The Biden administration needs to move faster to launch a comprehensive campaign to counter threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), according to China expert Gordon Chang.
This is dangerous, Chang said, because “what China is doing can bring down our system.”
“We are not adopting the right posture with the right tools fast enough.”
After more than three months into President Joe Biden’s term, many key China policies initiated by the Trump administration are still “under review,” to use the White House’s terminology.
Biden’s action echoed a CCP narrative that claimed that using the term “China virus” or “Wuhan virus” fuels a rise in discrimination and violence toward overseas Chinese and ethnic Chinese populations, Chang said. This narrative was propagated as part of the regime’s bid to deflect attention away from its coverup of the early outbreak, as well as the possibility that the virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan.
“The president of the United States should not be repeating what China is saying, especially because what China is saying is not correct,” Chang said. “So I find that horrible.”
“I can understand he wants to review Trump policy ... but at least he should have left the protections in place while he conducted that review,” Chang said.
“China has been probing our critical infrastructure,” he said. “They could do ... in the U.S. what they did in India’s financial capital late last year.”
A February New York Times report stated that the power outage in Mumbai, India, on Oct. 12, 2020, was part of a Chinese cyber campaign against India, as the two countries were locked in a fierce border battle. At the time, local authorities said the failure was caused due to “technical problems,” but an Indian minister said in March that it could have been the result of cyber sabotage, adding that it was being investigated.
“What’s occurring is that China’s engaging in conduct that nobody can really abide,” he said. “It’s forcing him [Biden] to adopt policies that are more robust.”
Chang expressed concern over Biden’s personal approach toward the regime and its leader Xi Jinping.
“It’s just a mystery that Biden has given the Chinese a lot of gifts. He hasn’t asked for anything in return,” he said. “I just don’t understand why he would do that.”
He was particularly troubled by “the way [Biden] speaks in loving terms with his meetings with Xi Jinping.”
“I don’t know why the Chinese leader has some spell over Biden,” Chang said.
Biden often brings up his long relationship with Xi when speaking about the Chinese regime. While Biden was vice president, Xi was the regime’s vice chair, and thus Biden’s counterpart at the time. The two had spent more than 24 hours in private meetings and 17,000 miles traveling together during that time, according to Biden.
Chinese Infiltration
Chang warned about the broadness of the CCP’s efforts to infiltrate American politics and society.“China’s just overwhelmed our society,” he said. “They’ve overwhelmed the FBI, they’ve overwhelmed local law enforcement, local governments.”
He raised the example of Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, who previously had ties to an alleged CCP spy named Fang Fang, or Christine Fang.
A report by Axios in December 2020 claimed that Fang built up an extensive network of contacts with up-and-coming politicians in the San Francisco Bay Area, including Swalwell. The report stated that Swalwell cut ties with her after investigators gave him a “defensive briefing,” and that he provided information about her to the FBI.
Chang noted that Fang first contacted Swalwell when he was a councilman for the city of Dublin in California from 2010 to 2012.
“That means they probably were just looking at Swalwell on the off-chance that someday he might become valuable to them,” he said.
“This suggests that there’s more than one Eric Swalwell. There could be dozens, there could probably be hundreds of Swalwells, which means that there are dozens and hundreds of Christine Fangs.”
It’s time to start removing the CCP’s influence from American society, Chang said.
“They have infiltrated government, they’ve infiltrated media, academia, business, you name it.
“If it’s an institution, China has tried to penetrate it.”