In this mailing: Grégoire Canlorbe: "Xi Jinping Will Not Stop until He Is Stopped": A Conversation with Gordon G. Chang Burak Bekdil: Biden Needs to Handle the Turkey Dossier with Utmost Care "Xi Jinping Will Not Stop until He Is Stopped": A Conversation with Gordon G. Chang by Grégoire Canlorbe  •  March 17, 2021 at 5:00 am       We see Xi's new demands in his intransigent position going into Thursday's meeting in Anchorage. China's top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, and his subordinate, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, look as if they are going to Alaska not to engage in meaningful discussion, but to lecture Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and to dictate the terms of the relationship going forward. Yang's unpleasant February 5 telephone call with Blinken is a warning of Xi Jinping's new no-compromise attitude. If the disease in fact escaped from that lab, as new evidence suggests, the coronavirus is almost certainly a biological weapon. Chinese leaders set a goal to dominate tech, and they have employed every tool at their disposal. They will stop at nothing to own the tech of tomorrow because they understand that tech dominance will give them economic and geopolitical dominance as well. China can innovate, and it can steal. Most important, it can concentrate its attention on goals. The big tech companies are certainly not loyal to America. They are, like many companies, loyal to profits. In other words, they are loyal to themselves. Tech giants, such as Microsoft, that helped China develop facial-recognition systems to control racial minorities, apparently have no qualms about helping the Communist Party commit crimes against humanity.... It is up to Washington to prevent the tech giants from enriching and strengthening a hostile Chinese regime. The way to free Hong Kong, ultimately, is to end the Communist Party. Once the territory is free, its people can decide whether to seek sovereign status. If Xi Jinping thinks he can take over Hong Kong without cost, he will be emboldened to go after other areas. We must establish deterrence. Beijing's territorial ambitions have grown during the course of this century. Xi Jinping will not stop until he is stopped. Gordon G. Chang. (Image source: Gage Skidmore/Flickr) Canlorbe: Welcome, Mr. Chang. How do you assess the situation of the new communist giant, namely Xi Jinping's China? Chang: Xi Jinping now has, in President Biden, the American leader he has always wanted. Biden with his executive orders and other actions has so far given China many gifts and has asked for nothing in return. Among these unilateral concessions are his lifting a ban on Chinese electrical equipment, postponing rules against investments in China's military-linked companies, rejoining the Beijing-dominated World Health Organization, and delaying prohibitions on Chinese apps. As a result of receiving so many free gifts from Biden, Xi seems more arrogant and is demanding even more. Continue Reading Article Biden Needs to Handle the Turkey Dossier with Utmost Care by Burak Bekdil  •  March 17, 2021 at 4:00 am       Erdoğan is waiting for an opportunity to "persuade" Biden that his Islamist regime is in fact a staunch ally of the Western civilization. What Erdoğan diplomatically refers to as "common interests" are in reality a list of Turkish demands: 1) Remove Turkey from the CAATSA list. 2) Allow Turkey to activate its Russian-made air defense architecture. 3) Ignore the Turkish public bank's role in violating U.S. sanctions on Iran. 4) End the U.S. alliance with Syrian Kurds and allow Turkey to crush them. 5) Praise, do not criticize, Turkey's democratic record. An aggressive overt and covert Turkish lobbying campaign in Washington will soon begin. As a first sign, Turkey has hired a Washington-based law firm, Arnold & Porter, to lobby for its readmission to the F-35 program. Under the six-month, $750,000 contract, Arnold & Porter will "advise on a strategy for [the Turkish defense procurement agency] and Turkish contractors to remain within the Joint Strike Fighter Program.... Three U.S. presidential administrations encouraged Erdoğan recklessly to harm Western interests and further destroy whatever pieces of democracy were left in his own country by allowing him to maintain his transactional relationship with the U.S. rather than weakening his regime. Biden now has a chance to stop and even reverse that unpleasant chapter in modern Turkish history. Three U.S. presidential administrations encouraged Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recklessly to harm Western interests and further destroy whatever pieces of democracy were left in his own country by allowing him to maintain his transactional relationship with the U.S. rather than weakening his regime. Pictured: Erdoğan speaks with U.S. President Barack Obama on November 15, 2015 in Antalya, Turkey. (Photo by Kayhan Ozer/AFP via Getty Images) U.S. President Joe Biden's two predecessors, Donald Trump and Barack Obama, made the same mistake, though for different reasons. They both mishandled Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his increasingly Islamization of Turkey's secular lifestyle, education system, politics and institutions. Obama apparently hoped that Turkey's post-modern Islamists could be an example to less-democratic Islamic regimes in the Middle East. Trump, on the other hand, seemed not to care if his pro-Erdoğan overtures emboldened Turkey's Islamist strongman and simultaneously weakened the NATO ally's ties with the West and Western institutions. In a 2010 interview with the Italian daily, Corriere della Sera, Obama referred to Turkey as a "great Muslim democracy." Continue Reading Article