FACTS
On August 31, 2026, Miles Yu argued in The Washington Times that closed-door or “quiet” diplomacy with Beijing can become dangerous when policymakers substitute private assurances for verifiable conduct. Free China Movement has published a six-language Editorial / Policy Statement examining that argument alongside its documented warnings during the Hong Kong handover and the 2000 PNTR debate.
THE PROBLEM
Diplomacy itself is necessary. The problem is diplomacy that treats unverifiable promises as evidence of political change while measurable outcomes point in the opposite direction. Decades of engagement gave the Mainland Chinese Communist Government far greater access to markets, technology and international institutions, but did not produce the political liberalization many advocates expected.
FCM COMMENT / FOLLOW-UP
Free China Movement supports a different standard: verify commitments, attach consequences to repeated violations, distinguish the Chinese people from the regime that rules them, and bring China’s democratic future into mainstream policy discussion.
FCM will continue recovering and publishing the historical record of Chinese democracy advocates’ warnings about Hong Kong, PNTR, WTO entry and the Beijing Olympics, while clearly distinguishing verified archival evidence from claims still under review.
Read the full FCM Editorial / Policy Statement: The Cost of Believing Beijing: A Warning Free China Voices Gave Washington Decades Ago.
Original source: Miles Yu, “The dangerous delusion of quiet diplomacy with China”, The Washington Times, August 31, 2026.
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