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      The Israel crisis is horrific. Republicans say it’s a ‘great opportunity’ to attack Biden | Andrew Gawthorpe

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      This week the eyes of the world have been fixed on the horrific panorama of violence in the Middle East. Once all of the dead are counted, it is likely that nearly as many Israelis will have died in a single day as in the entire second intifada, which lasted from 2000 to 2005. The death toll is also growing in Gaza, with no telling how high it may reach. The United States has dispatched naval forces to the region amid fears that the conflict may spiral to include Hezbollah or even Iran, an eventuality which could see the US join the fighting directly. The region is a tinderbox – and one wrong move could set it ablaze.In the US, steady and sober leadership is needed. Americans may be among those held hostage in Gaza, and the risk of a wider war is ever present. Now is not the time for partisan point-scoring. Unity shouldn’t mean a stifling consensus – there’s plenty of room for discussion about what the best American response to the situation should be – but it should mean agreement around basic norms of constructive debate and decision-making. This should also be a time in which everyone can agree that it’s important that the US government is able to perform its basic functions smoothly, both to ensure good decisions are made and that lives are protected.Unfortunately, Republicans seem incapable of rising to the occasion. From the first hours in which the world began to learn of the horrific events unfolding in southern Israel, prominent Republican figures have seemed just as interested in blaming Joe Biden as they have Hamas.One of the party’s first reactions came from Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel, who greeted news of the greatest atrocity in Israeli history by calling it a “great opportunity” for Republican presidential candidates to criticize Democrats. The candidates themselves seemed to agree, with many leaping into the fray to pin the blame for the attack on Biden’s supposed “weakness”.Perhaps most disgusting and divisive has been the spectacle of Republicans telling outright lies in order to claim that the Biden administration is directly “complicit” in the attack, as Senator Tim Scott has claimed. Donald Trump and others say that the Biden administration helped finance the attack with a recent deal in which $6bn in Iranian oil revenue was unfrozen in exchange for the release of five American hostages. But this money – not a cent of which has yet been spent – is controlled by Qatar and can only be used by Tehran to purchase humanitarian supplies. Meanwhile, it’s clear that this attack has been in the work for months – far before the deal was even struck.Cheap and partisan attacks not only make it difficult to have a serious discussion about American foreign policy – they also allow Republicans to avoid talking about the ways in which their own actions have made the US less prepared for a serious international crisis. The Republican senator Tommy Tuberville is single-handedly blocking 300 routine military appointments, including many top posts in the Middle East, in protest of the Pentagon’s abortion policy. And he’s signaled he has no intention of changing his mind.Senators Rand Paul and JD Vance have also placed blanket holds on confirming nominees to the state department – in one case because Vance wanted them to fill in a “wokeness questionnaire” first. Among the positions that remain unfilled with a permanent appointments are the state department coordinator for counter-terrorism and ambassadors to both Israel and Egypt. Meanwhile, thanks to Republican dysfunction, there is currently no speaker of the House, making it unclear how additional US aid might be made available to Israel or Palestinian civilians if it is needed.In order to avoid the sort of partisan point-scoring that Republicans are engaging in, it should be made clear that these facts almost certainly had nothing to do with the decision by Hamas to launch its attack. The attack is not in any way the fault of the Republican party. But what is the fault of the Republican party is the fact that the US government is lacking crucial personnel at a time of grave international crisis.Hamstringing the ability of the Biden administration to act might even be a feature rather than a bug of the Republican response. If the party recognizes the unfolding horror primarily as a “great opportunity” to hammer the Democrats, then that opportunity can be maximized by making it as difficult as possible for the Biden administration to respond effectively. This is a grave charge, not to be made lightly. But how else to explain a party which refuses, in a time of possible war, to let the military appoint the officers it wants to their posts in the war zone?It is a perilous sign that Republicans would rather engage in partisan criticism rather than a constructive discussion over the best and most humane policies for the US to adopt. The party no longer believes in the basic idea of a functioning, competent government, even in the face of a regional war. As the Biden administration makes tough decisions about how to save American lives and stop the war from spreading, it can expect little help from across the aisle.Republicans have made the choice to put their own narrow interests over those of the nation. They could at least have the decency to stop pretending otherwise.
      Andrew Gawthorpe is a historian of the United States and the creator of America Explained, a podcast and newsletter More

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      AOC decries ‘bigotry and callousness’ at pro-Palestinian rally in New York

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      Criticising a pro-Palestinian rally held in Times Square in New York City in the aftermath of Hamas attacks on Israel which left hundreds dead, the progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said: “It should not be hard to shut down hatred and antisemitism where we see it.”The attacks, including the killing of at least 260 concertgoers and the taking of hostages, sparked a new war between Israel and Hamas. In Gaza, Israeli airstrikes killed hundreds. By Tuesday, the Israeli death toll approached 1,000.The Sunday rally in New York, endorsed by members of the Democratic Socialists of America and promoted by the group’s New York chapter, attracted a crowd of more than 1,000. Some chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied” and there were reports of a Nazi emblem being shown and Israeli flags burned and trodden on.Amid attacks from Republicans, Ocasio-Cortez, a New York representative popularly known as AOC, was among Democrats to condemn the rally.Speaking to Politico, she said shutting down hatred and antisemitism was “a core tenet of solidarity”.“The bigotry and callousness expressed in Times Square on Sunday were unacceptable and harmful in this devastating moment,” she said.“It also did not speak for the thousands of New Yorkers who are capable of rejecting Hamas’s horrifying attacks against innocent civilians as well as the grave injustices and violence Palestinians face under occupation.”Earlier, Ocasio-Cortez was among leading congressional progressives to call for a ceasefire. In a statement, she said: “I condemn Hamas’s attack in the strongest possible terms.“No child and family should ever endure this kind of violence and fear, and this violence will not solve the ongoing oppression and occupation in the region. An immediate ceasefire and de-escalation is urgently needed to save lives.”Cori Bush, a progressive congresswoman from Missouri, said that while she “condemn[ed] the targeting of civilians”, to “achieve a just and lasting peace” in the Middle East, “US government support for Israeli military occupations and apartheid” should be ended. More

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      Aukus could weaken China deterrence,

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      Doubts about Australia’s willingness to join forces with the US in a war against China are being cited by congressional researchers as a potential obstacle to the Aukus nuclear-powered submarine deal.A new research paper looks at the US plan to sell Australia between three and five Virginia-class submarines in the 2030s but suggests the idea “could weaken deterrence of potential Chinese aggression”.That stage of the deal aims to help Canberra bridge a “capability gap” before Australian-built nuclear-powered submarines begin to enter into service in the 2040s.The paper, prepared by the Congressional Research Service, aims to provide members of the US congress with a neutral summary of key arguments likely to be raised by supporters and sceptics of the plan.It lists six “potential arguments from sceptics”, including that the sale could weaken deterrence “if China were to find reason to believe, correctly or not, that Australia might use its Virginia-class boats less effectively than the US Navy would use them”.That weakening of deterrence could also be the case if Beijing were to conclude “that Australia might not involve its military, including its Virginia-class boats, in US-China crises or conflicts that Australia viewed as not engaging important Australian interests”.The report cited comments by the Australian defence minister, Richard Marles, in March that the Aukus deal did not include any pre-commitments to the US regarding involvement in a potential future conflict over Taiwan.
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      The report added: “Virginia-class boats are less certain to be used in a US-China conflict over Taiwan, or less certain to be used in such a conflict in the way that the United States might prefer, if they are sold to Australia rather than retained in US Navy service.”In another argument that may embolden Republican critics of the submarine sale, the paper noted “the challenges that the US submarine industrial base is experiencing in achieving a desired construction rate of two Virginia-class boats per year”.The ability of the US to build replacement submarines for Virginia-class boats sold to Australia was “uncertain”, according to the paper first reported by the Australian Financial Review.The paper also suggested that the costs for Australia to acquire, operate and maintain Virginia-class submarines “could reduce, perhaps significantly, funding within Australia’s military budget for other Australian military capabilities” – especially if the figures “turn out to be higher than expected”.“If this were to occur, there could be a net negative impact on Australia’s overall military capabilities for deterring potential Chinese aggression.”The Australian government has repeatedly argued it will retain sovereign control of the submarines, despite arguments from the former prime ministers Malcolm Turnbull and Paul Keating that the multi-decade arrangement relies on US support and reduces Australia’s room to move.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut the new paper suggested it might be “more cost-effective to pursue a US-Australian division of labor” under which US submarines would perform both American and Australian missions “while Australia invests in other types of military forces”. It pointed to such arrangements between the US and its Nato allies.The paper also mentioned concerns about the impact of a potential accident, even though it said the Australian navy was “a fully professional force that would operate and maintain its Virginia-class boats in a manner fully adhering to the US Navy’s strict and exacting safety, quality-control, and accountability standards”.It said the sale “would unavoidably make another country responsible for preventing an accident” with a US-made submarine and any significant problem “might call into question for third-party observers the safety of all US Navy nuclear-powered ships”.On the other side of the ledger, the paper said supporters could argue that the Aukus deal “would substantially enhance deterrence of potential Chinese aggression by sending a strong signal to China of the collective determination of the United States and Australia, along with the UK, to counter China’s military modernization effort”.“The fact that the United States has never before sold a complete SSN [nuclear-powered submarine] to another country – not even the UK – would underscore the depth of this determination, and thus the strength of the deterrent signal it would send.”Instead of waiting for Australia to build its own submarines, the interim sale of Virginia-class submarines in the 2030s “would substantially accelerate the creation of an Australian force” of nuclear-powered submarines.That would “present China much sooner with a second allied decision-making center” for submarine operations in the Indo-Pacific region, “which would enhance deterrence of potential Chinese aggression by complicating Chinese military planning”. More

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      Biden vows to lead by example on curbing weapons of mass destruction

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      Joe Biden has accused Russia of “shredding longstanding arms control agreements” but pledged that the US would “lead by example” in limiting the spread of weapons of mass destruction.In his address to the UN general assembly, Biden castigated the Putin regime for its suspension, in February this year, of the 2010 New Start treaty, the last arms control agreement between the two countries.That suspension, coupled with Russia’s withdrawal from the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty in 2007, was “irresponsible and makes the entire world less safe”, the president said.However, Biden insisted that the US “is going to continue to pursue good faith efforts to reduce the threat of weapons of mass destruction and lead by example, no matter what else is happening in the world”.The statement appeared to be a confirmation that the US would continue the policy it has pursued since Vladimir Putin’s suspension of New Start, by not going beyond the treaty’s limits of 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads, and 700 deployed delivery systems.At the time of Moscow’s suspension of the New Start treaty, Russian officials said their government would continue to observe those limits, but there have been no inspections of Russian nuclear weapons facilities since the start of the Covid pandemic, and Russia has ceased to share data that was required by the agreement.In his speech, Biden said the US also remained committed to diplomatic means to containing North Korean’s nuclear weapons programme and would “remain steadfast in our commitment that Iran must never acquire nuclear weapons”.Daryl Kimball, the head of the Arms Control Association, welcomed Biden’s statement on the New Start limits.“I’m glad that Biden said this to keep the flame going, if you think about how you don’t have much room in a UN speech,” Kimball said. “It’s a positive signal that the United States remains ready to engage in serious dialogue on nuclear weapons production and arms control despite whatever else has happened in the Russian relationship.”In his address, Biden urged the UN general assembly to uphold the UN charter in its approach to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, framing it as a matter of principle, national sovereignty and territorial integrity that was essential to all UN members.“Russia believes that the world will grow weary and allow it to brutalise Ukraine without consequence,” Biden said. “But I ask you this: if we abandon the core principles … to appease an aggressor, can any member state in this body feel confident that they are protected? If we allow Ukraine to be carved up, is the independence of any nation secure?“I respectfully suggest the answer is no,” the president added. “We must stand up to this naked aggression today to deter other would-be aggressors tomorrow.”Much of the rest of Biden’s speech was dedicated to the principles of global cooperation to take on basic issues of poverty, human rights and the climate crisis. The US and other supporters of Ukraine are well aware that many countries at the UN, especially the developing nations in the Group of 77, are becoming restive at the focus on Ukraine, when the death toll from conflict, famine and climate change is so enormous in the global south. Biden stressed that he takes these concerns seriously.“My country has to meet this critical moment to work with countries in every region, in common cause to join together with partners who share a common vision of the future of the world,” he said. “The United States seeks a more secure, more prosperous, more equitable world for all people, because we know our future is bound up with yours … No nation can meet the challenges of today alone.” More

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      US and Iran expected to complete $6bn prisoner swap deal

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      The US and Iran are expected to pull off a controversial prisoner swap on Monday involving the unfreezing by the Biden administration of $6bn (£4.8bn) of Iranian oil money held in South Korea since 2018.Tehran and Washington are due to swap five prisoners each, including the conservationist Morad Tahbaz, a British-American citizen.In an elaborate and delicate diplomatic deal, months in the making, the five Americans are due to be flown from Tehran to Qatar before transferring to flights to Washington.Republicans and some former Iranian political detainees have accused Joe Biden of striking a deal with the world’s No 1 terrorist state that will only encourage Iran to keep hostage taking as a central part of its diplomatic arsenal. The state department says the money that is being released is Iranian-owned oil money frozen by the Trump administration in 2018 when the US left the Iran nuclear deal.Last week three European countries including the UK accused Iran of building stocks of highly enriched uranium that could have no possible civilian purpose.The US says the prisoner swap’s mediator, Qatar, will ensure that the unfrozen money is only spent on goods – primarily food, agricultural goods and medicine – that are not subject to sanctions. Critics say it will be impossible to police, and that the US threat to pull out if Iran breaks the agreement is bogus.The path to the swap reached a turning point when the state department agreed a waiver facilitating the release of the cash from South Korean banks to accounts in Switzerland and Doha.The five Americans have already been transferred out of Evin jail in Tehran to various hotels in the capital. They are due to be flown initially to Doha before flying to the US for a homecoming.Tahbaz was left in Iran when the British Iranian dual nationals Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori were released as part of a deal negotiated by the then UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss.The identities of five Iranians that are being granted clemency in the US have all been made public by Tehran. It is not clear that all of them want to return to Iran. Most of them were jailed for breaches of US sanctions.The deal is a coup for Qatar, which has acted as a mediator between two countries that deeply distrust one another. The Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, due to speak to the UN general assembly on Tuesday in New York, is likely to laud the deal as another sign of US weakness.Michael McCaul, the Republican chair of the House foreign affairs committee, has accused Biden of being naive and returning to the mistakes of the past .The Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis described Biden’s decision as outrageous, adding that it “has sent a signal to hostile regimes that if you take Americans, you could potentially profit … A rogue regime should know that if you touch the hair on the head of any American, you will have hell to pay.”Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, has criticised the timing of the release, so close to the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death in Iranian police custody.It is not clear if the deal will lead to a wider diplomatic breakthrough, or a new, less ambitious route to constrain Iran’s civil nuclear programme in which Tehran agrees to lower its stocks of highly enriched uranium.Iranian Americans, whose US citizenship is not recognised by Tehran, are often pawns between the two nations. In the last week there have been reports that three dual nationals were arrested in Iran and it was confirmed two weeks ago for the first time that Johan Floderus, an EU diplomat based in Iran, has been jailed since April 2022. More

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      Top US and Chinese diplomats meet in Malta to smooth strained relations

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      Top US and Chinese diplomats met in Malta over the weekend as the world’s two largest economies attempted to smooth strained relations and clear a path for their respective presidents – Joe Biden and Xi Jinping – to meet in November.According to both Beijing and Washington, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan met multiple times with China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, in Malta, where – according to separate statements – “candid, substantive and constructive” talks were held.A readout from the White House on Sunday said the two officials had discussed the US-China bilateral relationship, global and regional security concerns, Russia’s war against Ukraine, and issues around the Taiwan strait.China’s foreign ministry said the sides came away with an agreement to maintain high-level exchanges and hold bilateral consultations on Asia-Pacific affairs, maritime issues and foreign policy.The meetings are the first to be held between Sullivan and Wang since May, four months after Biden ordered American fighter jets to shoot down a Chinese-operated balloon off the US coast. China condemned the downing as “a serious violation of international practice”.The balloon’s downing later caused the Biden administration to cancel a trip to Beijing by the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken.Strained US-China relations over American support for Taiwan, trade frictions around intellectual property and a Chinese military buildup – particularly in the area of hypersonic missiles, which the US does not have – put in doubt a meeting between Biden and Xi at an Asia-Pacific economic cooperation (Apec) meeting in San Francisco in November.Last week, China’s top security agency hinted that any meeting between the two leaders depended on the US “showing sufficient sincerity”. Biden and Xi have not met since November 2022, when they had a three-and-a-half-hour sideline meeting at the G20 in Bali, Indonesia.After that meeting, Biden said the US will “compete vigorously” with China while insisting that he’s “not looking for conflict”. Xi said the countries need to “explore the right way to get along”.But Xi was a no-show at the G20 summit in New Delhi, India, last weekend. Biden later expressed disappointment but added that he was going to “get to see him”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSunday’s read-out provided by the White House said the meeting between Sullivan and Wang was part of “ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication and responsibly manage the relationship”.The statement added that the talks had built on the Bali conversation, the meetings of Sullivan and Wang in May, and US diplomatic visits to Beijing over the past several months by Blinken, treasury secretary Janet Yellen, special climate envoy John Kerry and commerce secretary Gina Raimondo.The US notice said that Sullivan “noted the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan strait” during the meetings. According to the Chinese foreign ministry statement, Wang cautioned the US that Taiwan is the “first insurmountable red line of Sino-US relations”.Reuters contributed reporting More

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      Donald Trump pleased at praise from Putin: ‘I like that he said that’

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      Donald Trump enjoyed hearing that he had drawn praise from the Russian leader Vladimir Putin, the former US president and frontrunner for the 2024 Republican White House nomination has said.Told during a recorded interview with Kristen Welker, the new NBC Meet the Press moderator, that Putin had fawned over his stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Trump replied: “I like that he said that. Because that means what I’m saying is right.”Trump’s remarks to Welker – circulated by NBC on Friday to promote the interview with the ex-president, which is scheduled to air on Sunday morning – drew condemnation from some political quarters. In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, the Republicans against Trump group shared a clip of the comments and wrote to its nearly half-million followers: “A vote for Trump is a vote against America.”One of the overarching themes during Trump’s lone term in the Oval Office centered on Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election, which Trump won.Putin has endorsed Trump’s repeated boasts that he could bring Russia’s conflict with Ukraine to an end within a matter of hours if he were elected to a second term in the White House.“Mr Trump says he will resolve all burning issues within several days, including the Ukrainian crisis,” Putin said at an economic forum in Russia recently. “We cannot help but feel happy about it.”Trump’s boasts on that topic have earned him derision from his Republican and Democratic opponents, saying a conclusion to the conflict would require a surrender to demands from Putin, whose forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022. But, in his conversation with Welker, Trump doubled down on his position, saying he would simply get Putin and Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy “into a room and I would get a deal worked out”.Asked by Welker for specifics on precisely how he would bring a swift conclusion to the war in Ukraine, Trump declined to answer, saying: “If I tell you exactly, I lose all my bargaining chips.”“I mean, you can’t really say exactly what you’re going to do,” Trump told Welker, according to NBC. “But I would say certain things to Putin. I would say certain things to Zelenskiy.”Welker noted to Trump that Russian bombs had destroyed maternity wards, and forces under Putin’s command had deliberately attacked civilians. Furthermore, the international criminal court (ICC) in the Hague in March issued an arrest warrant for Putin, accusing him of war crimes in connection with the abduction of Ukrainian children.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“It’s all terrible,” Trump told Welker.Trump has been facing more than 90 criminal charges across four separate indictments charging him with attempted subversion of the 2020 election that he lost to his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, retention of classified information after his presidency and hush-money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.Civil cases he is grappling with include a $250m lawsuit by the New York attorney general about his business affairs as well as a defamation claim stemming from a rape accusation that a judge has deemed to be “substantially true”.Trump nonetheless denies all wrongdoing and has sought to cast himself as the victim of political persecution. He also maintains substantial leads in national and key state polls regarding the 2024 Republican presidential primary. More

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      Joe Biden calls for stable US-China relationship during south-east Asia tour

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      Joe Biden’s national security tour of south-east Asia reached Hanoi, Vietnam, on Sunday, where the president called for stability in the US-China relationship against an increasingly complex diplomatic picture in the region for his country.“I don’t want to contain China,” Biden said. “I just want to make sure that we have a relationship with China that is on the up and up, squared away, everybody knows what it’s all about.”Biden also said that China’s recent economic downturn may limit any inclination to invade Taiwan.“I don’t think it’s going to cause China to invade Taiwan – matter of fact the opposite, probably doesn’t have the same capacity as it had before,” he said on Sunday during a press conference in Hanoi.He added that the country’s economic woes had left President Xi Jinping with “his hands full right now”.The president’s remarks came after a meeting with Nguyen Phu Trong, the general secretary of Vietnam’s ruling Communist party, in the nation’s capital designed to secure global supply chains of semiconductors and critical minerals, which would offer a strategic alternative to China.“I think we have an enormous opportunity,” Biden said of the visit. “Vietnam and the United States are critical partners at what I would argue is a very critical time.”The meeting came during a multi-front diplomatic push to shore up international support for Ukrainian resistance to Russia’s invasion and enunciate a policy toward China that both encourages trade and reduces the potential for US-Chinese conflict.The complexities of the administration’s approach were illustrated on Saturday, a day before Biden landed in Hanoi, when the New York Times reported that Vietnam is in talks with Russia over a new arms supply deal that could trigger US sanctions.Reuters said it had seen – but could not authenticate – documents describing talks for a credit facility that Russia would extend to Vietnam to buy heavy weaponry, including anti-ship missiles, anti-submarine aircraft and helicopters, anti-aircraft missile systems and fighter jets.Earlier, at the G20 summit in New Delhi, India, western leaders failed to reiterate an explicit condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The summit declaration referred only to the “war in Ukraine” and lamented the “suffering” of the Ukrainian people – an equivocation that indicates a growing lack of international consensus.Less than a year ago, G20 leaders still issued a strong condemnation of the Russian invasion and called on Moscow to withdraw its forces.Biden’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, attempted to smooth over the disparity, telling ABC’s This Week that world leaders meeting in New Delhi had “stood up very clearly, including in the statement, for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.Blinken said that virtually every meeting participant “is intent on making sure there is a just and durable end to this Russian aggression”.It was clear in the room, he said, that “countries are feeling the consequences and want the Russian aggression to stop”.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “The vast majority of G20 countries have supported multiple UN resolutions that call out Russia’s illegal aggression.”Jean-Pierre said the New Delhi communique “builds on that, to send an unprecedented, unified statement on the imperative that Russia refrain from using force for territorial acquisition, abide by its obligations in the UN charter, and cease attacks on civilians and infrastructure”.The comments came as a CBS News poll found only 1 in 4 Americans think Biden is improving the US’s global position. According to the survey, 24% thought Biden was making the US stronger, 50% said weaker and 26% that he was not having much effect.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionJust 29% said they were optimistic for the prospects of world peace and stability in the world, and 71% said they were increasingly pessimistic. Asked if the Biden administration was being “too easy” on China, 57% agreed.On CNN, Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley slammed the Biden administration’s policy toward China, describing the country as an “enemy”.“China has practically been preparing for war with us for years,” Haley said. “Yes, I view China as an enemy.”Haley said China had bought 400,000 acres (162,000 hectares) of US soil and the largest pork producer in the country, and continues to steal $600bn a year in intellectual property while spreading propaganda. She pointed to Chinese drones used by US law enforcement and to the crisis caused by Chinese-sourced fentanyl that “had killed more Americans than the Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam war combined”.“How much more has to happen for Biden to realize you don’t send cabinet members over to China to appease them?” she said, referring to the recent visit of the US commerce secretary, Gina Raimondo, to Beijing.The administration’s effort to present a coherent picture of US foreign policy toward its two most vexing issues – China and Russia – continued Sunday with vice-president Kamala Harris telling CBS News that a planned meeting between North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and Russia’s Vladimir Putin “would be a huge mistake”.“When you look at Russia’s unprovoked war on Ukraine, and the idea that they would supply ammunition to Russia – well, it’s predictable where that ends up,” Harris said. “I also believe very strongly that for both Russia and North Korea, this will further isolate them.”Harris also spoke to an emerging concern that China’s president, Xi Jinping, who skipped the G20, may decline to attend the Asia-Pacific economic cooperation leaders’ meeting in San Francisco, California, in November.Last week, China’s security agency hinted that a meeting between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden in San Francisco will depend on the US “showing sufficient sincerity”.China’s ministry of state security said that the country “will never let its guard down”.The comments came after Raimondo said the US did not want to decouple from China but that American companies had complained to her that China had become “uninvestible”.Asked how important it is for Xi Jinping to come to America, Harris remarked that “it is important to the … stability of things that we keep open lines of communication”. 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