For years being "soft" on China was a political insult hurled across the aisle.Great-power competition ruled.
Washington increasingly prepared for the possibility of war with Beijing as the national security world pivoted toward the Indo-Pacific.The scene in D.C.last week looked markedly different as President Donald Trump attempts to welcome in a new era with world's second biggest super power and growing adversary — especially when it comes to the ever-changing tech landscape.Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping with a red carpet and the pomp of a state visit last week, speaking warmly about his relationship with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader as the two sides looked for new areas of cooperation."The summit went great — for Xi Jinping," Scott Kennedy, a China economics expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Fox News Digital.President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping pictured at a state dinner at the White House.
(Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)'RED CARPET FOR A DESPOT': TRUMP'S LAVISH XI WELCOME COLLIDES WITH GOP ANTI-COMMUNISM MESSAGEThe reception was striking given how Washington's leaders has spent years describing the challenge posed by Beijing: Chinese hackers penetrating American networks, state-backed efforts to steal U.S.technology and trade secrets, unfair trade practices and a rapidly expanding military with its sights set on Taiwan.Gordon Chang, a China analyst and author who has long advocated a harder line toward Beijing, said there was a distinction between keeping lines of communication open with a rival and giving Xi the reception he received in Washington."I understand that you have a need for dialogue, but when you have that dialogue, you don't necessarily have to have all of the ceremony and all the legitimization," Chang told Fox News Digital.
"We can talk to the Chinese, but we don't need to do it in the way that occurred last week."Trump, however, is betting that a warmer relationship...