Problem with Trump and China from a purely political perspective is what's the narrative?
One of the reasons Russia has stuck so much with Trump is because the story seems so clear: Trump seems enamored with Putin, obsessed with Putin, has expressed a desire to improve relations with Russia, etc. He wanted to build a tower in Moscow, held a pageant there in 2013 where crazy stuff may or may not have happened, and bragged about deals with Russian oligarchs. Then you have Russia clearly interfering in 2016 and him welcoming, encouraging and even conspiring in that interference to the point he has his son and campaign manager meet with the Russians in his own building. Then of course you have the long line of staff and advisors with ties and contacts with Russia.
So there is a very clear quid pro quo style narrative with Trump and Russia.
Now we are told he might have similar ties with China.
Problem is, for political narrative, the China story is much, much more opaque.
On the one hand, he’s expressed a certain level of hostility towards China, from entering us into a needless trade war with them to blaming them for our own pandemic woes (to the extent he’s even resorted to calling it the “China virus.”)
On the other hand he has sometimes expressed an admiration for China’s government, and excused its human rights abuses.
We know that Ivanka has done business with China. And his evidence-free insistence that Joe Biden is somehow in cahoots with China—given his penchant for projection—leads one to think that he is the one with the hand in the Chinese cookie jar.
Now we know that he had a Chinese bank account and paid Chinese taxes.
The problem is, we can’t define a clear quo to any quid. There seems to be something more with China but there’s no real defined story with it like there is with Russia.
So until any clear narrative comes out, it seems destined to remain a back burner story for all political purposes.
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