The five Republican presidential candidates who participated in Wednesday’s debate all agreed about the threats posed by China, even though they argued over each other’s records regarding the United States’s primary competitor.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley have questioned each other’s track record with Beijing during their tenures and reiterated those sentiments on the debate stage in Miami.
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“She welcomed them into South Carolina, gave them land near a military base, wrote the Chinese ambassador a love letter, saying what a great friend they were. That was like their No. 1 way to do economic development,” DeSantis claimed. “In Florida, I banned China from buying land in the state. … We kicked the Confucius institutes out of our universities. We’ve recognized the threat, and we’ve acted swiftly and decisively.”
The former U.N. ambassador wasn’t given the chance to respond to the claim immediately, though she later attacked DeSantis through the Florida Economic Development Agency.
Entrepreneur-turned-politician Vivek Ramaswamy sided with Desantis in the argument.
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“You do have to recognize that Ron DeSantis was correct about acknowledging Nikki Haley’s tough talk when she was ambassador to the U.N., calling China ‘our great friend,’ bringing the CCP to South Carolina. When you left out, though, Ron, and be honest about it, there was a lobbying-based exemption in that bill that allowed Chinese nationals to buy land within a 20-mile radius of a military base lobbied for by one of your donors,” Ramaswamy said. “So I think we have to call a spade a spade. We need politicians who are independent of the forces that increase our dependence on China.”
President Joe Biden is set to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping next week in a highly anticipated meeting in which the U.S. commander in chief will look to recalibrate their deteriorated relationship.
