WASHINGTON – President Biden drew attention Wednesday by declaring “I’m not worried about China” during a rare White House press conference – quick to sentence Republican critics.
Biden made the remark when asked about U.S. efforts to spur domestic manufacturing with last 12 months’s $280 billion bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act, which was enacted to counter China’s growing dominance in the semiconductor industry.
“My desire to extend American manufacturing and American jobs is not about China,” Biden said at a Rose Garden press conference with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol. “I’m not worried about China”
The CHIPS and Science Act “was not intended to harm China,” the president continued. “It’s designed in order that we do not have to fret about whether we’ve access to semiconductors.”
Congressmen supporting the bill explicitly cited China as the explanation for its existence last 12 months. For instance, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) described it as a part of a broader effort to “Overcome China”.
Biden’s remark, made at his first national press conference in 2023, drew swift criticism from Republicans.
“We realize it. It’s an issue,” tweeted Michele Perez Exner, Counselor to Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
“That is who House Democrats are backing for president. No wonder they can not say ‘why’ they support him” he wrote Will Reinert, press secretary of the Republican National Committee of the Congress.
Other social media users have noted the Biden family’s business interests in China, with one Twitter commentator saying Biden is not worried about China.[b]because they’re your property…
“Translation: I like China – they provide me money!” wrote one other.
House representatives are investigating President Biden’s role in his son Hunter’s and brother James Biden’s foreign business dealings in countries including China and Ukraine – and routinely claim that the primary family’s funds may explain the president’s allegedly lenient attitude towards China on issues similar to fixing the origin of COVID-19 19, which killed over one million Americans after a possible Wuhan lab leak, and a halt to Chinese fentanyl exports that killed an estimated 196,000 Americans between 2018 and 2021, probably the most recent 12 months for which data can be found.
Hunter Biden co-founded the state-backed Chinese investment fund BHR Partners in 2013, weeks after he joined then-Vice President Joe Biden aboard Air Force Two on an official trip to Beijing.
The corporate was registered just 12 days after the Bidens arrived in the Chinese capital, In accordance with in the Wall Street Journal, and while in Beijing, Hunter introduced his dad to future BHR CEO Jonathan Li. Joe Biden later wrote letters of advice to Li’s Kid’s College.
Throughout 2021, then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Hunter Biden was still working to “expand” his 10% stake in BHR, which he says he manages $2.1 billion in assets. At the top of the 12 months, Hunter’s attorney, Chris Clark, stated that the divestiture was complete. Nonetheless, online records do not reflect the brand new owner of the stake, and neither Hunter nor the White House provide further information.
In a second Chinese enterprise, Hunter and James Biden received at the least $4.8 million in 2017 and 2018 through a partnership with CEFC China Energy, a since-defunct reputable arm of Beijing’s “Belt and Road” foreign influence campaign, based on a Washington Post review records from the primary son’s abandoned laptop.
In a May 2017 e-mail regarding the CEFC partnership, it was described that the “big guy” was entitled to a ten% discount. Two of Hunter Biden’s former associates, Tony Bobulinski and James Gilliar, have individually referred to Joe Biden as a “great guy,” and Bobulinski says he met with Joe Biden later that month to debate the deal.
An October 2017 email also identifies Joe Biden as a participant in a phone call regarding CEFC’s try and purchase US natural gas.