The Wuhan coronavirus pandemic and the Chinese Communist government’s malfeasance that exacerbated the global crisis have proved Donald Trump’s warnings prescient. Yet incoming President Joe Biden has a long history of enabling the Chinese Communist regime, and his son Hunter Biden raked in cash making deals with companies partly owned by the Chinese Communist Party. Some sources have said Joe Biden himself was involved in the deals. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Chinese officials have hailed Biden’s presidency as a “new window of hope.”
“China-US relations have come to a new crossroads, and a new window of hope is opening,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told state-owned broadcaster CGTN. “We hope that the next US administration will return to a sensible approach, resume dialogue with China, restore normalcy to the bilateral relations, and restart cooperation.”
Yi argued that American officials hold a “serious misconception” about China. “Some see China as the so-called biggest threat and their China policy based on this misperception is simply wrong,” he argued, accusing the Trump administration of trying to “suppress China and start a new Cold War.”
Yi also declared that “China never meddles in the internal affairs of the United States,” despite the fact that Beijing has run massive and well-documented espionage and influence campaigns. China ran an intelligence unit in Houston’s consulate before the Trump administration shut it down. That unit used TikTok to stoke the flames of outrage in the destructive George Floyd riots this summer. China has also used research grants to infiltrate American colleges and universities.
Trump has stood up to China, engaging in a trade war in 2018, signing sanctions over China’s elimination of Hong Kong autonomy, and powerfully condemning the Communist Party’s abuses on the coronavirus pandemic.
Gordon Chang: China Engaged in ‘an Act of War’ by Enflaming Antifa Riots in the U.S.
Biden’s record on China
On the campaign trail, Biden promised to “get tough” on China’s trade abuses and intellectual property theft, but he slammed Trump’s trade war. He constantly attacked Trump, pivoting criticism away from the Chinese Communist Party.
As Townhall Editor Katie Pavlich pointed out, Biden failed to take Beijing seriously during the 2020 campaign cycle. He opposed Trump’s China travel ban, saying, “We are in the midst of a crisis with the coronavirus. We need to lead the way with science — not Donald Trump’s record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering. He is the worst possible person to lead our country through a global health emergency.”
Biden has dismissed the global threat of China, downplaying its efforts to undermine the U.S. geographically, militarily, and economically.
“China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man,” Biden said during an Iowa campaign stop in 2019. “I mean, you know, they’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what? They’re not competition for us. The fact of the matter is we can do all we need to do without punishing anybody.”
When China attempted to blame America for the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump pushed back by repeatedly calling the coronavirus “Chinese.” Yet Trump made clear that he was not criticizing Asian Americans. Even so, Biden released a statement condemning Trump’s use of such terms.
“Unfortunately, Donald Trump and his Administration have failed to show almost any moral leadership when it comes to this issue. The casual racism and regular xenophobia that we have seen from Trump and this Administration is a national scourge,” Biden said in the statement.
The incoming president’s worst record on China is personal, however.
Hunter Biden infamously raked in cash from lucrative business deals in China, just as Joe Biden went soft on the Chinese Communist Party’s aggression in the South China Sea. He helped a Chinese military contractor buy an American parts manufacturer. He invested in a company that the CCP eventually used to monitor and conrol the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. He helped China dominate the rare-earth minerals market. These and other deals enriched Hunter Biden arguably at America’s expense.
In 2017, Hunter Biden attempted to start a joint venture with the Chinese energy firm CEFC, which has close ties to the CCP. Tony Bobulinski, a business partner of Hunter’s, was supposed to become the CEO of the joint venture, SinoHawk Holdings. Yet the deal fell through. In the lead-up to the 2020 election, Bobulinski came forward about his ties to the Bidens, and he publicly stated that Joe Biden was personally involved in his son’s lucrative deals.
No, George Will, Joe Biden Is Not Better Than Trump When It Comes to China. Here’s Why.
China will eat our lunch
China has become America’s most serious foreign threat and a menace to the world. President Xi Jinping has territorial ambitions, seeks to dominate global markets, has weaponized the coronavirus pandemic, uses his government to enforce propaganda, attacks religious freedom, and imprisons religious and ethnic minorities in terrifying labor camps.
China built floating islands in the South China Sea in order to claim naval territory. In May 2020, Xi sent soldiers into disputed lands between China and India, sparking more than a month of skirmishes in a border war. Beijing also imposed “direct authoritarian rule” over Hong Kong, arguably violating the treaty by which China gained limited control over Hong Kong from Britain.
As for the coronavirus, the Chinese Communist Party lied to cover it up early on, and waited until after 5 million people had already left Wuhan before locking down the city at the center of the outbreak. The party also reportedly destroyed early samples of the virus and silenced doctors who tried to warn the world about it. A University of Southampton study found that if the Communist Party had enacted quarantine measures three weeks earlier, the coronavirus spread would have been reduced by 95 percent.
When the World Health Organization (WHO) tweeted that the coronavirus might transmit from person to person, the Chinese government told the WHO to remove that statement, and the WHO complied. China requested personal protective equipment (PPE) from across the world, and received 2.4 billion pieces. Later, when other countries asked China for PPE, China extorted them — only sending valuable medical aid if political leaders agreed to publicly praise Beijing. Chinese companies also sent faulty medical gear to European countries and to the U.S. Meanwhile, the Communist Party also prevented U.S. companiesfrom shipping their own medical gear back home, where it is sorely needed.
China has also leveraged its position as the world’s most populous country to dominate many sectors of the global economy. The U.S. medical supply chain is terrifyingly reliant on Beijing, and China dominates the production of rare earth minerals, a critical sector for the energy economy, particularly green energy technologies.
Yet arguably the worst aspect of China’s oppression involves its treatment of the Uyghur Muslim minority in Xinjiang. Beijing has allegedly imprisoned 1 million members of Muslim minority groups in what China defends as de-radicalization and retraining centers. Human rights activists have compared the camps to prisons and worse. According to an Associated Press investigation, Uyghur women are forced to use birth control or undergo involuntary sterilizations.
If Joe Biden represents a “new window of hope” for China, that’s bad news for America and for the world. Trump has not tried to start a “new Cold War” with Beijing — the Chinese Communist Party has done that themselves. America needs to stand up to Chinese aggression, and it seems Biden lacks the stomach for that — even if he isn’t personally compromised by Hunter Biden’s deals.
Americans must hold his feet to the fire and prove China’s hopes wrong.
Tyler O’Neil is the author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member