The premise of “invite them in to dispel misunderstandings” is that both sides share the same way of reading the encounter. The most common error in international relations is to assume the other party thinks the way we do. When a visit cannot change a visitor’s frame, hosting them has only a backfire effect — the guest studies your home with care, then goes home and writes sanctions that bite harder.
Two Visitors Who Were Turned Away
Between July and August 2026, two events took place in close succession. Randall Schriver, leading a U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission delegation to China, requested visits to sensitive tech firms such as Huawei and Unitree — and was turned down on each one. At the same time, Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby spent three months angling for a trip to China to deliver a lecture at the National Defense University — and was politely declined. In the past, both episodes would have ended differently. China had a long-circulating working theory: if some people are hostile to you, it is because they do not know you; invite them over, dispel the misunderstanding, and the relationship improves.
The Old Logic of “Invite Them In to Dispel Misunderstandings”
Shen Yi, in his program Shen Yi Guancha (Shen Yi’s Observations), unpacks this way of thinking. At its root lies one assumption: the other side is the same as us. The visiting guest sees a welcoming crowd and reads it as a friendly atmosphere; but the leader across the table walks away concluding “how is it that the Communist Party still has so many supporters” — what he receives is never the same thing you tried to send.
The Schriver delegation is a ready-made example. Shen Yi’s read is blunt: after they go back, the U.S. Congress’s economic sanctions on China will only get harsher. On July 30, this old friend flew to Taiwan again — he came out of the defense world, in the line of business that handles arms sales to Taiwan; “all money-eating beasts kept by Taiwan.”
The New Posture: Set the Bar, Keep It Businesslike
That is why the collective refusal of Chinese tech firms this time should become the standard for handling this kind of visitor going forward: “don’t come unless you change. I will not welcome a robber and a thief into my home to study every corner, so that next time you can hit me more precisely.” The concrete way to set the bar: friendly people get a welcome; unfriendly people get no meeting. If the business is official, handle it in an official, businesslike way — no tours. Shen Yi also flags a more concrete concern: hosting people who mean harm inside sensitive enterprises amounts to exposing key technical personnel to facial-recognition sweeps and intelligence collection.
Colby — The First Test Case of the New Posture
Colby is the first test case of this new posture. He floated the idea of visiting China in May; by August, three months had passed, and he kept expressing that “resentful” air in front of the media and his circle — why? Because his position in Washington needed a credit line. He boasts that his professional chops outrank those of Pete Hegseth, that he has mastered the official game, even that “if not for seniority, I should be Secretary of Defense.” A proven path to fame lay right in front of him: John Mearsheimer wrote The Tragedy of Great Power Politics; the book blew up in China, he was invited to lecture, and his stock doubled back home. Colby wanted to copy the playbook: write a strategy aimed at China, watch China grow wary of him and invite him to lecture at the National Defense University, and then leverage the visit to bid up his price back home.
But the hedgehog strategy he wrote for Taiwan and the denial-deterrence design he drafted for the United States are both premised on “how to deter China given insufficient American power.” Shen Yi’s verdict: the kind of article this person produces is the worst kind — a new concept that looks plausible on a PowerPoint slide is enough to fool an editorial board into publishing it, but between the concept and real-world execution lies an entire world of reality. The “tactical nuclear weapons” he imagines are concepts you can define at will, while what the United States can actually field is a gravity bomb like the B61 — strapping it onto an F-35 or a B-2 to ram China’s air-defense network is the Jin Hui Emperor asking the common people why they will not eat minced-meat porridge.
For the event-level details of Colby’s rejected visit (the US$11 billion arms sale to Taiwan, attitudes inside Washington, the overall picture of defense contact), see “Asking to Visit and Being Denied” — Why Pentagon Hawk Elbridge Colby Cannot Get Into Beijing (中文). This page focuses on the posture shift Shen Yi raises — from “invite them in to dispel misunderstandings” to “don’t come unless you change.”
One Layer Farther Out: The Posture Shift
Not inviting Colby — “entirely normal; we’d be doing plenty if we didn’t even put him on a sanctions list.” Shen Yi takes the argument one layer farther: China, in the international community, has to carry itself with dignity. Visits and lectures are honors, and the other side is the one to come asking — we are not on our knees begging anyone to come. That posture has already changed.