Yesterday, we touched on opportunities that PRC public comments open. PRC spokesmen—they’re seldom women—predictably present PRC perspectives albeit with irregular frequency. US leadership should treat such PRC statements as summons for responses that advance strategic narratives to promote peace.

At a minimum, US responses, from requests for clarity to challenges of veracity, engage some of the PRC’s top leaders. Filters for the Communist Party—let’s call them “fence keepers,”—gauge and alert top Communist Party officials to foreigners’ positions, especially puzzling positions. Fence keepers have the ear of Chinese power.  This makes Chinese fence keepers the strategic communication channel that US leadership says it wants but looks for in direct-dial telephone calls. Most advantageous, US questions or assertions can inject doubt into Communist Party thinking. When the Party doubts itself, it makes room to negotiate outcomes that compromise the Party’s most bellicose stands. So, ping their totalitarian fence keepers.