Trump’s Speech Sends Beijing, And China-Watchers, Into A Frenzy

President Donald Trump’s explosive allegations against China Thursday night are already reverberating far beyond domestic politics.

Speaking from the White House on Thursday, Trump accused China of “the largest compromise of election data in history,” alleging Beijing illicitly obtained information from roughly 220 million American voter files during the 2020 election cycle. The Chinese Communist Party quickly denied the charges, while China-watchers in the United States questioned if the relationship between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping has been shattered.

“China has all along adhered to the principle of non-interference in others’ internal affairs,” Chinese Embassy spokesman Liu Chang said in a statement. “The U.S. election is an internal matter of the U.S. Its outcome is determined by the votes of the American people. China has never and will never interfere in the presidential elections of the U.S.”

The spat could have implications for a reportedly sought-after summit between Trump and Xi later this year.

Among longtime China observers, Trump’s accusations immediately prompted questions about whether the administration’s broader China strategy can withstand the allegations. Bill Bishop, publisher of the influential Sinocism newsletter, questioned how the allegations could be reconciled with Trump’s stated interest in maintaining a working relationship with Xi.

“So how can he still be friends with Xi after what he says the PRC [People’s Republic of China] just did in stealing 220m voter files?” Bishop wrote on X. “If any of these allegations are true how can this not be a rupture?”

China hawk Gordon Chang, author of “Plan Red” and “China Is Going To War”, argued that Beijing’s leadership would be deeply unsettled by Trump’s decision to publicly release the intelligence. “China’s leaders are almost certainly in a panic right about now,” Chang wrote. “Bravo, President Trump, for revealing China’s massive interference in our elections and in our society.”

Not everyone accepted Trump’s characterization of the newly released intelligence. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, dismissed the allegations, arguing that publicly available voter registration data has long been accessible to foreign governments and private organizations alike. “The idea that somehow these countries are gathering voter files — these are publicly available. You don’t have to hack into them. You can buy them,” Warner said to CBS News.

Trump’s allegations also go further than previously declassified intelligence assessments produced during his first administration.

A January 2021 intelligence community assessment concluded that China “probably continued longstanding efforts to gather information on U.S. voters and public opinion” in order to better predict election outcomes and inform Beijing’s policy toward whichever administration ultimately took office. Another assessment, partially declassified in 2022, similarly found that Chinese intelligence officials analyzed voter registration data from multiple states during the 2020 election cycle.

Neither assessment concluded that China attempted to alter vote totals or directly manipulate election infrastructure.

Just one day before Trump’s announcement, a Pew Research Center survey found that China is now viewed more favorably than the United States in 25 of the 36 countries surveyed — the first time in the organization’s two decades of polling that Beijing has surpassed Washington in a majority of participating nations. That shift, researchers argued, reflects both China’s expanding diplomatic and economic influence abroad and declining international perceptions of the United States.

Remember Charlie Trie and his political contributions to Bill Clinton?
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Yah-Lin “Charlie” Trie was a former Little Rock, Arkansas, restaurateur and longtime friend of Bill Clinton who became a central figure in the 1996 U.S. campaign finance scandal. He pleaded guilty in 1999 to violating federal campaign finance laws by using “straw donors” and illegally funneling secret foreign funds to the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton legal defense fund.

Trie originally met Clinton in the 1970s while running a Chinese restaurant in Little Rock. Following Clinton’s 1992 presidential election, Trie relocated to Washington, D.C., and became a prolific fundraiser for the Democratic Party. He raised and contributed over $1 million for the DNC and the Presidential Legal Expense Trust

FRIDAY, MAY 21, 1999
WWW.USDOJ.GOV

CHARLIE TRIE PLEADS GUILTY TO FEDERAL CAMPAIGN FINANCE VIOLATIONS

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Yah Lin “Charlie” Trie today pleaded guilty to violating federal campaign finance laws by making a political contribution in someone else’s name and by causing a false statement to be made to the Federal Election Commission, the Campaign Financing Task Force announced today. Trie’s plea comes in the middle of a trial in Little Rock, Arkansas, into allegations that he obstructed the Senate campaign finance investigation.

Trie faces a sentence of up to six years in prison and a $350,000 fine.

In the agreement, filed today together with a Criminal Information in U.S. District Court in Little Rock, Trie admitted to one felony and on misdemeanor count of violating federal campaign finance laws.

Count One alleges that Trie caused the treasurer for the Democratic National Committee to submit a false report to the FEC indicating that a lawful contribution was made by one individual, when in fact, Trie knew that another individual had made the contribution. He faces a sentence of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on that count.

Count Two alleges that Trie willfully made a campaign contribution in the name of another individual. He faces up to one year in prison and a fine of $100,000 on that count.

Under today’s agreement, Trie also agreed to cooperate with federal Task Force investigators. His cooperation could have an impact on his sentencing.

On January 29, 1998, Trie and Antonio Pan were indicted in Washington, D.C. on 15 charges, including one count of obstruction of justice. The obstruction of justice charge alleged that in March 1997, Trie instructed someone to destroy, conceal and fail to produce documents responsive to a subpoena issued by the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. In February 1997, the Committee had issued a subpoena to Daihatsu International Trading Corporation, an Arkansas company owned and operated by Trie, seeking records relating to political contributions and the DNC.

At Trie’s request, the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. dismissed the one obstruction count, ruling that it could only be filed in Little Rock, where the alleged violation took place. If Trie had waived his venue claim, the entire case would have been tried in Washington, D.C. In November, the Task Force refiled its obstruction charge against Trie in Little Rock. Last week, a trial on the obstruction count began.

Today’s plea involves the charges in both Little Rock and Washington, D.C.

Trie is one of sixteen persons charged by the Task Force, which was established to investigate allegations of campaign financing abuses in the 1996 election cycle. On April 26, Robert Lee pleaded guilty to making an illegal foreign contribution to the DNC. He is scheduled to be sentenced in July. On March 23, 1999, Juan C. Ortiz, the Chief Financial Officer of Future Tech International, Inc., was sentenced to two years probation, $20,000 in fines, and 200 hours in community service for acting as a conduit for an illegal campaign contribution and participating in the reimbursement of eight other conduit contributions.

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