IF YOU LOOK AROUND THE TABLE AND YOU DON’T KNOW WHO THE SUCKER IS, THE SUCKER IS YOU: White House hopes Biden’s relationship with Xi can defuse U.S.-China tensions.

Now that Chinese President Xi Jinping has consolidated power and effectively ended collective rule, he’s the lone figure in Beijing making decisions that will drive future relations, according to U.S. officials who were granted anonymity to offer frank assessments of the relationship.

It is Xi who will decide whether China invades Taiwan; Xi who will determine whether China gives lethal arms to Russia in its war in Ukraine; Xi who will calibrate how hard to push North Korea into curbing a nuclear arms program that threatens the United States and its allies.

“The answer is China. Now what’s the question?” Jeremy Bash, a former CIA chief of staff, said on the country’s role in global affairs as Xi starts another five-year term.

One question is whether the Biden administration can deter Xi from actions that put the two nations on a path to conflict. Biden often tells aides that when they speak publicly about China, they should stress the need to open lines of communication, a senior administration official said.

Yet because of Xi’s dominance in China’s system, the only conduit that truly matters in staving off catastrophe is the one that exists between the two presidents, administration officials and analysts say.
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Having gotten to know Xi, Biden hopes to use those insights to put the U.S. and China on a safer footing. A recent security assessment written by U.S. intelligence officials warns that China wants to build a “world-class military” capable of “offsetting perceived U.S. military superiority.”

Hope is not a plan. Buffing up the Navy and eliminating the woke BS in favor of real training… now that’s a plan.