California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom traveled to China last week to seek climate cooperation from Beijing. His trip not only wastes taxpayers’ money but also provides the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with an opportunity to blast out its propaganda.
It is an open secret that Newsom is eying to run for the presidency of the United States, and he sought to raise his national and international profile through overseas trips like this. China, on the other hand, regards Newsom’s visit as an opportunity to blast CCP propaganda and push its influence on America’s China policies.
The CCP rolled out the red carpet for him because it knows how to stroke the ego of a politician like Newsom. It filled Newsom’s itinerary in China with touring an electric vehicle facility and a wind facility, many meetings, and photo-ops with high-level CCP officials, and most importantly, an audience with China’s dictator, Xi Jinping, who addressed Newsom as an “old friend.”
Mary Kissel, a senior adviser to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, pointed out on X.com that what China did was a typical tactic to “flatter foreign visitors & shower them with praise & attention.” Through cultivating relationships with prominent foreigners, the CCP aims to enlist these foreigners to spread its preferred narratives overseas and influence policies in foreign countries without having to deploy party representatives.
Kissel warns, “A Leninist regime like Xi’s has no interest in ‘cooperation,’ no matter how many times they say it. Wake up.” A good example is that China pays only lip service to climate change, even though China is still the world’s biggest polluter and its leadership has no intention to curtail its coal-dependent economy, even after signing the Paris Climate Agreement.
But China’s Xi knows well that he could use climate change discussions to entice leftist politicians like Newsom to compromise on other issues, such as human rights. Furthermore, the more the West invests in green policies, the more it will economically depend on China, as it is the world’s largest supplier of batteries for electric vehicles, solar panels, and wind turbines. The West’s green initiatives are self-destructive while strengthening China’s economy and geopolitical influence.
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