China’s instructive VP debate antics

When the CBS moderators asked Gov. Walz about discrepancies regarding his story of being in China during the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, the video feed throughout China cut to an error screen. This “error” was, of course, the latest instance of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) censors silencing speech about sensitive topics within China.

At one level, the CCP’s censorship is a teachable moment for Americans. We tend to take the democratic process and regular free and fair elections for granted, but the world’s most powerful authoritarians take them deathly seriously, and feel threatened by them. For the candidates, the discussion about Tiananmen Square was a sideshow in the debate’s broader context. For the CCP, it triggered their broadcast kill switch.

At another level, however, the moment signals a deeper problem — not for China, but for America. Republican and Democratic candidates for president and vice president have now debated three times since late June. In none of these national discussions have the moderators asked a single question about the Chinese Communist Party and the threat it poses to American voters. 

That isn’t to say the candidates haven’t mentioned Beijing. They name-dropped China over 30 times in the three debates combined, and often used the issue to attack each other. In his June debate with President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump warned that “China is going to own us” if Biden won reelection. On another occasion, Trump accused Biden of being a “Manchurian candidate” for Beijing. In her debate with Trump as the new Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris criticized Trump for “selling American chips to China to help them improve and modernize their military.” Both Harris and Walz criticized Trump’s tariffs against China.

In fairness to the candidates, debates are not moments to educate people on policy, but rather opportunities to set the narrative and define one’s opponent. Even so, Xi Jinping, the CCP general secretary, is pouring kerosine from the Indo-Pacific to the United States. The People’s Liberation Army is increasingly bellicose toward friends like Taiwan, allies like the Philippines, and strategic partners like India.

In the words of new NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Beijing is “fueling” Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. The CCP extended a critical economic lifeline to the mullahs in Tehran in 2021 that stabilized the regime economically. More recently, the PRC backed Iran and its proxies in the wake of Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Within America, Beijing has infiltrated state capitals with its malign influence to great effect. Even more dangerous is TikTok, the CCP’s Trojan horse on the phones of 170 million Americans which Xi can activate to sow disinformation and divide Americans politically.

Overshadowing these threats is Xi Jinping’s ambition to create a Marxist-infused world order (or, as he puts it, a “Community of Common Destiny for All Mankind”) to displace America as the global superpower. According to key indicators — the mobilization of reservists, wartime criminal code adjustments, increased military recruiting, and the construction of air-raid shelters — the CCP is preparing the Chinese people to go to war to tear down the world America and our allies have built. All that remains is for Xi to light the match.

This reality portends a dangerous future for Americans. It challenges decades of Washington’s approach to China, in which Democratic and Republican policymakers wagered that America could change China politically by engaging China economically and diplomatically. Trump and Biden rightfully began moving away from engagement during their respective presidencies. But no U.S. president has made the case to voters that the Chinese Communist Party is seeking to reconstitute the glory days of Chinese imperialism at the expense of America’s interests. No aspirant for the presidency has prepared Americans for the dangers we are careening into. No American leader has steeled Americans to win a new Cold War in order to avoid a hot one.

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Without such leadership, America is unlikely to deter the CCP from testing our resolve.

As former congressman Mike Gallagher put it earlier this year, “The only thing that can get us there in peacetime is, really, transcendent presidential leadership.” Let us hope that such leadership emerges, whatever the outcome in November.

Michael Sobolik is senior fellow in Indo-Pacific security at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, DC. He is also the author of Countering China’s Great Game: A Strategy for American Dominance. Follow him on X @michaelsobolik.