The threat from China and its bipartisan enablers

OPINION:

It is so difficult sometimes to take either of the parties seriously. Both have an unfortunate tendency to say one thing and do another, and in the process damage the United States and erode the confidence of Americans in their own government.

For instance, President Biden recently recorded and sent a TikTok video out into the world, despite the fact that the government over which he presides bans TikTok on its electronic devices.

There’s a reason for the ban. TikTok is the most successful psychological warfare operation in the history of the world. The communist regime in Beijing uses it to collect data on Americans, as well as to deliver messages to TikTok users in the United States designed to sow idiocy and discord throughout the population.

For these reasons and others that are apparently classified, it is against the law to access TikTok on federal government devices.

None of that stopped Mr. Biden from deciding that the imperatives of his reelection campaign were more important than national security.

Before anyone on the political right gets comfortable, the hard reality is that the House, which the Republicans have nominally controlled for more than a year now, has yet to even hold a hearing — let alone vote — on legislation that would ban TikTok.

That’s truly inexplicable.

Banning TikTok is the low-hanging fruit in our existential contest with the reconstituted Middle Kingdom. If you can’t do something about an invasive and destructive psychological operation disguised as an application on a communications device — and this U.S. government clearly cannot — you are unlikely to be able to do something about the hammerlock the regime in Beijing has on the critical materials that are essential to solar panels and the batteries in electric vehicles.

Or take aggressive action against cyberattacks orchestrated by the regime in Beijing. Or defend Taiwan in its moment of peril.

Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats in Congress have managed to pass anything material that would slow China’s subversion of the United States. 

Despite all this, lobbyists on both sides are making money. It has been reported that TikTok’s office in Washington has hired Republican former Senate leader Trent Lott and Democratic former Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana, as well as former Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley of New York. TikTok’s office in town is run by Mike Beckerman, who was a senior Republican staffer for the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

These men are not outliers. You will probably not be shocked to learn that other companies closely associated with the communists in China have hired firms with deep Republican ties. The Vogel Group, Mercury Public Affairs, Steptoe and Johnson, and FGS Global — all of which have lots of Republicans in their senior ranks — are working or have worked for the genocidal communists.

For instance, in Michigan, the battery company Gotion wants to open a plant and take advantage of tax breaks thoughtfully provided by Sen. Joe Manchin III, West Virginia Democrat, in the Inflation Reduction Act. Gotion’s parent company is committed to — in its words — “carry out Party activities.” It has been reported that Gotion has hired Mercury Public Affairs and the Vogel Group to help it.

Helping the communists in China undermine the United States for profit is a bipartisan disease. We need to find a cure immediately.

• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times and was a deputy assistant for legislative affairs to President Donald Trump.