This administration is “tough” on China only because the Chinese haven’t agreed to illegally help them with their re-election efforts, and because blaming China

This administration is “tough” on China only because the Chinese haven’t agreed to illegally help them with their re-election efforts, and because blaming China for Covid19 is a convenient diversion from the abject failure of the US federal response, and plays nicely to its supporters’ racism and xenophobia. According to Bolton’s book, when Trump met Xi he praised the Chinese treatment of Uighurs, and begged Xi for help (to borrow Trump’s favorite description, “he begged him like a dog”). https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-asked-chinas-xi-to-help-him-win-reelection-according-to-bolton-book/2020/06/17/d4ea601c-ad7a-11ea-868b-93d63cd833b2_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-asked-chinas-x... This goes along with Trump’s at-least-monthly private phone calls and meetings with Putin where he gets his next instructions, his (as he personally described them) “love letters” to and from Kim Jong Un, his praise for Balsonaro, Erdogan, Orbán, Duda, Prince Salman, Netanyahu, and so on. The idea that the administration wants to stick it to the Chinese as a way to defend human rights and democracy is ludicrous on its face.