This is CBS, I In The World. I'm John Bachelors. The Biden Administration and China policy.

I welcome Craig Singleton, a fellow at the Foundation for the Defensive Democracies,

particularly focused on China, because the policy is determinative of the fate of this

Administration and the next Administration. But I come to this story having been informed

that Beijing wishes to speak with Janet Yellen, Secretary of the Treasury, or Gina Romundo,

Secretary of Commerce, but not necessarily with Anthony Blinken, the Secretary of State.

At first I heard this information as a personality contest, but now I have reason to pause and

reconsider. I welcome Craig to help me understand what the Biden policy is towards the people's

Republic of China, or to be precise because I'm following his most recent article at Foreign

Policy, what the several policies are of the Biden Administration.

Craig, a very good evening to you. Several policies can be instructive. You keep the

foe or the adversary or the negotiator and the other side guessing. What are the several

policies? Are they commerce, treasury, and state could evening to you?

No, thanks so much, John. I mean, I think the several policies have a lot less to do with the

specific parts of the US government and a lot more with the tension that sort of exists within

this Administration about whether we can actually compete and coexist with China at the same time,

like how do we thread the needle there? And I think that the Chinese have very definitely exploited

those cleavages across the US interagency across these departments and agencies to sort of

play different sides off of one another. They do play favorites to some extent. I think domestically,

right, the result has been a really fractured policy making process at the White House that produces

very contradictory pronouncements, which I think more often than not contribute to confusion

rather than clarity. And I think on the, you know, the musical chairs of invitations to Beijing,

...