By Sandy Fitzgerald(NEWSMAX)
China is looming large in this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) agenda, where panels are featuring discussions on the dangers posed by the communist nation and the topic is coming up in several speakers’ addresses.
“CPAC is largely a reflection of the success of the Trump America First agenda, and the Middle East, however serious radical Islam remains, that represents the neocon foreign policy that had been rejected by President Trump and the MAGA movement,” according to Brian Kennedy, chairman of the Committee on the Present Danger: China, reports Politico.
This year’s lineup is featuring six panels concerning China, with titles such as “China Subverts America,” and speakers like Sen. Rick Scotti, R-Fla., insisted he would not allow “any more bad trade deals” that favor China over America’s workers.
Last year’s conference schedule showed a marked departure from taking on the Middle East, after years when radical terrorism was a major foreign policy topic. This year, the schedule does not mention Iran, terrorism, or the Middle East, and Russia is mentioned just once.
“If Republicans are going to win the White House in 2024 and win back the majority in 2022, we need to preserve a tough-on-China message, make that a key part of our platform and expose [Democrats] for being a pro-China party,” Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., who chairs the Republican Study Committee, said. “China is a key part of the new conservative movement moving forward.”
Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump, in his keynote speech Sunday night, is expected to make the case that President Joe Biden is “capitulating to Iran and China.”
“What worked for Trump –– what we consistently saw in our polling — was that he was far more willing than Biden to talk tough on China and voters liked that,” a former Trump pollster, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Politico. “He went after their trade practices. He said they should be held accountable for causing this pandemic and he ended U.S. ties to the World Health Organization.”
Several rumored presidential hopefuls are also appearing at the weekend conference, and four, Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Tom Cotton, R-Ark., Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Scott introduced a bill ahead of their speeches demanding an end to China’s access to 10-year multi-entry visas and to make a return to granting one-year visas.
