Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) recently commented on ongoing mistakes the White House has made in its dealings with China, including claiming that the Biden Administration is employing the same approach to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that has been tried and failed for the past 30 years.
“This is the trap of zombie engagement,” Gallagher wrote in a June 14 WSJ article entitled "Zombie Engagement with Beijing." “It almost always places the burden of ‘improving’ relations on the U.S. rather than demanding that Beijing adjust its malign behavior. We give up the farm simply to get to the negotiating table. Once we’re there, we’re beholden to an entirely new process of concessions because of the pressure to present ‘deliverables.’”
Gallagher said in the WSJ article that the strategy being used by the Biden Administration is simply the idea that “economic growth would lead to political liberalization.” However, Gallagher claimed that after witnessing the attempts to put this theory into practice over the last three decades, it is clear that economic development has only led to China’s dominating tendencies becoming emboldened.
According to a New York Post article, one such example of China’s emboldened actions is the supposed agreement between Cuba and China. The NY Post reported China is preparing to build a military facility on Cuban soil which would place Chinese troops within 90 miles of the U.S.
According to the WSJ article, Gallagher called the strategy “zombie engagement” due to the fact that it has continually seemed as if it was finished. Gallagher said, "like a zombie in a horror movie, the strategy of unfettered engagement has come back from the dead.”
He gave three facts that he claimed Washington ignores when choosing to engage the CCP in this way. The first is that invariably, when engaged, one tends to seek placation when confronted with foreign threats. Secondly, said Gallagher, is a paradox in which the more worrisome we are over arousing China, the more we allow the smallest offense to be a cause of provocation. Lastly, Gallagher said that “the approach simply doesn’t work,” and has been proven thus through the CCP’s continual threats to the U.S. despite our economic engagement.
According to a June 19 Twitter post from the House Select Committee on the CCP, Gallagher appeared on "Fox and Friends" and said, “We have to push back on this message from the Chinese Communist Party that anything less than cooperation with the world order they desire is choosing conflict. They are choosing conflict.”
According to a Fox News article, Alfred University, a U.S. university, announced it will be closing its Confucius Institute after Gallagher heavily criticized the grant it was receiving.
“The Confucius Institute is only one tool in the CCP’s toolbox,” Gallagher said, according to Fox News. “We’re going to continue to dig into the facts to make sure that no American taxpayer dollars are supporting research partnerships that the CCP can exploit for its own purposes.”
In the WSJ article, Gallagher concluded with a quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn: “The very ideology of communism, all Lenin’s teachings are that ... if you can take it, do so. If you can attack, strike. But if there’s a wall, then retreat. The Communist leaders respect only firmness and have contempt for persons who continually give in to them.” Gallagher said that war is not the only alternative, but said that this “zombie engagement” must stop and the U.S. must defend against the impending threat of China with a more firm strategy.
