Richard Fontaine

More than 20 years ago, Senator Lindsey Graham visited Ukraine for the first time. An election was looming, one that would be reversed and run again, and that would ultimately produce victory for the pro-Western Orange coalition. In the summer of 2004, however, all of that lay in the future. Graham, then in his first Senate term, joined his friend John McCain on a congressional delegation. At the time I was serving as McCain’s foreign-policy adviser, and tagged along.

In the pre-balloon era, China was busily engaged in a charm offensive. Following October’s Communist Party congress, at which Xi Jinping won an unprecedented third term in office, Beijing made moves to stifle the combative and confrontational group of diplomats known as wolf warriors. Xi hosted German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the capital, and condemned Russia’s threats to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. The tone of China’s leading diplomats noticeably softened.