If you were to consider a job description of the President of the United States, about 80% of it would involve issues of national defense and foreign policy — dealing with the other countries of the world, and keeping America safe. All of the responsibility for defense and foreign policy of the United States is under the personal control of whoever is the President. Whatever else you might have thought of him, and whether or not you agreed with his approach on any given issue, President Trump at least took his responsibilities in these areas seriously. Now we have Joe Biden.

To give you an idea of how seriously Biden takes his responsibilities, when he was Vice President he thought that it was perfectly OK for his son Hunter to travel with him on Air Force 2 to China in 2013 to solicit investments from Chinese-government-controlled funds. And Joe thought it was perfectly OK for Hunter’s company to accept an investment of approximately $1 billion of Chinese-government-controlled money, with Hunter having a prospective ownership interest in management fees charged on that investment. And then in 2017, after Joe had left the Vice Presidency but was planning a run for President, Joe thought it was perfectly OK for his son Hunter to negotiate a joint venture with a Chinese-government-controlled energy company. And then, when the joint venture didn’t go forward, Joe thought it was perfectly OK for Hunter to get a $5 million “non-interest-bearing forgivable loan” from this Chinese energy company.

Can you remember all the way back to January 6? That was the day — with Trump safely headed for the exit door — that China chose to make its move against Hong Kong, rounding up some 53 of the principal opposition politicians who were attempting to run in legislative elections in that city. Now only a couple of weeks on, that event (and its aftermath) seems to have completely faded from mainstream news coverage around here.

This past Saturday, China took its next step: sending a fleet of warplanes into the air defense zone of Taiwan to test the response. From Reuters, January 23:

Eight Chinese bomber planes and four fighter jets entered the southwestern corner of Taiwan’s air defence identification zone on Saturday, and Taiwan’s air force deployed missiles to “monitor” the incursion, the island’s defence ministry said.

According to the Reuters report, previously China had sent fairly regular reconnaissance missions into this Taiwanese “air defense identification zone,” but the fleet of twelve serious warplanes represented a major escalation of these provocations.

What was the U.S. response? Again from Reuters:

“We urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic, and economic pressure against Taiwan and instead engage in meaningful dialogue with Taiwan’s democratically elected representatives,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement. “We will continue to assist Taiwan in maintaining a sufficient self-defence capability.”

Back in my litigation days, we used to call that kind of response the “firm letter.” Serious adversaries would pay little or no attention to it.

In other news of the past few days, one of Biden’s early Executive Orders seems to have rescinded a Trump directive excluding Chinese-government-controlled companies from participation in the U.S. electrical grid. Also, Biden has agreed to re-join the Paris climate accord, under which the U.S. agrees to significant restrictions on its economy and China makes no commitments whatsoever.

I think it is virtually certain that coming months will see ever-escalating probes and tests coming out of China, looking for how the U.S. will respond. What we need is someone in charge who is intelligent and seriously engaged in thinking out the strategy. What we have instead is someone who is on the payroll of China and, from what little he has ever said about the subject, doesn’t even realize that he is compromised. In any event, Biden’s focus is on achieving perfect justice and fairness among all people here at home, and he can’t really be expected to trouble himself too much with these foreign policy issues.