“China will own the United States if this election is lost by Donald Trump,” Trump, referring to himself in the third person, told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. “If I do not win the election, China will have the United States. You will have to learn to speak Chinese, you want to know the truth.”
Trump accuses China of failing to spread coronavirus and hiding information about the disease in its early stages. He says his once chummy relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping has soured. And his administration has taken a series of actions that increase tensions with Beijing, including this week by seeking the highest profile by a U.S. official to Taiwan in decades.
Yet, even as the administration eases the pressure, Trump has even on several occasions refused to condemn some of China’s most provocative movements.
Impressed in the same interview Tuesday on a statement his former national security adviser made recently – that Trump told Xi to continue detaining Uyghurs in camps in western China – Trump chose not to condemn the delay.
Instead, he offered a flashy denial of John Bolton’s predicament when he trashed his former aide.
“Who would ever say such a thing? He made it up. He made it all out,” Trump said. “John Bolton is a sick person. And John, and he’s not a smart person.”
In his book, Bolton wrote that Trump discussed the prison camps set up by the Chinese government for Uyghurs in western China during a dinner at the G20 last year.
“With only interpreters present, Xi had explained to Trump why he was building concentration camps in Xinjiang in principle. According to our interpreter, Trump said Xi should continue to build the camps, which Trump thought was just the right thing to do. , “Bolton writes.
The U.S. State Department estimates that more than one million Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other Muslim minorities have been detained by Chinese government in prison camps, where they are thought to be “subject to torture, cruel and inhuman treatment such as physical and sexual abuse, forced labor and death. ”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Beijing’s actions in Xinjiang “the stain of the century.”
However, Trump has not expressed much public concern about the actions, saying in an interview earlier this month that he refrained from imposing sanctions on China because he was negotiating a trade deal.
Similarly, Trump promised during a private phone call last summer with Xi that the US would remain silent on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong while trade talks continued, two sources familiar with the call told CNN last year.
Trump’s parallel responses to Hong Kong’s ethnic repression and protests illustrate an evolving dynamic as he works to portray Biden as an unworthy negotiator. Even as he tries to project toughness, Trump has a history of praising Xi and remains hopeful of saving the trade gap in China, which remains his signature in foreign policy.
In another radio interview Tuesday, Trump appears to be more focused on the possible upsides for the United States following the political collapse in Hong Kong, which his government has decided.
“For years, Hong Kong made a lot of money that we could have made that we could have made in the New York Stock Exchange and our great exchanges,” he told Clay Travis on Fox Sports Radio, adding later, “We gave enormous incentives to those It’s costing us a fortune to keep Hong Kong viable and move on, and now that we’ve done it, I’ve done it all, I’m done it all. There’s no incentive for it. We do not send money through incentives. down, we will earn a lot more money because they will not be competitive. “
Trump said the geography of Hong Kong – which sits in part on an island off mainland China – makes it complicated to challenge China’s authority.
“Look at a map, it’s attached to China. That it’s a bit tricky from certain points of view, but we’ll do very well by not having a good competitor. I think it will be a competitor, but on a much smaller scale, “he said.
Trump’s remarks came at noon from an increasingly difficult stance that his own administration is taking against China.
Last week, the US Carrie Lam, Hong Kong Chief Executive, and 10 other Chinese and Hong Kong officials sanctioned for their role in violations of political freedom in the region. That came after Trump revoked Hong Kong’s special status in trade in May.
Last week, the administration began proposals that would wipe out Chinese companies from U.S. stock exchanges. And Trump took steps to ban TikTok, which is owned by a Chinese company, from the United States.
The administration has also closed a Chinese consulate in Houston, hardened its position on the South China Sea and worked to persuade allies not to allow Chinese mobile giant Huawei on its 5G networks.
And this week, US Secretary of Human Services Secretary Alex Azar visited Taiwan and met with President Tsai Ing-wen, the highest-level meeting between Washington and the self-governing island in decades. The visit was condemned by Beijing, which considers Taiwan as Chinese territory.
Yet despite relations between the U.S. and China following historic cuts, Trump himself has refused to speak out strongly about the abuse of human rights. Instead, he turned his attention to China’s actions on the coronavirus, saying he was suffering from a relationship with Xi.
“I had a very good relationship with President Xi. I would even say better than good. I would say we had a great relationship. He is a great gentleman. But my relationship is no longer very good with him because of what she has to do with the China virus, “Trump told Hewitt.
Yet his flesh with China appeared central to how the country’s lack of the virus affected his political status.
“George Washington would have had a hard time beating me before the plague came, for the plague of China,” he said.
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