Biden and the left: Too many excuses for China

As Americans come together to fight back against the COVID-19 coronavirus, in an unprecedented whole-of-America response led by the Trump administration, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is busy politicizing the pandemic.

Make no mistake: China is actively spreading lies. It is trying to label the coronavirus, which broke out in Wuhan, China, as an “American disease” spread by the U.S. military, even though there “is not a shred of evidence to support that,” as noted by the New York Times. 

President Trump has rightfully labeled the disease as a “Chinese virus,” in order to combat Beijing’s falsehood about it being an “American disease.” As he clearly explained during a press conference on Wednesday: “China tried to say … [the coronavirus] was caused by American soldiers. That can’t happen. It’s not going to happen, not as long as I’m president. It comes from China.”

But standing up to China and standing up for American soldiers apparently bothered Mr. Biden, who called President Trump’s terminology “xenophobic.” 

“This is not about politics,” Biden’s senior adviser, Symone Sanders, said during an appearance on Fox News, moments before she launched into the same politicization as her candidate. She said that labeling COVID-19 as a “Chinese virus” was a “racial slur.”  

Yet, as Fox News host Martha MaCallum replied, “Every thinking human being who looks at this understands that the reference is to the origin of the virus.” Indeed, several viruses have been named for their places of origin, like the West Nile virus, Zika and Ebola. But when you’re accepting or repeating China’s propaganda, the facts are of no matter. 

This has been something of a trend for the Biden campaign. 

On Jan. 31, when President Trump put in place unprecedented travel restrictions on Chinese citizens after coronavirus infections exploded there, Biden resorted to his favorite word, labeling the restrictions as “xenophobic” and calling it “fear-mongering” and “hysteria.” Yet, those restrictions have been widely hailed by medical experts, like Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health, for abating the spread of the coronavirus in this country.

On Wednesday, Biden campaign adviser Ron Klain called for the U.S. to act “with kind of the same tempo” as China in combating the disease. On the same day, Biden criticized “Trump’s misguided trade war with China” in a campaign statement about the coronavirus.   

Perhaps we should not be surprised that Biden and his campaign seem so sympathetic to China. In October 2019, Biden said that China’s “not a problem.” In January, he said “we should be helping” China. And, just last month, he said that thinking of China as a competitor is “bizarre.” 

In contrast, President Trump has always been clear-eyed toward the threat that China poses to the United States on many levels. He had the courage to be the first American president to go toe-to-toe with China over trade, intellectual-property theft and other issues, putting America first and ultimately brokering the first phase of a U.S.-China trade deal that represents an enormous victory for America’s workers.  

President Trump also has been resolute in taking early action to stop the spread of this coronavirus, through travel restrictions on China and other countries — including U.S. allies — as the virus swept across the globe, and by imposing mandatory quarantines. He has always put the interest of Americans first.

Professor Xiao Qiang of the University of California, Berkeley, has noted that “it’s more than just some disinformation” that China is putting out in trying to portray America as the source of the coronavirus that now threatens the entire world. “It’s an orchestrated, all-out campaign by the Chinese government through every channel at a level you rarely see,” he said. “It’s a counteroffensive.” 

Sadly, it is a counteroffensive which many on the political left seem willing to accept, if not promote, in order to score political points. 

Kayleigh McEnany is the national press secretary for President Donald Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign. She was the former national spokesperson for the Republican National Committee and a former CNN political commentator. McEnany is the author of “New American Revolution: The Making of a Populist Movement.”