There have been more than a few raised eyebrows about the lavish reception President Donald Trump had for Chinese president Xi Jinping during his visit to Washington last week. Trump even personally greeted the communist leader on the airport tarmac.
Jack Keane, a foreign policy and national security expert, recently pointed out to Fox News that Trump has consistently pursued a transactional approach to foreign policy.
Though Keane has also warned that Xi could try to use that cooperation to advance China's interests, particularly regarding Taiwan, he says the president's willingness to work with China when the two countries have overlapping interests does not necessarily mean Trump has softened his position toward China, but rather that he sees negotiations and personal relationships as tools for advancing U.S. interests.
"During the Biden administration, China, Russia, Iran and North Korea decided to work together because they thought American leadership was weak; there were opportunities because of the vulnerabilities," he noted. "With Iran, they're receiving support from all three countries as well, China being one of them."
In the middle of Xi Jinping's three-day diplomatic summit with Trump, The Wall Street Journal published an investigative report exposing that Beijing had sent roughly 1,300 air shipments of dual-use electronics, missile guidance parts, and chemical precursors to Iran.
U.S. officials are aware that China has historically provided various forms of support to Iran, such as intelligence assistance, geospatial data for targeting U.S. military assets, and components supporting ballistic missile development.
But this is different, a revelation from U.S. and Israeli intelligence that Iranian ballistic missiles are being produced at a rate that exceeds the capacity of Israel's Iron Dome and U.S. base defenses. Keane called it "alarming."
"China moved solid fuel for ballistic missiles to Iran and thousands and thousands of components to accelerate the development of ballistic missiles," Keane relayed. "Those missiles were being developed at a rate that alarmed our intelligence services. The Israelis and their major cities, the Iron Dome was not going to be able to protect them to the degree to keep the casualties down, and it would exceed our ability to protect U.S. bases."
He said that proved to be one of the reasons we went to war.
"I wish we had emphasized it actually more at the time," Keane stated. "What happened here is China played a role in that decision. We shouldn't be surprised by this, and we have every right to push back on it."
Amid these disturbing reports, and as China and Russia aim to support Iran to prolong regional conflicts and diminish U.S. influence in the Middle East, Trump has announced that he plans to have another meeting with Xi Jinping in China in November.
