Biden Campaign Press Release - Donald Trump Is The Weakest President In American History When It Comes To China -- And Chinese Officials Are Pulling For His Re-election

Donald Trump is the weakest president that we've ever had when it comes to China. He has failed again and again to stand up for American interests to the Chinese government. When Coronavirus was emerging, Trump spread Xi's lies. And his tariff war with China has devastated American farmers, businesses, consumers, and workers. He even begged President Xi to bail out his re-election campaign.

New York Times, 9/10/2020: "Microsoft's finding that it is Mr. Biden — not Mr. Trump — whom Chinese hackers are targeting also complicates a narrative pushed by the White House that China is interfering in the 2020 election to help the former vice president's campaign."

New York Times, 9/22/2020: "Mr. Biden, according to analysts in China, could do more damage than Mr. Trump by pursuing a more coherent strategy to counter China's global agenda...'Biden would make the hard lines more effective and more efficient,' said Cheng Xiaohe, an associate professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing. 'He might resort to more sophisticated and coordinated tactics against China.'"

• New York Times, 9/22/2020: "In China's hawkish quarters, in fact, there are some who believe that Mr. Trump's 'America First' presidency has, on the whole, benefited China by reducing American global leadership. A popular meme that has circulated for months mocks him as 'Build-the-Country Trump,' a pun on a revolutionary name that suggests Mr. Trump has done more to make China — and not the United States — great again."

• New York Times, 9/22/2020: "Beijing worries that Mr. Biden's rhetoric is not just bluster, and that if elected, he would work more forcefully to penalize China on human rights issues than Mr. Trump, though his administration has recently imposed sanctions on a number of Chinese officials and companies. Mr. Biden has denounced China's repression of Muslim Uighurs as genocidal and vowed to meet with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader."

• New York Times, 9/22/2020: "In Beijing, Mr. Trump is viewed in some ways as favorable because of his transactional approach, despite the sharp deterioration in relations since the coronavirus pandemic. The Communist Party has also benefited from images of chaos and division that have emerged from the United States under Mr. Trump. That has allowed the propaganda organs to highlight the strengths of China's authoritarian system in curbing the coronavirus outbreak. 'From the party's point of view, Trump is a rolling advertisement for how bad democracy could be,' said Kevin Rudd, the former prime minister of Australia, who maintains close ties to Chinese officials. Mr. Rudd said Chinese leaders see Mr. Trump as a 'genuinely negative force' when it comes to preserving American alliances in Asia and beyond."

When the coronavirus was spreading like wildfire and other nations mobilized, Trump repeatedly cited Chinese government propaganda and praised Xi's containment efforts as successful to justify his own inaction -- despite numerous warnings from Joe Biden and Trump's own advisers.

• CNN, 5/19/2020: "The many times Trump has praised China's handling of the coronavirus pandemic"
• Associated Press, 1/30/2020: "Wary of irking China, Trump offers rosy take on virus threat"
• Politico, 4/15/2020: "15 times Trump praised China as coronavirus was spreading across the globe"
• Washington Post, 4/4/2020: "In fact, Trump has consistently praised Chinese President Xi Jinping despite warnings from U.S. intelligence and health officials that Beijing was concealing the true scale of the outbreak and impeding cooperation on key fronts."
• Joe Biden, 2/26/2020: "What I would do were I president now, I would not be taking China's word for it. I would insist that China allow our scientists in to make a hard determination of how it started, where it's from, how far along it is. Because that is not happening now."
• Associated Press, 6/19/2020: "Biden wrote an op-ed warning about the virus on Jan. 27 and began speaking about the issue on the campaign trail around that time. Trump, meanwhile, told CNBC on Jan. 22 that the virus was 'totally under control' and that he trusted Xi to handle the outbreak."

Trump begged Xi to intervene in our elections to help him win a second term, and even publicly called on China to investigate Joe Biden for his own benefit.

• Washington Post, 6/17/2020: "Trump asked China's Xi to help him win reelection, according to Bolton book"
• New York Times, 10/3/2019: "Trump Publicly Urges China to Investigate the Bidens"

Trump's trade war with China drove American manufacturing into a recession, then he struck a failed trade deal with China that the Chinese government is not even living up to.

• Bloomberg, 9/19/2020: "China is Winning the Trade War With Trump"
• Washington Post Fact Checker, 8/20/2020: "Trump's trade deal with China: More bluster than boom"
• Los Angeles Times, 10/11/2019: "Manufacturing is now officially in recession, despite Trump's vow to boost industry...Analysts and business leaders say the single biggest restraint on manufacturing this year has been of Trump's own making: excessive use of tariffs and his trade wars with China and other countries."
• CNBC, 8/12/2020: "3 charts show China is far from meeting its 'phase one' trade commitment to the U.S."

And when it comes to his travel restrictions, Trump has repeatedly lied about their effectiveness and Vice President Biden's response to them.

• Bloomberg, 3/24/2020: "Trump's portrayal of his China order isn't accurate, and there's no record of Biden specifically criticizing the decision."
• PolitiFact, 5/4/2020: "Biden has used the word 'xenophobic' several times in reference to Trump and his actions, but never directly in reference to the ban Trump placed on travel from China."
• Associated Press Fact Check, 7/18/2020: "President Donald Trump's 'ban' on travel from China is his go-to point when defending his response to the coronavirus pandemic. The problem with his core argument starts with the fact that he did not ban travel from China. He imposed porous restrictions."

Xi is so easily able to manipulate Trump that Trump offered his explicit support for putting ethnic minorities in concentration camps.

• Washington Post, 6/17/2020: "Bolton says Trump didn't just ignore human rights but encouraged China's concentration camps"

This is precisely why China's officials are openly pulling for Trump to win re-election.

• Bloomberg, 6/15/2020: "China Warms to Idea of Four More Years of Trump Presidency"
• Washington Post, 11/26/2019: "China hopes Trump will be reelected: He's 'easy to read'"
• Bloomberg, 7/16/2020: "Current and former officials in Beijing say the Communist Party leadership would prefer to see Trump win in November, fearing that Biden would be better able to unify Eastern allies to resist China's influence."

And it's no wonder that in poll after poll, American voters show that they trust Joe Biden significantly more than Donald Trump when it comes to handling China.

• Fox News Poll, 8/13/2020: "Biden is also preferred over Trump on top issues. He's seen as better to handle...relations with China (+11)."
• USA Today/Suffolk Poll, 6/30/2020: Biden leads Trump by 10 points on "who would do a better job as president" on "dealing with China."
• Fox News Poll, 5/21/2020: "Voters trust Biden to do a better job than Trump" on "relations with China by 6."