The GOP's China hardliners are too scared to stand up too Trump and look more toothless by the day

• Washington's China hawks, especially Republicans in the Senate, can't seem to get the president to focus on any China issues that don't have to do with trade.
• This was painfully clear this week when an hour long speech Trump was supposed to give about Hong Kong turned into a campaign grievance speech. Hong Kong was mentioned for about 43 seconds.
• As the week went on White House made more aggressive pronouncements against China, but that's all they were — pronouncements.
• According to the laws of Trumpism China hawks can't break with their leader, so all of this is making them look insignificant.
• This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.

It has got to be hard to be China hawk in Washington these days.

Despite all the aggressive talk coming out of the White House, the China hawks — hardliners who want to confront Beijing aggressively — are mostly getting just that: talk. And when the White House decides to do more than just talk, it's usually too little too late.

To illustrate my point, let's talk about the city of Hong Kong — a semi-autonomous special administrative region of China. On December 5, GOP Sen. Marco Rubio — an outspoken China hawk — wrote an op-ed in Fox News explaining the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. The law, recently signed by the president, authorized sanctions against individuals who violated the rights of Hong Kongers and mandated an annual report on the state of democracy in the territory.

Trump said little about the situation, just as he'd said little about Hong Kong — which had been beset by social unrest — the entire year. He did not, like president's before him, make speeches about standing up for democracy or human rights or America as a shining city on a hill. In a June 2019 interview with Time the most he would say about the protesters was that they seemed effective.

As the year wore on China grew more aggressive, but Trump never showed any real interest in Hong Kong no matter what his fellow Republicans said. Then finally last month China passed a sweeping security law that prohibits secession, subversion, and collusion with foreign forces — or more simply, any political activity that displeases Beijing.

Even after this move to gut any semblance of democracy in Hong Kong, Trump's indifference was on full display this week when President Trump made a White House Rose Garden speech that was supposed to be about human rights in Hong Kong. The president spent about 43 seconds talking about China's encroachment on the city's rights — focusing instead on how the US was losing a fierce business competitor — and spent the rest making the case for his reelection. Hunter Biden, Democratic nominee Joe Biden's son, even got a shoutout.

To Trump his reelection hinges on pleasing his base. His base, he thinks, will be pleased to see the sale of farm goods enshrined in his Phase One trade deal with China. And so this trade deal is paramount, and the things hawks like Rubio want — a focus on human rights and China's encroaching power in Asia — are just afterthoughts to Trump.

This is why being a China hawk has got to be tough in Washington right now. Sure, you get to say all the things you want to say, but the real support of the President is fleeting, or non-existent. Plus, Republican hawks are too feckless to break with the President. That means being a China hawk is more work.

To pass the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, Rubio and other hawks had to deal with a lack of support from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, for example, who reportedly slow rolled the bill last year so Trump could close his trade deal.

Talking loud, saying nothing

Of course, perhaps there was no way to stop what was going to happen to Hong Kong. After Beijing passed the national security law curbing civil society in Hong Kong, it also summarily declared primaries for the city's pro-democracy party illegal after the fact. In a city of 7 million, over 600,000 people participated in those primaries, and they could've shifted the power in Hong Kong's legislature. China couldn't have that.

So perhaps there was nothing the US could've done to save Hong Kong, China was too committed to bringing the island to heel.

But Hong Kong isn't the only issue that leaves China hawks looking ineffectual. On Tuesday Assistant Secretary of East Asian and Pacific Affairs David Stilwell gave a speech excoriating China for its military build out of the South China Sea and threatening sanctions against Chinese companies involved.

This sounds fierce, but the US has basically been saying the same thing about the South China Sea for 10 years, and we still haven't come up with a plan to curb China's influence there. Here's the Washington Post on the same issue in 2010 (h/t Bill Bishop, Sinocism):

"Faced with a Chinese government increasingly intent on testing US strength and capabilities, the United States unveiled a new policy that rejected China's claims to sovereignty over the whole South China Sea. It rebuffed Chinese demands that the U.S. military end its longtime policy of conducting military exercises in the Yellow Sea. And it is putting new pressure on Beijing not to increase its energy investments in Iran as Western firms leave..."

Under Trump, we should note, China has increased investment in Iran. And when it comes to the South China Sea this go-round the US is just repeating itself more aggressively. This is what it looks like when the White House has no real plan of action.

Also in the department of meaningless actions, the New York Times reports that the Trump administration is considering banning all 92 million members of the Chinese Communist Party from entering the United States.

For one thing, the US is not exactly an attractive destination right now given how the President has surrendered the fight against the coronavirus. And for another, banning millions of Chinese people from entering the country won't matter one iota to Beijing. This was supposed to be a sign that the gloves were coming off at the White House, and maybe they did — but now China knows they were covering soft, tiny hands. There's nothing China hawks can do about.