Since his election, President Trump has promised to do what President Barack Obama would not: stand up to China and put an end to its economic and technological manipulation. Many conservatives, however, have rightly noticed that, with the exception of a few tariffs, Trump’s hard-on-China stance has been little more than a rhetorical smokescreen.
Now, in his new memoir, former national security adviser John Bolton alleges that Trump solicited China’s aid to help him win the 2020 election. In one conversation, Trump told Chinese President Xi Jinping that China’s “economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns” could be of great service to the United States. “He stressed the importance of farmers, and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome,” Bolton wrote in an excerpt published by the Wall Street Journal.
In another stomach-turning conversation, which, it’s important to note, Bolton did not witness firsthand, Xi defended the concentration camps being built in the Xinjiang region, where nearly 1 million Uighur Muslims have been imprisoned. “According to our interpreter,” Bolton wrote, “Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do.” The president, according to Bolton, asked why the U.S. was considering sanctioning China over its treatment of the Uighurs — treatment that has rightly been decried as a human rights abuse.
If what Bolton has written is true, this is truly beyond the pale. Because if this is true, our president actively excused the totalitarian, criminal actions of a communist government that continues to suppress its people and made it clear to Xi that we, the country that has made liberty and equality its bedrock and the only country in the world with the ability to stop China, would not stand in his way.
At another point, Bolton wrote that on the 30th anniversary of China’s massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, Trump refused to issue a White House statement. “Who cares about it?” Trump said, according to Bolton. "I’m trying to make a deal. I don’t want anything.”
These are serious accusations. And although Trump has not yet commented on the substance of this excerpt, the White House did release a statement on Wednesday announcing the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020, which Trump signed to “hold accountable perpetrators of human rights violations and abuses.” Other members of the administration have denied the accusations as well and slammed them as a lie.
In other parts of the excerpt, Bolton wrote that Trump readily acquiesced on tariffs during negotiations with Xi. This confirms what many conservatives (and Democrats) have suspected for a while: Trump likes to act tough, but when it comes right down to it, he hesitates to act. He’s vowed to restore order in Seattle, where anarchist protesters are still running their own “autonomous zone.” He promised to build a wall that has not yet materialized. He promised to hold China accountable but gave in as soon as his reelection chances began to look dim.
If Bolton's account is true, Trump has betrayed his platform and the people who elected him. But that's a big "if." In regards to Bolton's accusation about the Uighur concentration camps: Why would Xi openly admit this to the U.S.? China has denied reports about the Xinjiang region for years, and it strikes me as odd that Xi would suddenly be so open about it.
Moreover, we should ask why Bolton is speaking up now. He had the chance to testify before the Senate during its impeachment trial of the president but refused to come forward. Why? Because, he said, “given the environment then existing because of the House’s impeachment malpractice,” his testimony “would have made no significant difference in the Senate outcome.”
Perhaps that’s true, but it’s difficult to see Bolton’s decision to wait as anything but an attempt to cash in on the media frenzy that has accompanied his allegations. By waiting, Bolton has also betrayed the country he claims to serve. There are no winners in this scenario, but the public will bear the brunt of Trump’s misconduct and Bolton’s unwillingness to speak up when it could have made more of a difference.
