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If elected, Joe Biden will clear path for China’s treacherous agenda

DelhiWritten By: Priyanka DeoUpdated: Apr 13, 2020, 07:10 PM IST
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File photo of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Photograph:(AFP)

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Electing an American president who appeases China will do nothing but push China’s nationalist agenda in the coming years.

With Bernie Sanders out of the race, Democrat Joe Biden will go head-to-head with Donald Trump in the upcoming American presidential election. China is more than ecstatic with this turn of events. There is a reason why: The former Vice President of the USA Joe Biden’s support of the People’s Republic of China has not only been longstanding, but also runs disturbingly deep.  

In the 2000s, Biden was the one who marshalled China’s World Trade Organisation Membership. This helped China’s geopolitical rise greatly. China was also granted the Permanent Normal Trade Relations status which pushed for closer ties and increased trade. Joe Biden’s part in this? He was a senior member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee which played a role in granting this status to China. And when he was America’s vice president, Biden claimed that China was a ‘new partner’ that would give healthy competition to the United States of America and also help meet global challenges. What did this stance do? Millions of American jobs disappeared and the USA faced stark unemployment figures during the Obama administration. In the meantime, China was militarising the South China Sea.  

Also during the time, Biden was in power, his family personally benefitted from China ties. In 2013, son Hunter Biden joined the board of a fund worth $20 billion. It was not just any fund. This fund carried powerful Chinese state-owned entities as shareholders. Hunter invested his own money in the fund in 2017. It is unknown how much he made from the deal. In 2019, under media scrutiny, Hunter claimed that he had resigned from the firm. However, Chinese public records still show him as an officer.  

To be fair to Hunter Biden, many American influencers struck deals with China. But because his father was in office, it exposed American’s working against their own national interest and instead abetting China’s industry and economy. While millions of Americans were struggling with increased unemployment, China, the Biden family and Wall Street were the only ones who benefitted.  

Under the Obama administration, Vice President Joe Biden consistently either appeased or failed to counter Chinese aggression on multiple issues. Cybersecurity was one of them. Asian countries, especially India faced routine Chinese bullying. The USA did not help India in the matter. Also under VP Biden’s tenure, China shipped the largest amount of fentanyl in the form of a synthetic opioid to the United States. Official data from 2015 shows that opioids were the cause of over 33,000 deaths. Numbers kept rising and the opioid crisis hit America hard.  

With Bernie Sanders gone, China could not be happier that Biden is the Democratic front runner. This was evident from the start through objective facts. A little after Biden first announced his campaign in April 2019, China suddenly toughened up on trade negotiations with POTUS Trump. In May 2019, Beijing reversed almost all parts of the draft trade pact being created between the USA and China. When it looked like Biden was falling behind the other Democratic hopefuls, China curiously became much easier to deal with. In June 2019, China’s Xi Jinping and President Trump decided to revive trade talks.  

The relationship between the USA and China is a competitive one. Both are permanent members of the United Nations and pull significant weight on the international stage. Therefore, electing an American president who appeases China will do nothing but push China’s nationalist agenda in the coming years. The impact of this? India will no longer be as strong of a defence partner and also may even play a smaller role in trade with the USA. This could throw major blows to the Indian economy and negatively affect our foreign relations.

Furthermore, China’s bioterrorism with COVID-19 has woken the planet up to the fatal havoc that is caused if it's not curbed. Thousands have lost their lives in the COVID-19 crisis and well over 140 countries are fighting the coronavirus pandemic. For these reasons, it is absolutely crucial to elect a POTUS who stands up to China as opposed to conciliating it. If elected, Joe Biden will create an open path for China to push a very dangerous agenda. Prior to the upcoming Presidential elections, it is the need of the hour that Americans and the rest of the world become woke to this truth.    

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)