During the 2020 election campaign, President Donald Trump and his supporters labeled Joe Biden as “Beijing Biden,” accusing him of being soft on China and allowing his son, Hunter, to allegedly profit off the vice presidency. As Joe Biden puts together his Cabinet ahead of Inauguration Day in January 2021, names are being announced and floated around in Washington circles. So far, many of the figures are Democratic Party establishment insiders, and some of them have some noteworthy connections to China in one way or another. It is a class of political lifers, wokeologists, and Chinese beneficiaries.
Antony Blinken – Secretary of State
Biden selected former Deputy Secretary of State and Deputy National Security Advisor Antony Blinken as his Secretary of State. He possesses the credentials to act in one of the most powerful positions in an administration, with a Washington career dating back to the late 1980s when he first sniffed a political career by fundraising for Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election.
One of his positions in the private sector was that of managing director at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement that Joe Biden established in 2018. During his time there, it allegedly received more than $22 million in donations from Chinese donors, according to the National Legal and Policy Center, an ethics watchdog group. The university has received more than $70 million from Chinese sources since 2013. But the Department of Education revealed that it would not mandate the Biden Center to disclose the donor list.
“The University of Pennsylvania and the Penn Biden Center are particularly vulnerable to China government influences due to the large amounts of China donations and contracts,” the complaint noted.
In 2017, Blinken co-founded WestExec Advisors, a strategic advisory firm that Politico described as “secretive” and has become a home for alumni of the Obama administration. He launched the firm with Michèle Flournoy, a top contender for Secretary of Defense, and Avril Haines, Biden’s pick for Director of National Intelligence. One of the top corporate directives of WestExec is “managing China-related risks in an era of strategic competition” and advise U.S. companies on how to do business in the world’s second-largest economy.
He is also a partner at Pine Island Capital Partners, a private equity firm that recently launched a defense-focused blank check firm called Pine Island Acquisition.
John Kerry – Climate Czar
In 2009, Hunter Biden and Christopher Heinz, the stepson of former Secretary of State John Kerry, founded the billion-dollar private equity firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners. The business added another name to the mix: Devon Archer, a longtime friend of Heinz and a friend of Kerry’s. An extensive investigation by the New York Post uncovered that the firm entered into business with the Thornton Group, another politically-connected consultancy group, which was founded by James Bulger, the son of the longtime Kerry ally and former Massachusetts state Senate President William Bulger.
The purpose? China. The aim was to “explore the possibility of commercial cooperation and opportunity” in a vast market.
In addition to a wide variety of lucrative business deals, even some involving sensitive transactions, Rosemont eventually executed a noteworthy arrangement with the government-owned Bank of China. As the newspaper’s Peter Schweizer wrote in March 2018: “In short, the Chinese government was literally funding a business that it co-owned along with the sons of two of America’s most powerful decision makers.”
Lael Brainard – The Next Federal Reserve Chair?
Biden went with former Fed Chair Janet Yellen as head of the Treasury Department. Many media reports had suggested that Lael Brainard, who has served on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors since 2014, was the likely pick. So, does this set up for A potential nomination as head of the U.S. central bank once Jerome Powell’s term is complete? If so, her previous positions on China as Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs from 2010 to 2013 may come into focus, which might have been the reason for her not being appointed as Treasury Secretary.
Bloomberg noted that her public positions on China had been too soft. During a 2012 speech, Brainard explained that the Obama administration pursued an agenda “that creates predictability and clarity, pursuing areas of cooperation” despite a myriad of problems that needed to be resolved. She also pushed Beijing to “avoid persistent exchange rate misalignment” that would be fostered by “competitive devaluation.”
Brainard helmed several reports that reviewed the currency practices of major U.S. trading partners, including China. Despite blatant currency manipulation for years by the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), Brainard stopped short of assigning Beijing as a currency manipulator, noting that the yuan was “significantly undervalued” and that it would be “closely monitored.”
Michèle Flournoy – Defense Secretary
Flournoy may be the complete opposite of the names on this list, or other people who have been tapped to serve in the Biden White House. Her stance on China, as well as foreign policy in general, can be described as “progressive internationalism.”
One of the main headline grabbers was a statement she made in June 2020, arguing American forces need the ability to “sink all” Chinese vessels within 72 hours in the South China Sea. But the potential Pentagon Chief was a chief advocate of the Obama military doctrine of hybrid war, as well as the drone assassination program. She rejected a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan without a “political settlement being in place.” Flournoy not only endorsed the invasion of Libya, she doubled down on her support by claiming “we were right to do it” on humanitarian grounds.
Perhaps her appointment would help offset claims that Biden would be soft on Beijing – or anything else for that matter. Flournoy makes former Vice President Dick Cheney look like an anti-war hippy.
Six Degrees of Separation
Washington has been described as the Swamp because it represents everything that is wrong with politics. Everyone in the corridors of power ostensibly share the same bed. The nation’s capital is filled with politicians, consultants, public policy advisors, and prominent media figures who are married to someone who has served in the White House or are related to an integral personality in a Senate or Congressional office. What is worse is that these same folks typically find lucrative positions in consultancy, lobbying, or private equity firms, banking on their connections to earn a handsome paycheck. It is part of the reason why, conservatives will suggest, that Hunter Biden was given a six-figure salary at Burisma without possessing one iota of expertise in the energy sector.
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