Sen. Tom Cotton Destroys Handsy Joe Biden Over His Chinese Affections

AP featured image — Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at a primary election night campaign rally Tuesday, March 3, 2020, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

In Thursday’s National Review installment, Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton took to severely shredding former 2020 hopeful Joe Biden for his support of China.

As observed by The Daily Wire, the headline alone said a lot: “Joe Biden is China’s Choice for President.”

Here’s how Tom opened:

“The Democratic Party has always been weak on national security when it comes to China. But some credit is due when it comes to China’s atrocious human-rights record and its theft of American jobs. For a generation, prominent Democrats loudly criticized Beijing on these fronts… Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi have been longstanding China trade hawks, for instance. Even a socialist like Bernie Sanders has been a reliable critic.”

As he sees it, Joe — whose support for China “is deep and longstanding” — is taking things to a whole other level.

Tom believes Obama choosing the then-Delaware senator to boost his foreign policy cred said a lot. And “as the Chinese Communist Party gained strength and Xi Jinping seized absolute power, Biden continued to push for closer ties and even more trade.”

“As for American workers,” the Republican wrote, “in February 2012, in friendly remarks with Xi standing next to him, Biden praised Beijing as a ‘new partner’ that would help to meet ‘global challenges,’ and said Americans ‘welcome this competition.'”

It’s an interesting point. At the time, Joe said the move “[pushed] our companies to develop better products and services and our government to craft better policies.”

All the while, Tom noted, millions of Americans were losing their jobs.

And as closer Chinese ties hurt Americans, the congressman asserted, the Biden family profited — Hunter was welcome onto the board of a private equity firm out of Shanghai.

And to hear Cotton tell it, China was stoked when Joe threw his hat into the 2020 ring — enough to switch to a harder position in trade negotiations with Trump.

Perhaps most pointedly, Cotton pummeled Joe over two 2019 quotes.

From May:

“China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man. They’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what? They’re not competition for us.”

I thought Americans “welcomed [the] competition”?

And the following month:

“Our workers are literally three times as productive as workers…in Asia. So what are we worried about?”

In Tom’s view, the former VP’s doing it differently than other Dems:

“I’ve worked extensively with Democrats on China — with Chuck Schumer on cracking down on Chinese fentanyl trafficking, with Chris Van Hollen and numerous others on Huawei’s threat to the world’s telecommunications infrastructure. I don’t exactly hear Biden hammering on these important issues on the campaign trail.”

Tom ended with a look at the present moment: As the President recently took measures to protect America from further COVID-19 infection, Joe called the Chinese travel ban “hysterical” and xenophobic.

As reported by The Hill, on January 1st in Iowa, this was Biden:

“We have, right now, a crisis with the coronavirus. This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia – hysterical xenophobia – and fearmongering to lead the way instead of science.”

Of course, that’s not necessarily any more pro-China than it is anti-Trump — to be filed under “Dead Horse-Beating,” the xenophobia angle’s been a go-to for critics since Trump’s first campaign.

And speaking of perpetual allegations, Tom made a particularly notable comparison between Joe and another #Resist mantra: Democrats have perpetually claimed the President’s a Russian agent.

But two can play that game, one perhaps more adeptly.

“On the other hand,” he followed, “it’s ridiculous to say Biden is a Chinese asset — if he were, his handler would tell him to oppose China here and there to build credibility. But China can count on Joe Biden always to take China’s side.”

Scalding.

Tom summed it up best with one especially succinct line: