The 10 best things President Biden did in 2023
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9. He further strengthened restrictions on China’s access to advanced technology. Last year, the administration blocked U.S. companies from selling chips or semiconductor equipment to China. This year, the president further tightened the tech noose, banning Americans from investing in Chinese companies developing advanced semiconductors and quantum computers.
8. He hosted the first trilateral summit with South Korea, Japan and the United States. The Camp David meeting of the three allies was a watershed moment for security in East Asia. As one George W. Bush administration official put it: “We could barely get South Korean and Japanese leaders to meet with us in the same room.” Biden continued to strengthen U.S. alliances to counter China in other ways, as well, conducting joint military drills with Japan and Australia in Chinese-claimed areas of the South China Sea; launching the second pillar of his historic agreement with Britain and Australia (known as AUKUS) to jointly develop advanced military capabilities to counter Beijing; holding his third leader-level summit of the Indo-Pacific Quad (Japan, Australia, India and the United States); and conducting a state visit to Hanoi to strengthen our partnership with Vietnam.
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7. He launched the “Replicator Initiative” to better compete with China. It can take a decade or more to put a new weapons system in the hands of warfighters. This project aims to fast-track weapons development and production so the Defense Department can rapidly field thousands of inexpensive, disposable unmanned systems (such as “swarm drones”) with the goal of delivering new capabilities to U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific region in 18 to 24 months to help counter China’s military buildup.
6. He provided military aid to Taiwan under a program reserved for sovereign states. The $80 million arms sale was unprecedented — the first ever approved for Taiwan using the Foreign Military Financing program that allows partner nations to purchase U.S. defense articles, services and training through grants or loans — a move that angered Beijing.
President Biden stood by his prior comment that he considers Chinese President Xi Jinping a dictator after their meeting on Nov. 15. (Video: The Washington Post)5. He called Xi Jinping a dictator … twice. In June, Biden called the Chinese leader a “dictator,” drawing a stinging rebuke from China. In November, following a summit in San Francisco, Biden repeated the charge, calling Xi “a dictator … who runs a country that is a communist country that’s based on a form of government totally different than ours” while U.S. officials visibly cringed. Good for him.
Follow this authorMarc A. Thiessen's opinionsFollow4. He signed a GOP bill overturning D.C.’s disastrous changes to its crime code. At a time........
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