, according to the Census Bureau. At the same time, this country has exported only approximately $524.100 billion in goods to China. That has resulted in a Biden-era bilateral trade deficit with China of approximately $1.1417 trillion.
By contrast, China has reduced its holdings of U.S. government debt during the Biden administration. In January 2021, entities in the PRC owned $1.0952 trillion in U.S. Treasury securities, according to the Treasury Department. As of this June, they held only $780.2 billion -- a decline of 28.7% under the Biden administration.
Nor does China respect freedom of religion.
"Authorities continued to require CCP members and members of the armed forces to be atheists and forbade them to engage in religious practices," said the State Department 2023 report on religious freedom in the PRC.
"Regulations require clergy to pledge allegiance to the CCP and socialism," it said.
"According to reports, the government maintained a near-ubiquitous system of high-technology surveillance of religious sites," it said.
"NGOs and media outlets continued to report deaths in custody and that the government tortured, physically abused, arrested, disappeared, detained, sentenced to prison, subjected to forced indoctrination in CCP ideology, and harassed adherents of both registered and unregistered religious groups for activities related to their religious beliefs and practices," said the State Department report.
A better president than Biden would have instructed his national security adviser to tell the Chinese Communist Party leaders: Stop your genocide of the Uyghurs and your attacks on religious liberty -- or we will stop all imports from you.