Biden Gets Ready To Sell Out U.S. Interests To China Francis Menton
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2020-11-30-biden-gets-ready-to-sell-out
The most important job of the President is to conduct the foreign policy of the United States, so as to protect the safety and security of the American people. That means dealing with a variety of geopolitical rivals and adversaries. There are quite a number of serious adversaries out there these days (Russia, Iran, and North Korea come to mind), but without doubt the most significant is China.
In recent years, China has become increasingly assertive on the world stage, as evidenced by a rapidly growing military, massive international intelligence and espionage efforts, and the forging of financial ties with many developing nations (e.g., the “Belt and Road Initiative”). Meanwhile, China’s population, at about 1.4 billion, is more than four times that of the U.S.; and its annual GDP, at about $13.5 trillion, is about two-thirds ours (which is around $21 trillion), while almost triple that of third-place Japan (~$5 trillion), and more than triple that of fourth-place Germany (~$4 trillion). It is possible that China’s gross economy could overtake ours within a decade or so (although remaining much lower on a per capita basis).
It would not be an exaggeration to say that figuring out how to deal with China should be the number one priority of the incoming President. Good luck with that if Joe Biden succeeds to the job. It’s not just that he’s not physically or mentally capable of engaging with such a clever and relentless adversary. Even more significant is that Biden has been completely willing to accept influence payments from China for his family. Could he really have thought that nothing was expected in return? At Newsweek today, Nigel Farage has a column with the headline “China Is Licking Its Chops at the Thought of President Joe Biden.” Indeed, that’s a great understatement.
In prior posts on Biden corruption (for example here and here) I have focused more on the dealings of Joe and his son Hunter with Ukraine, rather than China. That’s because the dealings with Ukraine were more definitively and obviously criminal in nature, given that they involved an immediate and admitted quid pro quo (the firing of a prosecutor who was investigating a company where Hunter was on the board). The dealings with China were more in the nature of general influence peddling. That doesn’t make these dealings any less corrupt.
Information on Biden family involvement in business dealings with Chinese state-owned entities has come to light through efforts of the likes of Peter Schweizer, the New York Post, and Tony Bobulinski. Some principal examples include:
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Here is a piece from the New York Post on October 10, 2019, by Peter Schweizer and Jacob McLeod, headline “6 facts about Hunter Biden’s business dealings in China.” The piece details Biden/China business dealings both while and after Joe was Vice President. Example: “In December 2013, Hunter landed in Beijing aboard Air Force Two, accompanying his father on an official visit to China. Less than two weeks later, Hunter’s company, Rosemont Seneca, became a partner in a new investment company backed by the state-owned Bank of China.” Hunter used the occasion of the trip with his father to China to round up investment capital for a partnership where he was a principal — and somehow managed to come up with something like $1.5 billion from Chinese state-owned entities. Nobody but the Bidens knows how much Hunter actually got paid for these efforts, but that’s only because nobody has ever been able to get Joe or Hunter to answer the question.
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Bobulinski’s revelations mainly related to a 2017 prospective transaction with a Chinese state-owned entity called CEFC. Among facts disclosed by Bobulinski were draft partnership documents and an email referring to a 10% stake in the China-Biden enterprise reserved for “the big guy,” who Bobulinski asserted was Joe.
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And then, also from Bobulinski, there was the email revealing a $5 million non-secured “forgivable” loan from Chinese-government entity CEFC to the Biden “family.”
Many details of these transactions remain under wraps by reason of the media’s failure to ask, and Joe’s refusal to answer, any relevant questions. Nevertheless, at this point plenty is known to make it clear that Joe is thoroughly compromised by receipt of large amounts of Chinese money by his family, and perhaps by himself.
So what does China stand to get for its investment? Consider just a few examples:
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The Paris Climate Agreement. Biden and John Kerry led the U.S. negotiating efforts on this travesty. It is difficult to conceive of how anyone could have more thoroughly given away the store than Biden and Kerry did on this agreement. It could not have been worse if China had just written the agreement and handed it to Biden and Kerry to sign. While the U.S. committed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions significantly, restricting its economy to the extent necessary to do so, China agreed to absolutely nothing. If you don’t believe me, here is China’s so-called “Intended Nationally-Determined Contribution,” submitted as part of the Agreement. Key line: “China has nationally determined its actions by 2030 as follows: To achieve the peaking of carbon dioxide emissions around 2030 . . . .” In other words, China agreed to no reductions, and indeed admits that its emissions will go right on increasing without any limit for the next decade. Surely, no remotely competent person could ever have agreed to this on behalf of the U.S. It’s no wonder that China thought they needed to pay off Biden and his family to get the job done. Sure enough, Biden is promising to re-join the Agreement.
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Hong Kong; Taiwan; South China Sea. China is aggressively pushing its agenda in cementing its control over Hong Kong and otherwise threatening its neighbors militarily. Standing up for the likes of Hong Kong and Taiwan requires smart and calibrated responses, perhaps in the form of trade sanctions, or in show of military force. Or alternatively, the U.S. could just let China have anything it wants with Hong Kong or Taiwan, perhaps in return for some meaningless promise of “climate” action ten or more years from now. Which path will a President Biden take?
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Theft of intellectual property. China massively steals the intellectual property of those who do business with its entities. The Obama/Biden administration basically did nothing about this. Will a new Biden administration do any more?
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Penetration of Chinese entities into U.S. technological infrastructure. The big Chinese tech companies, which are gaining market share in many areas in the U.S. and elsewhere (examples: Huawei, Zoom, TikTok), are government and Communist Party affiliates commissioned to obtain whatever information they can gather for China’s strategic advantage. The Trump administration was pushing back on this issue. Will Biden?
Clearly, tremendous damage can be done to U.S. strategic interests over the next four years if the administration is not alert to threats from China, and firm in responding to those threats. What we are getting is a guy who has allowed his family, and by extension himself, to go onto China’s payroll.
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