In the early morning hours Wednesday, as President Trump was preparing to leave the White House to his successor, Joe Biden, China Xinhua News, the official news agency of Communist China, mocked Trump’s exit and implicitly celebrated Biden’s ascension to the presidency, tweeting, “Good Riddance, Donald Trump!”
Good Riddance, Donald Trump! https://t.co/kYNQ0jTCfH pic.twitter.com/UoDm8RIT6V
— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) January 20, 2021
The Trump administration has not been reluctant to confront China in various ways. This week the administration declared that China was committing crimes against humanity and genocide in its treatment of the country’s Uyghur population in the Xinjiang region. Last August, the State Department designated the Confucius Institute U.S. Center as a foreign mission of the Chinese Communist Party.
In July 2020, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sent the Chinese Communist Party a stern message announcing that China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea were “completely unlawful.” He stated, “The United States champions a free and open Indo-Pacific. Today we are strengthening U.S. policy in a vital, contentious part of that region — the South China Sea. We are making clear: Beijing’s claims to offshore resources across most of the South China Sea are completely unlawful, as is its campaign of bullying to control them.”
China appears to have cause to celebrate Trump’s exit and Biden’s ascension. On Tuesday, at a hearing on her nomination for Director of National Intelligence before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Avril Haines stated that President-elect Joe Biden wants his administration to view the Chinese Communist Party not as an adversary, but a “global competitor.”
Biden stated in December that the U.S. should not “punish” China for the coronavirus, saying, “My concern from the beginning — I’ve spoke about it, and I met with Xi more times than anybody had up until the time we left office that I’m aware of — is to make it real clear to China there are international rules that, if you want to play by, we’ll play with you. If you don’t, we’re not going to play, number one. Number two, it’s not about punishing them for the COVID virus. It’s about insisting that there be international norms that are established that they play by.”
Last September, CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Biden, “Let me ask you about China because in 2011 when you were vice president, you said, ‘It is in our self-interest that China continue to prosper.’ A lot of people think that allowing China into the World Trade Organization, which you supported, extending most favored nation status to China, which you supported, that those steps allowed China to take advantage of the United States by using our own open trade deals against us. Do you think in retrospect that you were naive about China?”
“No, here’s the thing. In the context of that, we want China to grow,” Biden said.
On Wednesday, China Xinhua News warned American politicians not to target China, writing that any such politicians were “weak on the inside”:
It should be noted, above all, that those politicians have clearly overestimated their ability to influence the course of China-U.S. relations. Outwardly, they appear to be tough, but they are actually weak on the inside. They have also underestimated China’s strength and determination to take all measures to safeguard its sovereignty, security and development interests.
“In a new action against China days before the U.S. government transition, certain U.S. politicians are making up reasons of reducing risks from so-called espionage to minimize procurement of Chinese goods and services,” Xinhua News wrote. “Such moves violated international trade rules and the principles of a market economy, undermined global industrial and value chains, and damaged the interests of companies and consumers in both countries. The trade war with China has failed to boost the U.S. economy, but instead led to a slowdown in U.S. economic growth and an increase of job losses.”
The report made no mention of how the coronavirus, which has been traced to Wuhan, China, had wrecked the American economy.
Ripping the Trump administration, the news agency warned, “The anti-China policy of the current U.S. administration will only end in failure,” then concluded, “On a final note: good riddance to the current U.S. administration and its final madness.”