US President Donald Trump said Thursday that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) should consider investigating Joe Biden and his son after again calling on Ukraine’s president to re-open an investigation into one of his top political rivals.
“China should start an investigation into the Bidens, because what happened in China was just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine,” Trump told reporters on Thursday as he left the White House.
Trump’s remarks came after he reiterated his call for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to start an investigation of the Bidens.
Trump’s allegation that Joe Biden, as vice president, tried to shield his son Hunter from a Ukrainian investigation of a company that employed him, has been discredited.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a faxed request for comment yesterday.
The US House of Representatives has begun an inquiry into impeaching Trump over his conduct in a July 25 telephone call with Zelenskiy.
After freezing military aid to Ukraine, which is battling a Russia-backed insurgency, Trump asked Zelenskiy to investigate Biden, and encouraged him to work on the matter with his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and US Attorney General William Barr.
“I would say that President Zelenskiy, if it were me, I would recommend that they start an investigation into the Bidens, because nobody has any doubts that they weren’t crooked,” Trump said on Thursday.
Biden’s campaign dismissed Trump’s remarks as without merit.
“Donald Trump is flailing and melting down on national television, desperately clutching for conspiracy theories that have been debunked and dismissed by independent, credible news organizations,” Biden’s deputy campaign manager, Kate Bedingfield, said in a statement. “It could not be more transparent: Donald Trump is terrified that Joe Biden will beat him like a drum.”
Also on Thursday, Federal Election Commission Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub, a Democrat, retweeted a statement she originally made in June about electoral intervention from foreign governments.
“Let me make something 100% clear to the American public and anyone running for public office: It is illegal for any person to solicit, accept or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a US election,” she said.
On China, Trump suggested that the Bidens might be the reason Beijing “has such a sweetheart deal, that for so many years they’ve been ripping off our country.”
Trump did not elaborate, but often says China is “ripping off” the US. in trade — the predicate for his ongoing trade dispute with Beijing.
Speaking to the media in September, Trump alluded to his suspicions about Biden and China: “When Biden’s son walks out of China with US$1.5 billion in a fund, and the biggest funds in the world can’t get money out of China, and he’s there for one quick meeting and he flies in on Air Force Two, I think that’s a horrible thing,” he said.
Implicit in Trump’s statements is that Joe Biden used his position to encourage Chinese officials to benefit his son’s business dealings involving a private-equity venture in the country.
Not only has no evidence emerged of the vice president’s intervention, but it is unclear whether Hunter Biden derived any financial benefit from the venture in the first place.
Meanwhile, China experts say Beijing stands to gain little by helping Trump undermine a political opponent.
Beijing has a long-standing public policy of not interfering in foreign countries’ politics.
Beijing does “not want to be involved or seen involved in the US presidential elections,” said Jeffrey Bader, a former special assistant for national security to then-US president Barack Obama for and a top Asia adviser.
Chinese State Councilor and Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said this repeatedly at events around the UN General Assembly last week.
“China will never interfere in the internal affairs of the United States, and we trust that the American people are capable of sorting out their own problems,” he said.
A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck off Yilan at 11:05pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter was located at sea, about 32.3km east of Yilan County Hall, at a depth of 72.8km, CWA data showed There were no immediate reports of damage. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Yilan County area on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. It measured 4 in other parts of eastern, northern and central Taiwan as well as Tainan, and 3 in Kaohsiung and Pingtung County, and 2 in Lienchiang and Penghu counties and 1
A car bomb killed a senior Russian general in southern Moscow yesterday morning, the latest high-profile army figure to be blown up in a blast that came just hours after Russian and Ukrainian delegates held separate talks in Miami on a plan to end the war. Kyiv has not commented on the incident, but Russian investigators said they were probing whether the blast was “linked” to “Ukrainian special forces.” The attack was similar to other assassinations of generals and pro-war figures that have either been claimed, or are widely believed to have been orchestrated, by Ukraine. Russian Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, 56, head
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE: Beijing would likely intensify public opinion warfare in next year’s local elections to prevent Lai from getting re-elected, the ‘Yomiuri Shimbun’ said Internal documents from a Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company indicated that China has been using the technology to intervene in foreign elections, including propaganda targeting Taiwan’s local elections next year and presidential elections in 2028, a Japanese newspaper reported yesterday. The Institute of National Security of Vanderbilt University obtained nearly 400 pages of documents from GoLaxy, a company with ties to the Chinese government, and found evidence that it had apparently deployed sophisticated, AI-driven propaganda campaigns in Hong Kong and Taiwan to shape public opinion, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported. GoLaxy provides insights, situation analysis and public opinion-shaping technology by conducting network surveillance
‘POLITICAL GAME’: DPP lawmakers said the motion would not meet the legislative threshold needed, and accused the KMT and the TPP of trivializing the Constitution The Legislative Yuan yesterday approved a motion to initiate impeachment proceedings against President William Lai (賴清德), saying he had undermined Taiwan’s constitutional order and democracy. The motion was approved 61-50 by lawmakers from the main opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the smaller Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who together hold a legislative majority. Under the motion, a roll call vote for impeachment would be held on May 19 next year, after various hearings are held and Lai is given the chance to defend himself. The move came after Lai on Monday last week did not promulgate an amendment passed by the legislature that
RSS