US: Biden seizes on Bolton book to hit Trump's record on China

John Bolton's claim in an explosive new book that President Donald Trump urged China's Xi Jinping to help him win reelection could undermine his campaign’s effort to portray Democratic rival, Joe Biden, as soft on Beijing.

Biden's top aides moved quickly on Thursday to argue that it's Trump who has taken a weak approach to rising superpower. y seized on accusations from Bolton, Trump's former national security adviser, that president continually kowtowed to Xi and igred human rights abuses while trying to get his foreign counterpart’s assistance with domestic politics.

“ Bolton allegations are just most xious and hateful cherry on top of a sundae that already existed here," Ron Klain, a longtime Biden adviser, said in an interview. "We have seen for three years that Donald Trump has curried favor with authoritarian regimes that are willing to help him personally and politically.”

China already loomed large in contest as Trump and Biden have traded accusations over corruption, geopolitical pandering and president’s shifts in tone toward country during coronavirus pandemic, which

Biden's team hopes book will help reinforce ir argument that

Klain, who served as President Barack Obama's Ebola coordinator and Biden's chief of staff when he was vice president, said he began briefing Biden on situation in China as early as Jan. 10. Biden wrote an op-ed warning about virus on Jan. 27 and began speaking about issue on campaign trail around that time.

Trump, meanwhile, told CNBC on Jan. 22 that virus was “totally under control” and that he trusted Xi to handle outbreak.

Trump’s team insists president has taken a strong stance against Beijing.

“President Trump is first president to actually stand up to China for ir decades of trade cheating and he has held m accountable for lying to world about coronavirus,” said Tim Murtaugh, Trump campaign’s communications director. “Joe Biden has spent his entire career appeasing China, failing to take m seriously as an ecomic competitor, and allowing his son Hunter to profit wildly through a Chinese-controlled bank.”

president, er to run for reelection on back of a strong ecomy, resisted pressuring China for fear of rattling stock market but also because he did t want to upset Xi, as Associated Press first reported in February. two nations had only recently completed first phase of a sweeping trade deal, and Trump viewed completion of rest of agreement as a key plank in his reelection platform, according to three White House and campaign officials t authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.

Trump’s initial reluctance to challenge Xi has echoes in a moment recounted in Bolton’s book, which White House has tried to block from being published. According to Bolton, Trump turned a blind eye toward Xi’s construction of camps for Uighurs, who are predominantly Muslim and culturally and ethnically distinct from majority Han Chinese population

“At opening dinner of Osaka G-20 meeting, with only interpreters present, Xi explained to Trump why he was basically building concentration camps in Xinjiang,” Bolton wrote of a 2019 meeting. “According to our interpreter, Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building camps, which he thought was exactly right thing to do.”

Trump also, according to Bolton, asked Xi for China to make agricultural purchases from U.S. farmers that could shore up president’s hold on states he’d need to win this vember.

“Turning a blind eye to human rights to China is a pattern; it’s an administration that is carrying out an amoral foreign policy that some might say is immoral," said Richard Haass, president of Council on Foreign Relations, who ted that Trump has also t called out abuses by likes of Saudi Arabia and Russia. “y want to look tough on China without actually being tough on China."

But after pandemic tore across America, Trump’s rhetoric shifted dramatically, blaming China for t containing coronavirus and underselling its severity. And as support for president began to slide, campaign looked to link Biden to China, suggesting that as Obama’s pointperson to Asia, he helped enable Beijing’s rise.

campaign also claimed that Biden's son Hunter personally profited off his far’s international access. It also put tens of millions of dollars behind television and digital ads that resurface Biden’s previous praise for Beijing.

But polling suggests ads have largely been a wash — two men are viewed as about even in ir ability to man China — and have yet to make a significant impact on public’s perception on issue.

Democrats hope to keep pressure on Trump into fall. Democratic National Committee this week launched a six-figure digital and television ad campaign hitting Trump on China, which party officials say will expand in coming weeks. And it allows Biden campaign to return to an issue that aides see as one of candidate’s key assets in campaign: his foreign policy experience and pledge to restore America’s standing as a global leader.

But Trump's allies have plans to cede matter. Beyond pandemic, y still believe y can link Obama administration's trade deals and ecomic policy to loss of manufacturing jobs, particularly in vital battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, a strategy that worked in 2016.

“ upper Midwest was in a decline and it's because those jobs are in China and we won with that," said Steve Bann, chief executive officer of Trump's 2016 campaign, in a recent interview. “Trump can still deliver a tough mess about getting those jobs back. Biden is wrong guy for moment."