Gavin Newsom’s not-so-excellent Chinese adventure
Washington Examiner
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It is hard to pick the most cringe-inducing moment of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D-CA) vanity trip to China, but the best candidate may be when he sat behind the wheel of an electric SUV manufactured by BYD Company, a corporation that has direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party and received billions of dollars in subsidies from the Chinese government.
“I want two,” Newsom said of the vehicle. “We got to get these in the States.” Someone might want to let the United Auto Workers know about Newsom’s endorsement of the competition. President Joe Biden might want to be read in too. The inaptly named Inflation Reduction Act was to spur American electric vehicles, not make it easier for the Chinese to dump their slave-labor-produced vehicles here.
NEWSOM DEFENDS FAILURE TO ADDRESS HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES WITH CHINA’S XI JINPING
Newsom’s joy ride aside, his entire trip to Beijing was childishly naive or more aggressively and willfully ignorant of China’s political priorities.
His claim that he spoke frankly with Chinese regime leader Xi Jinping about fentanyl is absurd. Newsom described the conversation as “remarkably positive,” adding, “The president was rather explicit about the desire to be even more specific in terms of what is needed, in terms of calling out and identifying where these chemicals are going.”
If Xi needs specifics, Newsom might send him the eight indictments our Department of Justice filed against 28 Chinese people and organizations in the fentanyl supply chain from China, through Mexico, to the United States. The chemicals are named in the indictment. The Chinese companies and individuals are named as well.
How pathetic for Newsom to say he raised the issue, just for Xi to waive him off by asking for more details! Our Justice Department has the details. Newsom either doesn’t have the spine or the grasp of the issue to call Xi out.
Then there is the headline justification for Newsom’s trip: securing Chinese cooperation on reducing carbon emissions. Climate envoy John Kerry returned from China this July wishing for Chinese commitments to lower emissions, and Newsom succeeded in matching Kerry’s utter failure to get them.
“Divorce is not an option,” Newsom said. “The only way we can solve our climate crisis is to continue our long-standing cooperation with China.”
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What does “our long-standing cooperation with China” amount to? According to the Global Energy Monitor’s “Boom and Bust Coal 2023” report, China added 26.8 gigawatts of coal power capacity last year and gave clearance for nearly 100 gigawatts for construction this year. Meanwhile, the United States led the world last year by retiring 13.5 gigawatts of coal-fired electricity. The “long-standing cooperation” Newsom wants to continue involves the United States cutting emissions and China adding twice as much.
If that is Newsom’s idea of success, we’d hate to see what he considers failure.