By Denny Gulino
WASHINGTON (MaceNews) – While both parties in Congress are in the process of rebuking the Trump administration for being soft on Turkey and Russia, Vice President Mike Pence Thursday reprised his sharp condemnation of China, apparently confident the harsh words will continue to be ignored there in the pursuit of a preliminary trade arrangement.
Among the few new elements not resurrected from his speech a year ago at the Hudson Institute and from President Donald Trump’s Sept. 24 speech at the United Nations was an escalation of the chiding rhetoric directed at U.S. operations like Nike and the NBA that have mostly withheld criticism of China.
“Nike promotes itself as a so called social-justice champion,” Pence said at Washington’s Wilson Center, “but when it comes to Hong Kong, it prefers checking its social conscience at the door.” He went on, “A progressive corporate culture that willfully ignores the abuse of human rights is not progressive, it’s regressive.”
He continued, “In siding with the Chinese Communist Party and silencing free speech, the NBA is acting like a wholly owned subsidiary of the authoritarian regime,” Pence said.
Nike stores in China, he pointed out, “actually removed their Houston Rockets merchandise from their shelves to join the Chinese government in protest against the Rocket’s general manager’s seven-word tweet, which said, ‘Fight with freedom, stand with Hong Kong.’”
While not mentioning NBA star and labor rights activist LeBron James by name, Pence said, “Some of the NBA’s biggest players and owners who routinely exercise their freedom to criticize this country lose their voices when it comes to the freedom and rights of the people of China.”
It was James who tweeted, “Even though, yes, we do have freedom of speech, it can be a lot of negatives that comes with it,” responding to the Rockets” GM tweet.
“China’s also been trying to export censorship – the hallmark of its regime – by exploiting corporate greed,” Pence said. “Far too many American multinational corporations have kowtowed to the lure of China’s money and markets by muzzling not only criticism of the Chinese Communist Party but even affirmative expressions of American values.”
Pence advanced the White House effort to be more declarative in its support for Hong Kong demonstrators ever since Trump’s initial inclination was to use neutral terms or even be sympathetic to Beijing’s need to counter violence.
“Hong Kong is a living example of what can happen when China embraces liberty,” he said. “And yet, for the last few years, China has increased its interventions in Hong Kong and engaged in actions to curtail the rights and liberties of its people, rights and liberties that were guaranteed through a binding international agreement.”
Pence made explicit a link between trade talks and China’s actions in Hong Kong. “President Trump has repeatedly made it clear that it would be much harder to make a trade deal if the authorities resort to the use of violence a against protestors in Hong Kong.”
He went further, saying of the demonstrators, “We are inspired by you. And we urge you to stay on the path of non-violent protests. But know you have the prayers and the admiration of millions of Americans.
In attacking some U.S. firms by name rather than offering the government’s support should they criticize China’s approach to Hong Kong, Pence seemed to adopt the same kind of divisiveness Trump chooses in spearheading his policies, as blows struck against an adversary.
Many firms with heavy involvement with China have already soured on Trump’s language demonizing China for longstanding trade and commercial “abuses.” It has also become evident to the White House that China’s leadership has pragmatically determined to ignore Trump’s rhetoric and concentrate on its own medium-term goals of reopening trade channels and eliminating tariffs.
Despite the demonization, the Trump administration’s actions have reflected a much more congenial trade policy than sharp language would suggest. While Trump kept raising the question, in August through early October, whether he would agree to a comprehensive trade agreement, he nevertheless extended an invitation to Vice Premier Liu He to lead a delegation of top Chinese officials to Washington, a signal they would not be humiliated with a rejection.
As it turned out that Friday announcement was not about a comprehensive deal at all. Instead a narrowly tailored unsigned interim “phase one” arrangement, the kind Trump had said many times he preferred not to accept, was described as a gateway to achieving far more ambitious goals sometime in the future. Expectations have since been elevated about an executive-level signing when the two leaders cross paths at the mid-November APEC meeting in Santiago
Similarly Pence’s remarks were seemingly delivered on two levels, one the red-meat castigation of China as a predatory trader and thief of U.S. trade secrets, language that reliably draws cheers from Trump admirers. The other level was the reiteration of Trump’s personal and positive relationship with President Xi Jinping and the assurance the U.S. does not want to “decouple.”
While Trump is ready to sign an agreement with Xi, he is doing so despite getting nothing significant from China, Pence said.
“In that spirit of candor I must tell you in the year since my Hudson speech, Beijing has still not taken action to improve our economic relationship,” he said. “From China the answer is a resounding no.”
Pence continued, “The United States seeks engagement with China, and China’s engagement with the wider world. But engagement consistent in a manner consistent with fairness, mutual respect and international rules of commerce.
“But so far it appears the Chinese Communist Party continues to resist a true opening, or a convergence with global norms. … . It is the Chinese Communist Party that has been decoupling from the wider world, for decades.”