President-elect Joe Biden says he wants to face the China challenge squarely and alongside our allies. Beijing has offered Biden a golden opportunity to act immediately on his stated desire, as China is now illegally boycotting imports of Australian wine, coal, and other products. 

President-elect Joe Biden has made clear that climate change policy will be a centerpiece of his administration. He has pledged to return the U.S. to the Paris Treaty, and his announced appointments – including John Kerry as his international climate envoy, Gina McCarthy as the White House climate coordinator, and Jennifer Granholm as Energy Secretary – suggest a strong push to shift the transportation sector toward electric vehicles (EVs) and the power sector to renewables.

What if the real winner of November’s presidential election was Red China?

This year has been dominated by the pain and suffering thrust upon the globe by the criminal acts of the Chinese Communist Party. Even amid these harsh challenges, President Trump persevered to reach historic achievements. Therefore, as the year draws to its conclusion, it is worth detailing his 2020 accomplishments, as I have previously catalogued for each of the last three years.

In mid-November, the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff -- I serve as the director -- published “The Elements of the China Challenge.” The paper argues that the core of the challenge consists of the concerted efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to reconfigure world order to serve the CCP’s authoritarian interests and aims. It explains the errors that nourished the hope on both the right and the left that economic liberalization in China, coupled with Western engagement and incorporation of Beijing into international organizations, would bring about China’s political liberalization. It describes the characteristic practices of the communist dictatorship, traces China’s brazen programs of economic co-optation and coercion in every region of the world, examines the Marxist-Leninist dogma and hyper-nationalist beliefs that provide the intellectual sources of the CCP’s quest for global supremacy, and surveys China's vulnerabilities -- both those endemic to authoritarian regimes and those specific to the People’s Republic of China. In conclusion, the paper lays out a framework for securing freedom.