This debate, like all real debates, was messy. Despite that Americans see communist China, more than any other country, as our top threat, not a single question was asked about the country. The hosts asked about Russia, Ukraine, Israel, and Hamas, but they didn’t ask about China.
As noted by one of the AEI authors, China “now boasts the largest navy in the world, alongside the biggest coast guard and maritime militia. It has the globe’s biggest army and sub-strategic missile force to boot. It continues to make peer-level leaps in advanced military fields of hypersonic missiles and quantum computing technologies.”
The Chinese regime is simultaneously trying to beat us and our allies without firing a shot. Its strategy of “elite capture” was actually referenced by one of the candidates in the debate. It is not the purpose here to name names or take sides—only to warn that the regime in Beijing is, in fact, attempting to buy politicians at all levels as well as America’s other elites, such as corporate CEOs. The CCP can do this through many means, from campaign donations to blackmail, based on making the wrong choices. The CCP attempts to convert people to its communist ideology and buys or influences U.S. media outlets without readers even realizing what happened.
Former President Trump raised the topic of China frequently. In his response to a question about his proposed 10 percent general tariffs, which would apply to all countries, the former president said the tariffs would not raise prices but rather “cause countries that have been ripping us off for years, like China and many others ... to pay us a lot of money, reduce our deficit tremendously, and give us a lot of power for other things.”
Now, former President Trump wants to raise general tariffs on China to 60 percent. President Biden has raised tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles to 102.5 percent. Both candidates are going in the right direction.
Sometimes, the conversation in a debate brings out all the issues and can unite America if we focus on the key themes, rather than the most heated parts of the rhetoric. President Biden brought up that “the only existential threat to humanity is climate change,” for example, while former President Trump pointed out that we need to be smart about it, saying that the Paris accord “was going to cost us a trillion dollars, and China nothing, and Russia nothing, and India nothing. It was a ripoff of the United States.” This is exactly the kind of conversation that we as a nation must have and that, over time, should bring us closer together.
Both candidates expressed concern about the possibility of World War III on the issue of China and its axis of evil countries—Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Taking some of the points from both candidates, avoiding World War III requires showing strength so that the axis countries respect the United States. We must set limits as to what these countries can do and show commitment to our allies.
There are many threats arrayed against us, including too much political polarization in our own country. Our unity is our strength. Conversely, authoritarian leaders in places such as China and Russia only maintain a superficial unity through force—that is their weakness.
In the United States, we maintain some unity through debate. Sometimes, it gets more heated than it should. But democracy is messy. It is through that messy debate that we reveal the hard truths we need to know to make the right choices and move forward as a nation.