The Biden administration said Monday that China should let people “peacefully” oppose COVID-19 lockdowns — without endorsing widespread protest calls for President Xi Jinping to resign over his strict “zero COVID” policies.
Rare nationwide demonstrations broke out in China this weekend in the most significant challenge to Communist Party rule in more than 30 years — with crowds in Beijing and Shanghai chanting that Xi should step down.
Some footage showed protests descending into near-riots against police, while in pandemic epicenter Wuhan, protesters removed fencing reportedly intended for lockdowns.
The White House National Security Council said in a Monday morning statement that “[w]e’ve long said everyone has the right to peacefully protest, here in the United States and around the world. This includes in [China].”
The carefully worded message added that “zero COVID is not a policy we [are] pursuing here in the United States. And as we’ve said, we think it’s going to be very difficult for the People’s Republic of China to be able to contain this virus through their zero COVID strategy.”
But top NSC spokesman John Kirby made clear at a Monday afternoon White House briefing that the US was not endorsing the specific requests of protesters.
“On the China issue, why is it the White House’s line that everybody has the right to peacefully protest and not ‘The US thinks it’s bad to lock people up in their houses to stop COVID’?” Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy asked Kirby.
“We said lockdown is not a policy that we support here. Obviously, there are people in China that have concerns about that, and they’re protesting that and we believe they should be able to do that peacefully,” Kirby replied.
RealClearPolitics reporter Philip Wegmann followed up by asking Kirby, “What is the president’s reaction when he hears protesters in China chant ‘freedom’ or ‘Xi Jinping step down’?”
“The president’s not going to speak for protesters around the world,” Kirby replied. “They are speaking for themselves.”
President Biden did not endorse widespread calls for Chinese President Xi Jinping to resign. AFP via Getty Images“So there’s no reaction?” Wegmann pressed. “These protesters are speaking for themselves,” Kirby repeated. “What we are doing is making it clear we support the right of peaceful protest.”
President Biden’s family has extensive business relationships with Chinese government-linked companies and first son Hunter Biden reportedly still owns a 10% stake in a Chinese state-backed private equity firm.
Some Republicans pressed Biden, who had no public events scheduled Monday, to be more forceful in his messaging toward China’s authoritarian leadership.
“President Biden must stand up against Xi and urge him not to use violence against the peaceful protests,” tweeted Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.). “Chinese citizens are making their voices heard and are speaking out against communism. The United States must support these freedom fighters.”
Former Donald Trump presidential campaign adviser Steve Cortes wrote, “Look at this completely weak sauce statement from the White House on the current protests in China. Doesn’t condemn CCP, doesn’t decry madness of lockdowns, doesn’t offer support to the brave Chinese citizens!!! Quite a contrast vs Reagan & Solidarity in the 80s…”
Former acting US director of national intelligence Richard Grenell wrote, “Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign jumped to push the fake news that Hunter’s laptop was Russian disinformation. Then Biden failed to stand up to China lecturing us in Alaska. What’s the reason Joe Biden is afraid to stand up to China?”
Chinese cities, including Wuhan, cast off pandemic lockdowns as early as 2020 — much earlier than in the United States and other Western countries — but the rise of the more contagious but less lethal Omicron variant prompted a retrenchment this year.
The protests, as well as lockdowns enforced by Chinese authorities aimed at preventing any transmission of the virus, are roiling international supply chains.
Apple reportedly is expecting a 6 million smartphone production shortage due to work stoppages and protests at an iPhone plant in the central Chinese city Zhengzhou.
The rare civil unrest in China occurs as House Republicans vow to use their renewed subpoena powers next year to determine the extent of Joe Biden’s involvement in a pair of business deals involving his family and entities connected to the Chinese government.
“This committee will evaluate whether this president is compromised or swayed by foreign dollars. This is an investigation of Joe Biden,” incoming House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said at a press conference this month.
House Republicans also plan to investigate the theory that COVID-19 leaked from a Wuhan lab that was doing risky “gain of function” research on coronaviruses. US spy agencies assessed last year that a lab release in Wuhan was one of two “plausible” explanations for the pandemic’s origins, along with natural animal-to-human transmission, but Biden has said very little about pursuing the matter since then.
Hunter Biden cofounded a Chinese state-backed investment fund called BHR Partners in 2013 within weeks of joining then-Vice President Biden aboard Air Force Two on an official trip to Beijing, according to the Wall Street Journal. Hunter introduced his dad to incoming BHR CEO Jonathan Li in a hotel lobby and Joe Biden later wrote college recommendation letters for Li’s children, according to documents recovered from the first son’s abandoned laptop.
The Journal reported that Hunter Biden’s “paid-in capital” to establish the company was $425,000, according to corporate registration records. BHR manages $2.1 billion in assets and takes a prominent role in acquiring overseas assets.
One week after the president’s November 2021 virtual summit with Xi, Hunter Biden’s attorney Chris Clark said the stake had been divested. However, online records show that Hunter still holds the interest. Neither Clark nor the White House would provide further information on the supposed transaction.
In 2016, BHR Partners was influential in facilitating a deal in which a Chinese firm bought a Congolese cobalt mine from American and Canadian companies. The transaction gained significant attention last year when it was spotlighted by the New York Times and because cobalt is an important material for making electric vehicle batteries.
Meanwhile, Hunter Biden and his uncle, first brother James Biden, earned $4.8 million from Beijing-linked CEFC China Energy in 2017 and 2018, according to a Washington Post review of Hunter Biden laptop documents. That firm was regarded as an arm of Beijing’s “Belt and Road” foreign influence initiative.
A May 2017 email about the CEFC partnership described the “big guy” as being due a 10% cut. Two former Hunter Biden associates, Tony Bobulinski and James Gilliar, identified Joe Biden as the “big guy” and Bobulinski says he met with Joe Biden in the same month to discuss the deal.
The president has denied making any money from his son’s overseas business deals and the White House says he stands by his 2019 claim that he has never even discussed the enterprises with his son — despite evidence that he has interacted with Hunter’s associates from China, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Russia and Ukraine.
