, Columnist
China Can’t Charm the World on the Cheap
Xi Jinping is assiduously wooing other nations to gain leverage against the US. But winning over America’s friends will cost more than he is willing to pay.
Xi didn’t give Macron much.
Photographer: Jacques Witt/POOL/AFP/Getty Images
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When your biggest geopolitical rival starts mimicking your tactics, as US President Joe Biden is discovering, it is anything but flattery.
In the early days of Biden’s presidency, his foreign policy team devised a plan to deal with China “from a position of strength.” One of its key components was to build a coalition of partners to gain leverage against America’s main rival.