President Donald Trump seems to be feeling the heat of his potentially looming general election loss to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. This Wednesday morning, he wheeled out the conspiracy theory that Biden is actually the favored candidate of China, although he did not actually include any evidence or references to any evidence in his tweet. In fact, just this week, CNN published a fact-check outlining how the claim that China prefers Biden is false. As the outlet summarized it, the country is opposed to Trump’s re-election because of his unpredictability, as a U.S. intelligence report summarized it — they are not, it seems, actively pushing for Biden.
Trump tweeted:
‘Just In: Chinese State Media and Leaders of CHINA want Biden to win “the U.S. Election”. If this happened (which it won’t), China would own our Country, and our Record Setting Stock Markets would literally CRASH!’
Just In: Chinese State Media and Leaders of CHINA want Biden to win “the U.S. Election”. If this happened (which it won’t), China would own our Country, and our Record Setting Stock Markets would literally CRASH!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 26, 2020
China would not “own” the United States if Biden won the presidency. Also, it’s worth noting — the stock market has already crashed, big time, while Trump has been in charge. As the Coronavirus pandemic set in, the stock market plummeted, and all of the gains in value across the entirety of Trump’s presidency were temporarily wiped out. The value of the Dow Jones Industrial Average has since risen back to heights comparable to the pre-pandemic state of the economy, but other parts of the economy, like the job market, have not returned to normal. For about 22 weeks in a row and counting, new unemployment claims per week have been above the pre-pandemic record, which was set in 1982.
As for Trump’s fundamental claim — that China prefers Biden — CNN explained:
‘The US intelligence community did not determine that China preferred Biden because he would economically or otherwise weaken the US. Rather, it outlined that China preferred that President Donald Trump lose the election because he was “unpredictable” and because of the many actions he has taken against China.’
William R. Evanina, who directs of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said that “China prefers that President Trump — whom Beijing sees as unpredictable — does not win reelection.” That’s different from actively preferring Biden. As CNN notes, Evanina’s “report makes no mention of China preferring Biden because he would weaken the US economy.”
Check out Twitter’s response below:
