China is making moves that should have startled U.S. national security experts — and, if you ask former President Donald Donald Trump, it’s because Xi Jinping has something on President Joe Biden.
In an appearance on Lou Dobbs’ “The Great America Show” on Monday, Trump said Beijing treated his administration with “respect” — something that’s clearly been lost under Biden’s administration.
Most notably, a June report said China and Cuba are in talks for a permanent Chinese military training base roughly 100 miles off the coast of the United States in the communist island nation. The Wall Street Journal reported that Biden administration officials were trying to dissuade Cuba to back off and rebuff Beijing.
The Journal report came just a day after Biden Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrapped up talks with Chinese officials.
It also came less than two weeks after the Journal also reported the Chinese had reached a secret agreement with the Cuban government to establish an electronic listening facility on the island. The base is part of “Project 141,” a Chinese move to expand its worldwide military footprint.
“They didn’t treat us like they treat these people [the Biden administration] the way they lecture us and tell us they laugh at our people, our representatives, but in particular, they laugh at our president,” the leading GOP 2024 presidential candidate told Dobbs on Monday, according to Just the News.
So, why the disrespect? Well, to hear Trump tell it, it’s because Biden is compromised.
“Obviously, there’s got to be something that they have because … how does a man allow China to move that military to Cuba?” the former president asked.
“Cuba essentially is being taken over by the Chinese 90 miles off our coast, by the way,” he said. “And they’re building all sorts of military installations, and nobody even talks about it.”
Does the Chinese government have dirt on the Biden family?
Yes: 100% (3 Votes)
No: 0% (0 Votes)
Well, actually, the White House does talk about it. And, just like the Chinese spy balloon that flew over the majority of the continental United States earlier this year, the TL;DR summation of the administration’s assessment is basically this: “No big deal. And by the way, it all happened under Trump’s watch, anyhow.”
“This is an issue that this administration inherited,” the White House said in an emailed statement to The Washington Post in a story published June 10.
“It was our assessment that, despite awareness of the basing efforts and some attempts to address this challenge in the past administration, we were not making enough progress and needed a more direct approach.”
Except Biden has been at the helm for all of this, Trump pointed out — including our botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, something the Chinese have taken significant advantage of.
“We surrendered and they kept $85 billion worth of the best equipment in the world, tanks and planes and everything else. And they … killed our soldiers,” Trump said, saying China had filled the void.
“And now China is occupying Bagram [Air Base], which I said would happen,” the former president added. “One of the largest Air Force bases anywhere in the world … And we left … It’s one hour away from where they make … their nuclear weapons. So you see all these things. It’s so sad.”
There have been numerous reports that the Chinese have at least mulled an occupation of Bagram Air Base.
In 2021, the U.K.’s Daily Mail reported that Chinese military planes were spotted landing there.
In May 2022, the Salaam Times — a website sponsored by U.S. Central Command — noted that a “recent report circulating online that Chinese military trainers have been deployed to Bagram Airforce Base has raised concerns among Afghans already skeptical of increasing Chinese interest in the country.”
It’s enough that even reliably left-skewing sources like CNN noted that the Chinese seemed to be the ones taking charge when both sides met last month.
“There was an almost scolding tone from the Chinese president to Secretary Blinken in advance of their meeting, in which he said something along the lines of, ‘I hope you, Secretary Blinken, and America, will do more to improve the relationship,’” anchor Jim Sciutto noted in a June 19 report.
“Clearly, putting the onus on the U.S., and therefore implying that it’s the U.S. that has been the problem here.”
CNN’s @jimsciutto: “There was an almost scolding tone” to how Chinese officials treated @SecBlinken pic.twitter.com/5HZiplynXj
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) June 19, 2023
And that’s just from reliably liberal sources.
At the conservative National Review, the editorial board noted that while Blinken secured little from Beijing, “what Team Biden has given up just to get Blinken in the room for a 35-minute meeting with Xi is far more significant.”
“Reports say that the State Department is slow-walking several key measures responding to Beijing’s misbehavior,” the June 20 editorial read.
“They also indicate that in order to secure the meeting the administration has declined to release the results of the FBI’s probe into the contents of the Chinese military-surveillance device that the PLA floated over several key U.S. bases in February,” it said. “The Biden administration’s response to the spy-balloon incident still irks Chinese officials who prefer, obviously, to sweep it under the rug.”
Now, does this mean Beijing has something on Biden, as Trump alleged? No — but then, the mere appearance of impropriety might be enough to keep China milking it.
That appearance — through Hunter Biden’s dealings with state-connected Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC — has haunted the Biden administration since even before the contents of the president’s wayward son’s laptop began pouring out online.
Of course, there could be something to Trump’s allegations.
It also could be the whiff of desperation on the administration’s part to patch things up at all costs with our geopolitical adversaries in China, Iran, Afghanistan and elsewhere. It’s not like Hunter was making too many flights to Tehran during his father’s time as vice president, at least that we know about. Heck, the lack of readily available booze and prostitution in that part of the world might indeed make it a no-go for him, at least at that point — and the White House was willing to let the Iranians walk all over us in hopes they would re-enter the disastrous nuclear deal former President Barack Obama had negotiated.
Whatever the case is, the Biden administration has proved it’s willing to be remarkably accommodating to America’s enemies in ways it would never be to its friends.
That’s enough of a reason for conservatives to want him out of office, pronto — and any of the men and women running for the GOP nomination would be a much better bet than the man currently in the Oval Office, in that respect and many more.
