Trump’s Running Mate JD Vance Calls China ‘Biggest Threat’ to US

Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) attends the 2024 RNC in Milwaukee, Wis., on July 15, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) labeled communist China the “biggest threat” to the United States in his first statements after being named as the Republican vice presidential nominee on July 15.

Mr. Vance made the comments during an interview with Fox News on July 15 when asked about Russia’s war against Ukraine. The senator emphasized former President Donald Trump’s commitment to swiftly resolving the situation if elected.

“I think what President Trump has promised to do is go in there, negotiate with the Russians and Ukrainians, [and] bring this thing to a rapid close so that Americans can focus on the real issue, which is China,” Mr. Vance said.

“That’s the biggest threat to our country. And we’re completely distracted from,” he said.

On July 15, during the Republican National Convention, President Trump officially announced Mr. Vance as his 2024 running mate. This announcement came just two days after the former president survived an assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The 39-year-old senator has been vocal about the need to counter the threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In 2023, Mr. Vance introduced a bill that would require American universities to disclose any gifts and donations of $250,000 or more from countries of concern.

“We cannot allow the CCP, or any hostile nation for that matter, to continue to infiltrate and exploit our higher education system,” he said in a September 2023 statement accompanying the bill.

In April, Mr. Vance cautioned about America’s limited capacity to engage in multiple conflicts across the world simultaneously and encouraged the United States to concentrate on addressing the threats posed by its “real enemy.”

“It’s not that we don’t admire the courageousness of the Ukrainians. We certainly do. It’s that America is stretched too thin,” he said in an interview with Fox News at the end of April.

“We do not have the industrial capacity to support a war in Ukraine, a war in Israel, potentially a war in East Asia if the Chinese invade Taiwan, so America has to pick and choose.”

Taiwan, a self-ruled island the CCP claims as its territory, has endured escalated military, political, and economic pressure from Beijing in recent years.

Washington maintains a robust relationship with Taipei, but under a longstanding policy towards Taiwan, known as “strategic ambiguity,” U.S. administrations have been deliberately vague on whether they would defend the island in the event of a Chinese invasion.

Following Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te’s inauguration in May, the Chinese military conducted a two-day large-scale exercise in the sea and air spaces near Taiwan. Beijing said the war game was designed to test its ability to “seize power” over the island, raising concerns among the United States and European Union.

Mr. Vance has warned about what he described as a potential “catastrophic” impact on the U.S. economy if Chinese aggression escalates to an attack on Taiwan, which is a key producer of the world’s advanced chips.

A China Coast Guard ship sails towards the zone where China said it would conduct live fire exercises northeast of Pingtan island, the closest point in China to Taiwan, in China's southeast Fujian province on April 10, 2023. Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images

During a speech at the 2023 summit organized by the Heritage Foundation, Mr. Vance emphasized the critical need to prevent a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

“It would be catastrophic for this country. It would decimate our entire economy. … It would throw this country into a Great Depression,” he said.

Mr. Vance urged the United States to ramp up its manufacturing capacity, especially in the realms of weapons and military equipment. He argued that the U.S. has fallen behind nations like Russia and China in this crucial area.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and CCP leader Xi Jinping “don’t care about our chest-thumping. They don’t care about what we say. They care about whether we can make enough bullets to fight the war that we may have to fight,” he said.

“We got to focus on China because that’s where the real enemy is.”