With New Crackdown, Biden Wages Global Campaign on Chinese Technology
Share
The Biden family’s China efforts are not just about the family history. They are also about winning the 2020 presidential election. The Biden campaign is betting that the Chinese technology that powers the Chinese economy is a winning political issue. The Biden campaign’s latest ads make this point with images of Biden meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping, and in a brief video showing Xi and Biden talking about internet freedom and the Internet.
The Biden ad is being launched for the first time on the Chinese internet at an hour before the official rollout of the Biden/Xi meeting. The ad is expected to hit the site of one of China’s largest search engines, Sogou, at the end of the day on March 17.
Biden’s foreign policy has always been about trade, but his China policies have turned his once-lone-issue into a winning issue.
Biden’s China team made strategic decisions in the lead-up to his China trip to focus not just on trade, but also on the Chinese tech industry. He is one of the rare candidates to have made a deal with the Internet companies who are lobbying the U.S. government for greater market access for China’s domestic digital platforms.
According to a report on the Biden/Internet campaign, after meeting with the CEOs of four tech companies last March — Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent — Biden’s foreign policy team decided to use the technology platforms as a centerpiece of his China push.
The Biden campaign was able to attract large numbers of Chinese American voters by emphasizing the family heritage of the candidate, his relationship with China, and his relationships with China’s tech companies.
But Biden was not just focused on being a big tech donor. He spent time in Silicon Valley, and met with the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter, Google and several Silicon Valley leaders, who in turn hosted him at the tech giant’s headquarters.
While Biden’s
