Biden seizes on Bolton book to hit Trump's record on China
Source: AP
By JONATHAN LEMIRE and ALEXANDRA JAFFE
WASHINGTON (AP) John Boltons claim in an explosive new book that President Donald Trump urged Chinas Xi Jinping to help him win reelection could undermine his campaigns effort to portray Democratic rival Joe Biden as soft on Beijing.
Bidens top aides moved quickly on Thursday to argue that its Trump who has taken a weak approach to the rising superpower. They seized on accusations from Bolton, Trumps former national security adviser, that the president continually kowtowed to Xi and ignored human rights abuses while trying to get his foreign counterparts assistance with domestic politics.
The Bolton allegations are just the most noxious and hateful cherry on top of a sundae that already existed here, Ron Klain, a longtime Biden adviser, said in an interview. We have seen for three years that Donald Trump has curried favor with authoritarian regimes that are willing to help him personally and politically.
China already loomed large in the contest as Trump and Biden have traded accusations over corruption, geopolitical pandering and the presidents shifts in tone toward the country during the coronavirus pandemic, which ignited in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. But Boltons accusations intensified the debate with less than five months remaining until the election.
In this June 17, 2020, photo, Democratic presidential candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden speaks in Darby, Pa. John Bolton's claims that President Donald Trump urged Chinas Xi Jinping to help him win reelection is casting a renewed spotlight on a major front in the 2020 presidential campaign: the battle over who has been softer on Beijing. China already loomed large in the contest as Trump and Biden, have traded accusations over corruption, geopolitical pandering and the presidents wild shifts in tone toward the Asia superpower (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Read more: https://apnews.com/d08ef2673b19a1d44a93dcd49b2ecdc3
bucolic_frolic
(42,679 posts)NewJeffCT
(56,827 posts)was not really very wise IMHO
1) China lied about Tienenman Square and how many died there
2) China lied and covered up SARS
3) China actively censors and greatly limits the internet and does not allow free speech or assembly.
but, sure, Donny Dollhands was DUMB enough to believe them that THIS time they were being honest.
The reason we had a pandemic response team in China & a CDC liaison in Beijing was to prevent these sorts of lies.
cstanleytech
(26,082 posts)and if done correctly it could provide good cannon fodder for the next 12 years if not longer to hammer the Republican party on.
Bayard
(21,806 posts)What about the tariffs? (you know--the ones that devastated American farmers?)
ace3csusm
(969 posts)So winning is when you beg china to buy soybeans on the side...
Dopers_Greed
(2,640 posts)A pillar of his re-election strategy will be to blame China and claim that he alone can clean up the COVID fallout.
Right-wing online propaganda is already pushing hard that Biden as a shill for China.