“Whining is Not Competing,” Says Top DC Foreign Policy Scholar in Response to Biden’s BRI Remarks

U.S. President Joe Biden repeated the often debunked Chinese debt trap accusation during press conference with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on June 8, 2023. Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP

U.S. President Joe Biden’s latest criticism of China’s Belt and Road Initiative as a “debt and confiscation program” triggered an intense debate in Washington’s foreign policy community over whether it was merited.

Soon after the President made the remarks during a press conference with visiting UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Evan Feigenbaum, a prominent Washington Asia expert, took to Twitter with a long, multipart thread that blasted Biden’s framing of the BRI.

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