EXCLUSIVE: Top Republicans slam John Kerry's 'appeasement' of CCP during climate trip to China: This...
Top are slamming , saying it was a 'sign of weakness,' on the world stage and resulted in no concrete solutions. Kerry, the U.S. special envoy on and former secretary of state, flew to this week to conduct meetings on climate change with the communist country's top leadership. China Select Committee Chairman Mike Gallagher told DailyMail.com Wednesday that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) only respects displays of strength, which Kerry did not convey during his recent trip. 'As a Marxist -Leninist regime, they interpret conciliation as weakness and respect only firmness and use it as an opportunity to advance their aggressive agenda,' said Gallagher in response to a question by DailyMail.com. He said that the reason the CCP prefers Kerry as their 'primary interlocutor' is because he believes 'naively and wrongly in my view' that that climate change - and not the CCP itself - is the 'greatest threat that we face.' House GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik called Kerry's trip a 'pathetic' attempt at 'appeasing Communist China' in a statement to DailyMail.com. 'While the CCP is conducting cyber espionage attacks on U.S. executive agencies, operating an intelligence collection facility in our backyard, and buying up U.S. agricultural land next to sensitive military installations, Joe Biden continues to pander to the CCP by sending John Kerry to Beijing, ignoring their aggressions, to engage in futile discussions about climate change with the world's biggest polluter,' said Stefanik. Gallagher added that the CCP is not particularly interested in combating climate change, contrary to the administration's claims. 'I think there's a mountain of evidence to suggest that the CCP is one of the worst environmental actors in the world,' he stated. 'And our overall energy policy right now seems designed to increase our dependency on China, particularly for electric vehicle batteries and solar panel subcomponents,' he added. Gallagher said it's 'typical of zombie engagement thinking' where Kerry and other administration officials 'delude themselves into thinking they can separate their pet issue from the genocidal communist nature of the regime in Beijing.' Kerry is the third top Biden administration official to travel to China in recent weeks. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also have met with their counterparts. The chairman also commented on 100-year-old former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's travel to China this week. Gallagher said he hadn't yet read about what was discussed between Kissinger and China's defense minister Li Shangfu, but he sees it as a way the CCP is 'testing' and also 'humiliating' the U.S. on the world stage. Kissinger was able to meet with Li despite the CCP snubbing current Biden Defense Sec. Lloyd Austin's request to meet a few weeks ago. Gallagher said the meeting was perhaps a way for the CCP to throw 'salt in our wounds' by allowing Li to meet with Kissinger and not Austin. He called it 'pretty incredible' that 100-year-old Kissinger is still able to travel around the world and conduct high-level meetings. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, told DailyMail.com during an exclusive interview Tuesday that it's a 'sign of full hypocrisy' to have the Biden administration's Climate Czar John Kerry 'jetting around the world in an airplane.' Ernst said Kerry's trips violate 'all kinds of fossil fuel, flames and emissions' standards that he criticizes everybody else for. 'So I think that the climate czar needs to stay home focus on his green energy policy.'