US Republicans slam Biden for ‘weakness’ on China protests; UK’s Sunak seethes over journalist detention

US President Joe Biden’s administration backed “everyone’s right to peacefully protest” in its initial response to a groundswell of public outrage in several Chinese cities against Beijing’s continued zero-Covid policy.

“This includes in the [People’s Republic of China]”, the White House National Security Council announced, adding that it would be “very difficult” for China to contain the virus through the strict strategy pursued by President Xi Jinping since the pandemic started.

The statement, which came amid similar comments from leaders in Britain and the EU, also emphasised that the US remained focused on employing public health tools such as vaccines and booster shots, and making tests and treatment more accessible.

The White House’s words sparked a wave of criticism from US Republicans, who called the response “weak”, and other right-wing commentators, who had slammed Biden for his “silence” before the statement emerged.

Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas and member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, for example, described it as “pitiful” and a “potentially historic inflection point”.

Democrats “shill for the CCP”, said Cruz, one of the Senate’s most vocal critics of China. “Pure weakness from the Biden administration. It’s almost as if Biden wishes he was driving a tank in Tiananmen Square.”

Kevin McCarthy, the Republican Party’s top House lawmaker, said the domestic pushback against China’s Covid lockdowns underscored the need for a new panel focused solely on Beijing in the Congress that begins in January. McCarthy last week outlined his plan for a “select committee on China”.

The criticism against Biden follows collective anger in China over the deaths of at least 10 quarantined people in a fire in Urumqi, capital of China’s northwestern Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, compounded by fears of lockdowns and forced isolation at government-designated centres. That discontent led to sporadic protests in several Chinese cities including Beijing and Shanghai since Friday.

Meanwhile, some China experts are advising the US and other Western powers to avoid overt support for protesters, fearing that such a tactic would help the Chinese authorities discredit public protest as an anti-China stunt sponsored by “foreign forces”.

Ryan Hass, senior fellow at Washington-based Brookings Institution, said he hoped the US government “maintains discipline” and would not allow its “outspokenness” to “give PRC leadership opportunity to deflect anger away from them”.

Taisu Zhang, a professor at Yale Law School, expressed hope that “American politicians can have enough sense and decency to keep their mouths shut about Chinese protests”.

“Nothing they say can possibly make things better – in fact, it’ll almost certainly make things much worse,” he added, urging the “higher-ups to stay the hell out of China’s domestic politics (ideally forever, but at least now…)”.

Pressed in a regular White House briefing about whether Biden would make any specific calls “for China to stop detaining and harming protesters and journalists”, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the administration was monitoring the situation.

“We’re watching this closely as you might expect we would,” Kirby said. “We continue to stand up and support the right of peaceful protest, and I think we’re going to watch this closely and we’ll see where things go.”

Even as Biden has yet to personally comment on the matter, European leaders and cabinet ministers have been outspoken.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reacted furiously to the “shocking and unacceptable” arrest of a BBC journalist covering the protests.

The BBC said journalist Ed Lawrence was “arrested and handcuffed” while covering the demonstrations, then “beaten and kicked” by police in Shanghai.

“The arrest of this journalist who was simply going about their work is shocking and unacceptable,” said a spokesperson for Sunak. “Journalists must be able to do their jobs without fear of intimidation.”

China’s foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian defended the action by claiming that the journalist had not identified himself as a reporter.

Nabila Massrali, a spokeswoman for the European Union, told the Post “we are following closely the widespread protests in many Chinese cities, against the country’s strict zero-Covid policy”.

Ahead of European Council President Charles Michel’s trip to Beijing for meetings with senior Chinese officials including Xi on Thursday, his spokesperson declined to comment on whether Michel would raise the protests, but confirmed that the trip would not be affected by the protests in China nor Beijing’s widespread Covid outbreak.

Lawmakers urged Michel to discourage Xi from cracking down on the protests, which are unprecedented in an ever more tightly controlled China.

“By concentrating all power in his hands, Xi Jinping has also ensured that criticism lands directly at his doorstep. The extraordinary slogans ‘Xi Jinping, resign!’ and ‘We don’t want an emperor’ express this,” said Reinhard Buetikofer, head of the European Parliament’s delegation to China.

“When Charles Michel visits Beijing on December 1, he absolutely must make the protests an issue,” Buetikofer said. “He should repeat the offer to help China by providing European Covid vaccines.

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“He should at the same time present an unequivocal message to Xi Jinping that the EU is prepared to put any crackdown policy towards the protests onto the agenda of international fora and to impose additional sanctions if necessary,” he added.

In Berlin, during a press conference on Monday, chief spokesperson for the federal government Steffen Hebestreit urged the Chinese government to start using Western vaccines to immunise its people against Covid.

The German government had “taken note” of the situation and “reports about partly violent actions of the [Chinese] security forces against the demonstrators”, he said, according to a Politico report.

Hebestreit suggested mRNA vaccines such as those produced by German company BioNTech could help Beijing move clear of the interminable period of lockdowns. Germany and Europe writ large have had “very good experiences” with the vaccines, he said.

Representatives from BioNTech were among the business executives to accompany German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to Beijing earlier this month, where it was agreed that German nationals in China could receive the jab, which has not been licensed for widespread use.

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“It would be advisable if Chancellor Scholz could offer the Communist Party in China more vaccines because it is obvious that their level of effectiveness is different from those vaccines that are used in China,” Omid Nouripour, leader of the German Green Party, said in Berlin on Monday, according to German media outlet ZDF.

However, the Chinese government’s position does not appear open to the viewpoints of Western governments, as state media have begun blaming “foreign forces” while drawing parallels with Ukraine.

An opinion article published in Global Times, a pro-government tabloid in China, accused Western media of “badmouthing China’s epidemic like how Washington fans the flames in Russia-Ukraine conflict”.

“Some Western forces tend to write off all the efforts and achievements China has made to rein in the virus, while putting the shortcomings under scrutiny to provoke confrontation and stir up chaos on Chinese soil,” it read.

Additional reporting by Robert Delaney