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Michael Sobolik Profile picture
Michael Sobolik
@michaelsobolik
Christ-follower | senior fellow @afpc | author “Countering China’s Great Game” @USNIbooks | host GREAT POWER PODCAST | @chelspat’s husband | cocktails
Apr 17 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
A bombshell scoop from @Hailey_Fuchs of @politico

“The Chinese Embassy has held meetings with congressional staff to lobby against the legislation that would force a sale of TikTok, according to two of the Capitol Hill staffers.” Image subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2024/0…
Feb 5 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
If Congress can’t muster the ability to renew these Compacts, Washington will jeopardize its own military posture in the Indo-Pacific. We’ll also imperil our credibility.

An entirely avoidable case of self-sabotage. Or at least, it should be. We’re acting like our presence in the Pacific is a given. It isn’t.
Dec 28, 2023 • 14 tweets • 2 min read
Looking back on 2023, perhaps the biggest China policy disappointment was Washington's failure to ban TikTok.

It's worth exploring why TikTok has survived -- and why 2024 promises to be a tough year to ban the app.

1/x Let’s compare the failure to ban TikTok with the biggest China policy win over the past few years: the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. Why is the former stuck, and why did the latter succeed?

Which is another way of asking: how does policy change happen in Washington?

2/x
Sep 13, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
.⁦@elonmusk, on ⁦@theallinpod⁩: “I think I understand China well…”

Then proceeds to compare Taiwan to Hawaii: “an integral part of China that is arbitrarily not part of China”

He’s repeating CCP talking points with no mention of US interests. Notable… 🇹🇼 Foreign Minister Joseph Wu responds to @elonmusk…
May 11, 2023 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Wendy Sherman lobbied against the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in 2021.

Now she’s blocking sanctions on CCP officials and companies like Huawei.

Why? Because she “was eager to reschedule the Blinken trip” to China.
reuters.com/world/us/why-u… Can’t underscore enough how big of a scoop this is from @michaelvmartina.
Jun 6, 2022 • 16 tweets • 5 min read
.@nfergus has a big column calling for Biden to pursue detente with Xi Jinping.

He argues that Biden is playing aggressively with a weak hand, and that he should buy time to with Xi to fix domestic problems instead.

A few thoughts…

🧵1/x bloomberg.com/opinion/articl… Niall certainly isn’t soft on the CCP. He concludes his article with these words: “I, too, would loathe to live in a world where China called the shots.”

“But,” he asks, “is Joe Biden’s deeply flawed grand strategy making such a world less likely? Or more?”

2/x
Jun 2, 2022 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
Thought the UN couldn't stoop any lower than @mbachelet's awful trip to China?

Think again.

The UN @globalcompact just released its China Strategy. Read it and weep.

🧵1/x unglobalcompact.org/library/6052 Image According to the report, "China can play a key role in advancing the mission of the UN Global Compact globally."

What's the mission of @globalcompact? It's upholding these ten values.

🇨🇳 is an egregious violator in each category. 2/x Image
Jan 17, 2022 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
Owner of the @warriors🏀 says he doesn’t care about the Uyghurs.

The conversation goes downhill from there.

@chamath…

- questions whether a genocide is actually happening
- says the CCP isn’t a dictatorship
- says the US is no better than the CCP Source:
Dec 13, 2021 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
WHAT?

The White House cut the video feed of Taiwan’s Digital Minister during the Summit of Democracies.

Why?

Because Audrey Tang’s slide show displayed 🇹🇼 in a different color than 🇨🇳

This is insane. reuters.com/world/asia-pac… “Tang's presentation included a color-coded map…ranking the world by openness on civil rights.
Most of Asia was shown, with Taiwan colored green, making it the only regional entity portrayed as ‘open.’”

China was correctly marked red.
Dec 3, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
This line from @joshrogin's scoop last night is troubling:

"[Wendy Sherman] also told Merkley that getting allied buy-in was critical and more effective than unilateral action."

This thinking, in extremis, is crippling America's China policy.🧵1/x
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/… The unilateralism-multilateralism debate in Washington is a well-worn trope - and reflects poor thinking.

It’s not an either/or proposition.

It should be: under what conditions does a unilateral or multilateral approach best secure US interests on a given issue?

2/x
Dec 2, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Go to the 1:40 mark. @marcorubio explains the silly procedural games being played to block the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.

“The blue slip cannot mean, ‘It applies when I’m not for the policy, and it doesn’t apply when I’m for it.’” For those who want more detail…

In this case, the “blue slip” issue refers to a constitutional requirement (Article I, Section 7, clause 1) that revenue-generating legislation needs to originate in the House.
Dec 2, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Procedural games are being played here to mask a political debate.

By attaching Rubio-Merkley amendment to underlying bill, the Dems are setting up a symbolic vote that would be rendered meaningless the moment the substitute amendment passes.

Senate procedure 101. That gambit masks the political debate.

The White House is blocking this amendment. They are protecting climate equities with China.

The Rubio-Merkley amendment strikes at heart of that issue. Because Uyghur slave labor produces China’s solar panels in Xinjiang.
Oct 6, 2021 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
This phrase “responsible competition” isn’t new, but it reveals where the Biden administration is trending on China policy.

And it isn’t good.

🧵1/x whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/… Image From what I can tell, President Biden first used this phrase publicly in New York last month during his UNGA remarks. abcnews.go.com/Politics/full-…

2/x Image
Sep 14, 2021 • 32 tweets • 8 min read
🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼

Upgrading TECRO's name to include "Taiwan" isn't the threat many fear it to be -- nor is it the strategic win others hope it could be.

🧵 1/x Per @Dimi @FT, the Biden Administration is actively considering this step - specifically, changing the name of Taiwan's de facto embassy from “Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office” to “Taiwan Representative Office." 2/x ft.com/content/07810e…
Sep 1, 2021 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
In 2018, 🇺🇸 got serious about 🇨🇳 influence campaigns in America - particularly in our universities.

But Beijing has begun pushing back, in ways policymakers have yet to address. @Joshua_Eisenman & I explain in @ForeignPolicy.

🧵1/x foreignpolicy.com/2021/08/31/chi… For the past three years, Congress has had a three-part response to CCP influence campaigns:

(1) singling out complicit institutions

See UT-Austin and the LBJ School's attempt to take $$ from CCP-backed China-US Exchange Foundation $2 million

2/x washingtonpost.com/opinions/globa…
Aug 30, 2021 • 11 tweets • 6 min read
Good competitive strategies flow from net assessments. If we want to compete effectively against the CCP, we need to identify their weaknesses first.

A particular (and peculiar) weakness for Xi Jinping: Maoism.

My latest, in @TheNatlInterest nationalinterest.org/feature/mao%E2… True, Xi literally copy-pasted Mao’s cult-of-personality playbook to secure his hold on power.

But Maoism is also giving voice to millions of Chinese who increasingly wonder whether Xi’s “China Dream” applies to them.