President Biden is set to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week courtesy of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s red-carpet rollout for the Communist leader.
If his administration’s record is any indicator, Biden will focus more on flattering Xi than holding his regime accountable.
His Cabinet has chased Chinese officials around the globe, only to bow, sing their praises and make concessions when the meetings are finally secured.
The president seems content to manage America’s decline rather than confront China and win this decisive decade.
Time is running out to act and prevent China from overtaking the United States as the world’s leading superpower.
As president, I will restore American strength on the world stage and focus our attention and resources on deterring Xi’s Chinese Communist Party — the greatest economic and security threat facing America today.
My goal is straightforward: We win, and they lose.
Both US parties have mistakenly treated China as a friendly competitor, letting a hostile Marxist regime exploit our openness and steal our technology, jobs, industries and assets through trade abuses, currency manipulation and slave labor.
It’s allowed Beijing’s defense budget and military to rival Washington’s, putting China on track to surpass us economically.
The wealth and power ceded to Beijing have enabled the Chinese Communist Party to expand its malign influence globally, including in Africa, the Mediterranean and the Western Hemisphere.
We must make sure the United States economy remains the largest and most dynamic on Earth.
While China has grown its influence in our backyard, our foreign-policy establishment merely talks tough.
The Biden administration claims to be cracking down but continues seeking détente, with no accountability for China’s spy balloon, COVID-19, cyber breaches, military provocations or abuses against Uighurs.
Xi’s CCP continues to steal our capabilities, undermine our economy and displace the United States on the world stage.
Enough is enough.
While adversaries such as Russia, Iran and North Korea threaten America and must be countered, China is our foremost national-security threat.
When you examine the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, who is Russia’s main backer?
China.
If you look at what’s happening in Gaza with Hamas, much of the terrorism is funded by Iran, whose regime is ultimately funded through black-market oil sales to China.
And China supports and protects the totalitarian regime in North Korea.
We must address China’s behavior to counter these other threats effectively.
It’s time for a wholesale, top-to-bottom restructuring of American national-security priorities.
American power must have concrete objectives, not murky missions or misguided agendas.
We cannot expend blood and treasure without clear goals.
As president, I will act decisively to achieve defined ends.
America will be a steadfast ally to nations sharing our interests.
Those seeking to harm us will find no worse enemy.
The threat China poses will require a government-wide response.
I will halt the flow of American capital and technology that empowers China’s military.
Our trade policy will defend our workers, supply chains and essential industries.
My treasury and commerce secretaries will focus on American interests, not Wall Street’s access to Chinese markets.
I will create an Office of Economic Security and Competition to prioritize reshoring and friendshoring critical production, protecting technologies and reducing reliance on adversaries.
I will defend American workers and innovators from illicit technology transfer and intellectual-property theft.
I will align capital with our interests, not the Chinese Communist Party’s.
I will protect our homeland.
As I did in Florida, I will bar Chinese purchases of farmland and property near critical infrastructure, counter espionage and cyber threats, block Chinese Communist Party influence in our institutions and through malicious data usage and apps and enact reciprocity policies so China cannot exploit our open society to our detriment.
Peace can only be achieved through strength.
While some say deterring China runs through other parts of the world, my view is a bit simpler: If we want to deter China, we should deter China.
I will rebuild America’s military, from conventional weaponry to nuclear and space capabilities.
Increased shipbuilding will reinforce our resilience and deterrence, and closer collaboration with regional partners will form a united front against Chinese coercion.
I will champion a four-oceans Navy to accelerate naval expansion, directing the rapid construction of more Virginia-class attack submarines, Arleigh Burke destroyers, amphibious ships and unmanned underwater vehicles.
I will posture ground-based missiles with allies in the Indo-Pacific as a “ring of fire” to deter China’s aggression and invest in ports in the region to ensure free and fair access to the seas.
I will assist allies and partners in building their defense capacities when they want to invest in themselves to secure our shared interests.
My administration will focus on how to out-innovate, out-produce, and out-compete China in future industries.
America will win the technology race of the 21st century in artificial intelligence, quantum, 5G/6G, hypersonics, advanced automation, satellite and sensor technology.
America will lead the free world in exposing the Chinese Communist Party’s human-rights abuses, surveillance and censorship.
I will hold China accountable for unfair practices, counter its political influence and champion real American values.
We will stand with those who stand for freedom from Taiwan to Xinjiang to Hong Kong.
Cooperation will require behavioral change, not empty rhetoric, from Beijing.
The onus is on China to halt its aggressive actions if it wants normalized relations.
We will meet its words with skepticism until deeds follow.
The message to China will be clear: The era of appeasement is over.
I will defend our vital national interests and our allies.
With strength and clarity of purpose, we will protect our nation.
Vision and leadership will carry the day.
My strategy will safeguard our inheritance of freedom, inspire our friends and deter our enemies.
The 21st century will be ours to shape.
We will rekindle the spirit that makes America exceptional.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is a Republican candidate for president.