The CCP Is America's Adversary: Biden and Apple Must Stand Against It

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has grown its power on the backs of the American people.

The regime has engaged in espionage for decades, and in doing so, it has poached and robbed the American people of our ideas and wealth.  It has stolen away American jobs while not lifting a finger to stop the influx of fentanyl from China into America, fueling a deadly epidemic that was around before COVID and will, sadly, still be with us after COVID.

The Chinese Communist Party is our adversary, and it is past time for our government and private sector to recognize it as such. This makes the current protests across China a critical opportunity for the Biden Administration and American companies to finally get their priorities straight and ensure they do not enrich the Chinese Communist Party or help secure its power.  This would make freedom a possibility for nearly 1 billion people, and it would make America’s future far more secure and prosperous.

Unfortunately, the Biden Administration’s response to the protests has been almost nonexistent. It has issued some light statements in support of the right to protest: A spokesman for the Administration said that this was “a moment to reassert what we believe in when it comes to free assembly and peaceful protest,” while Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the Administration “[ o]f course…support[s] the right for people everywhere…to protest peacefully.”  But if the Biden Administration has failed to back up these statements in any way that threatens the CCP.  President Biden himself has made no statement whatsoever, while the U.S. Embassy in Beijing has only issued a statement warning Americans that, “People’s Republic of China (PRC) authorities have expanded COVID-19 prevention restrictions and control measures as outbreaks occur.”  This displays American weakness at a time when we need to show that America stands against the CCP’s brutality.

Team Biden won’t cast the CCP as America’s adversary because their priorities are completely backward.  President Biden met with Xi Jinping in Bali recently, where he reiterated his claim that there “need not be a new Cold War” between America and the PRC.  He and his Administration have prized “cooperation” on climate change even at the potential cost of not punishing the CCP for its gross human rights abuses.  This cooperation has continued even as the PRC builds more coal-fired power plants than the rest of the world combined. The abject failure of Biden’s climate diplomacy to confront the CCP is a green light to Xi and his cronies.

We should also be concerned that major American companies like Apple have been complicit in China’s crackdown.  Apple’s AirDrop function, a critical information-sharing tool for protestors during the 2019 Hong Kong protests, was “updated” recently – and only in China – to delete shared information after just 10 seconds.  This change rendered the once-indispensable tool worthless to protesters, but it helped the CCP keep protests disorganized.  Apple has yet to publicly state why the change was made only a few weeks before the protests began, but it’s a good guess that it was done to appease CCP leadership, who saw the protests coming.

This is the height of hypocrisy: When Georgia passed its voting law in 2021, Apple CEO Tim Cook was one of the law’s foremost critics, saying, “Apple believes that, thanks in part to the power of technology, it ought to be easier than ever for every eligible citizen to exercise their right to vote.”  Now, thanks to Apple’s technology, it is also easier than ever for the CCP to subjugate the Chinese people.  Apple’s actions are unconscionable and put the American people at risk by enriching the CCP and securing its power.

Recently, in a direct message to the people of China, I said that the CCP does not represent the people of China.  I spoke about the many conversations I have had with Chinese dissidents, and how those conversations were reminders that America must always stand with freedom-loving people everywhere around the world.  As Secretary of State, I saw every day how the CCP is the greatest foreign threat to the American people.  President Biden and Apple’s leadership must wake up to this threat, and they must further realize that these protests are an expression of genuine anger felt by the Chinese people.  The protests are not simply about COVID.  These protests are about freedom, and the CCP’s crackdown is about its permanent control and authority.  As the next few weeks unfold, the Biden Administration and corporate America must make clear the side on which America stands.

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