Chinese President Xi Jinping’s trip to Europe is coming at a rather awkward time. European police and intelligence agencies have recently uncovered an astonishing number of alleged Chinese spies in a tidal wave of counterespionage activity in recent weeks, underscoring the sheer breadth of Beijing’s intelligence operations.
Recent visits to China by Biden administration officials have sought to humanize the bilateral relationship and broaden it out beyond the tensions on display between the two governments. With limited access to uncensored information in China and people-to-people exchanges at very low levels, this is harder than perhaps ever before.
“America always does the right thing, after exhausting all other possibilities.” Those words, attributed to Winston Churchill, perfectly capture what finally transpired late last week, when the U.S. Congress finally passed a series of supplemental defense spending bills earmarking military aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
