Dem Sen. Warner: Biden’s Restraining Statements on China Protests Because He Doesn’t ‘Want an Active Conflict to Erupt’

On Tuesday’s “CNN Newsroom,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) stated that the Biden administration hasn’t been as strong in its statements on the protests in China because they want to “lower some of the tensions” and we “don’t want an active conflict to erupt.”

Co-host Jim Sciutto asked, “I understand the administration’s reticence on not speaking out too openly in front of the — in favor of the protests. Because they don’t want China to do what it already does, which is to say, oh, this is a foreign plot and instigators from outside the country are causing all this, when this is very clearly a grassroots set of protests there. Do you, though, believe there is something — particularly as China is now cracking down on those protestors — something more that the U.S. could or should do to support the Chinese people when they express themselves this way?”

Warner answered, “I think there are things that those of us, leaders in the Senate and the House have a little more flexibility, frankly, than the administration. The administration, particularly after the most recent meeting between Xi and Biden, to try to have — lower some of the tensions, this is a — we don’t want an active conflict to erupt. I think those of us in the Congress have a little more freedom and I think we can push the administration, but as you said, we don’t want to feed the propaganda machine that turns these protests driven by Chinese people…[into] an anti-Chinese, or western plot, that undermines the very protesters that we’re trying to stand with.”

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