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The Communist leaders of China took a side in the elections of 2018 and 2020: They wanted Democrats to win.
A recently published intelligence assessment reported that during President Donald Trump’s first term, “The Chinese Communist Party’s policy was to leverage all domestic and foreign elements that were opposed to the U.S. President [Trump] in an effort to reduce the U.S. President’s votes and make him resign or prevent his re-election.”
Specifically, in the 2020 election, China considered “interference efforts” and “influence efforts” to help Joe Biden win, but ultimately decided this was not worth the rest “China did take some steps to try to undermine former President Trump’s reelection.”
The assessment from the National Intelligence Council suggests some reasons why, including that Biden “would be more predictable and eager to initially deescalate bilateral tensions.” Also, China may have thought Biden would dial back Trump’s tariffs.
But the intelligence sources were guessing just as much as anyone. A brief study of Biden’s career and his party’s record on China would provide the Communist Party with plenty of reasons to back Biden.
As a senator Biden advanced policies advantageous to China based on naïve assumptions about the Communist regime. As vice president, he got very chummy with Xi Jinping, now the president of China, and excused some of the regime’s worst human rights abuses. As a candidate in 2020, he denied that China was a competitor. And of course, China was paying millions of dollars to Hunter Biden, and Joe Biden was fine with that.
In short, the Chinese Communist Party had more than enough reasons to think Biden and the Democrats would be good for the cause.
Biden’s record
Biden believed deeply in the China Trade: the idea that the U.S. and Europe, by opening their markets to China, would bring about democratic liberalization and peaceful relations with Beijing.
Biden was hardly alone in this belief, but he was also one of the loudest and most powerful champions of the erroneous idea that free trade would turn the Communist authoritarians into capitalist liberals.
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Biden was the Ranking Member (the senior Democrat) on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2000 when Congress voted to grant “Permanent Normal Trade Relations” to China. This tore down U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods and paved the way for China to enter the World Trade Organization.
“I believe we want China to be invested in the international system,” Biden said in a committee hearing. “Over time, that’s the best way to get China to clean up its act.”
Biden was wrong in 2000. When the world opened its markets to China, we enriched the Communist government and gave it increased leverage with which to ward off any U.S. or European pushes for human rights, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and democracy.
Biden never admitted he was wrong, and so China’s rulers in 2020 could reasonably assume that Biden would keep their plush deal going — especially considering his behavior in the interim.
Arguably, Biden’s most shameful moment as vice president took place on his 2011 trip to China to visit with Xi, then the vice president and on a clear path to becoming president of China.
Unprompted, Biden announced that the U.S. accepted China’s One Child Policy: “Your policy has been one which I fully understand — I’m not second-guessing — of one child per family.”
To enforce the One Child Policy, the Chinese government performed forced abortions and forced sterilizations. Aside from the brutal means, the very idea — banning couples from having the families they want — is grossly inhumane, and et Biden put the U.S. on the record as okay with this.
On that trip, Biden and Xi spent at least 10 hours together and played a game of basketball. The two hung out again in 2012. Xi was president by 2013 when Biden visited again, and Xi called Biden “my old friend.”
In 2014, speaking at Harvard, Biden waved off the idea that China posed a threat to the U.S. “I want China to succeed, it’s in our interest they succeed economically,” he said. “Folks, China has overwhelming problems. China not only has an energy problem, they have no water…. It is a gigantic and multi-trillion-dollar problem for them. We should help them solve the problem.”
Then, when running for president in 2019, Biden likewise mocked his opponents for their combative stance vis-à-vis China. Of the Chinese, Biden said, “You know, they’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what, they’re not, they’re not competition for us.”
Even at that late date, Biden seemed to believe in the China Trade — that by helping China get wealthier, we could reform China. This gullible view was useful to China.
Trump rejected the standard view, and by winning in 2016, he helped smash the old dogma that trade would soften China.
Also, China might have seen a Biden White House as advantageous because China was paying Hunter Biden, and Joe Biden was fine with it.
Hunter worked as a lobbyist and international consultant for more than a decade, raking in many millions by trading on his father’s name. China was one of his biggest sources of funds. Multiple energy clients in China (connected to the Chinese government) paid more than $3 million to Hunter.
The Biden family has even deeper ties with shady government-connected Chinese businessmen. When Patrick Ho, a high-ranking Chinese businessman was charged in 2017 with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, his first call was to Joe Biden’s brother James, who told officials he believed Ho meant to call Hunter.
Joe Biden repeatedly said that there was nothing wrong with Hunter earning these millions peddling his name to Chinese communists. “My son did nothing wrong,” Biden said time and again.
In short, a Biden victory meant China would have friends in the highest of places.
Democrats’ record
The Democratic Party as a whole was far friendlier to China than the Republican Party.
During Bill Clinton’s presidency, China-connected donors like Johnny Chung, Charlie Trie, James Riady, John Huang, and Maria Hsia gained special access to the White House.
“I see the White House is like a subway: You have to put in coins to open gates,” said Chung, who was funneling money from Chinese intelligence officials to Clinton. Clinton, in turn, weakened export controls to the benefit of China’s military-industrial complex.
The next Democratic administration lacked the brazen corruption and pay-to-play mentality, but was just as prolific in helping Chinese state-owned businesses.
Obamanomics included billions in subsidies for Chinese state-connected companies that did business with American corporations.
THE CHINA TRADE GOES THE WAY OF THE PANDAS
For instance, Obama primarily used the Export-Import Bank — a federal agency that subsidizes foreign buyers of U.S. goods — to subsidize the Chinese government. In Fiscal Year 2014, for example, China was the top recipient of Ex-Im money, and an overwhelming majority of that money went to Chinese state-owned businesses, such as the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and the Export-Import Bank of China. That is, the Obama-Biden administration didn’t merely subsidize China’s government, they subsidized China’s nationalistic industrial policy.
Biden, to his credit, was far more of a China Hawk in the White House than he ever had been before. But given his record up to 2020, it’s no wonder China wanted him in power.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
