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.
All reports from China suggest Newsom willingly serves as the CCP’s useful idiot. He pandered to his authoritarian host by refusing to bring up China’s human rights abuses. Right before leaving for China, Newsom had to send the California Highway Patrol and National Guard to assist San Francisco authorities in combating the fentanyl crisis in the city, where he was once its mayor. Yet Newsom was too cowardly to confront China on its despicable role in America’s opioid crisis, which is fueled by China’s fentanyl production and exports. Newsom also ignored China’s ongoing military threats to Taiwan and other U.S. allies in the South China Sea.
Instead, Newsom committed to pushing California “to strengthen exchanges with China and seek closer cooperation in fields such as climate change and new energy. California is willing to be China’s long-term, stable, and strong partner.” In a post on X.com from Newsom’s official account, right above a photo between Newsom and Xi, it said, “California and China are two of the world’s largest economies. The reality is that we cannot solve the climate crisis without working together. Despite our major differences, California is committed to stopping the greatest existential threat our planet has ever known.”
Newsom would be wrong to assume his trip to China has increased his national and international profile. Even in a divided America, there is increasingly bipartisan consensus about the CCP’s growing threat to America and its allies because the CCP is hostile to democratic values and the liberal world order.
To make matters worse, Newsom’s taxpayer-funded political tourism came as the state he governs is in ruins. Crimes have spiked out of control. The state’s latest annual crime report reveals California’s “violent crime rate increased by 6.1% since 2021, and property crime was up 6.2%. Homicides dipped very slightly, but robberies jumped by 10.2%.” The rising crimes primarily resulted from soft-on-crime district attorneys’ reluctance to hold criminals accountable and the states’ decimalization laws enacted under Newsom.
California has become one of the most challenging states to do business in and to live in. According to the Hoover Institute, “California is ranked 48th in terms of regulatory burdens… California’s cost of living is 50 percent higher than the national average.” For example, Californians have been paying the nation’s highest gas prices under Newsom, mainly due to the governor’s unsustainable green policies. Newsom’s green policies became a national laughingstock last year when the state asked residents not to charge their electric vehicles to conserve energy, merely days after announcing a ban on new gas-powered cars by 2035.
The combination of a hostile business environment and a deteriorating standard of living due to out-of-control crime, drug overdoses, and homeless problems has driven hundreds and thousands of businesses and residents to flee the state in recent years. At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, Newsom also proved that he was a hypocrite when he attended a maskless dinner at one of the most expensive restaurants in the nation while keeping schools closed and telling Californians to cancel holiday gatherings in the name of public health. A group of low-income students from Colors is suing Newsom, alleging his prolonged school closure during the pandemic has “placed politics ahead of the well-being of children and violated their constitutional right to an education.”
By many measures, Newsom is a failed politician. Yet driven by sheer political ambition or a lack of self-awareness, Newsom somehow believes his failures qualify him to be the next president of the United States and to push California’s ruinous policies onto the rest of the nation.
Newsom’s kowtowing to the CCP demonstrated his ignorance and arrogance on geopolitical issues. It was embarrassing for himself, the state he represents, and America. Californians should especially be infuriated that their governor left their state in ruins while enjoying a lavish trip overseas, seeking his own political gain. The rest of America should know by now that Newsom, a failed governor of a failed state and a useful idiot of the CCP, should not become the next president of the United States.
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