China’s state-run Global Times newspaper weighed in on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announcing his candidacy for President of the United States on Thursday, dismissing him as a “spare wheel” for Republicans in the event that frontrunner Donald Trump goes to jail.
The former president, who unsuccessfully served as the nominee for the Republicans in the 2020 presidential election, was indicted in April on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to claims that Trump paid adult film star Stormy Daniels thousands of dollars to remain silent about an alleged affair between the two. Trump’s arraignment in New York City prompted a frenzy of protesters, performance artists, and a small number of supportive Republicans to surround the Manhattan courthouse processing him in April.
At the time of Trump’s indictment, DeSantis, still denying his status as a presidential candidate, mocked Trump’s predicament: “I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair. I just, I can’t speak to that.”
The trial in Trump’s case is currently scheduled to begin on March 25, 2024, in the heart of the Republican presidential primary.
As a result, the Chinese newspaper – which allows the Communist Party to weigh in on American news while the Foreign Ministry insists China will not meddle in internal affairs – concluded that the Republican Party establishment is concerned that Trump will receive a prison sentence either during the presidential campaign or after his election, leaving no alternative candidates.
“Chinese experts said the Republican politician [DeSantis] has similarly hostile and extreme views toward China as Donald Trump, but likely serves as a ‘backup option’ for the GOP if Trump cannot run for election next year due to his legal woes,” the Global Times asserted. The newspaper often uses regime-approved commentators, identified as “experts,” to articulate Communist Party viewpoints.
The state publication derided DeSantis as “hawkish” on America’s relationship to the rogue communist state, but not significantly discernable in policy from Trump. One of its “experts,” Lü Xiang, dismissed DeSantis not as a candidate standing on his own, but as a “spare wheel” mimicking Trump’s policies to more seamlessly take over the nomination if “Trump gets into major legal trouble next year before the election.”
“Lü said that as the trial will take place just ahead of the election, if Trump receives a prison sentence, then he will not be able to run, leaving DeSantis as the replacement for Republicans,” the Times relayed.
The state propaganda outlet concluded by condemning both Trump and DeSantis as antagonistic to the Communist Party’s agenda but concluding that, following the primary season, all candidates for the presidency, including far-left incumbent President Joe Biden, would modify their political rhetoric to attack China.
“Once the US enters the election period, politicians like DeSantis, whether they are Democrats or Republicans, will all try to adopt a hawkish stance against China and even compete with each other over who is more hawkish,” the outlet claimed. “And it’s hard to imagine how bad China-US relations will be at that time, as bilateral ties currently have already become extremely intense, said experts.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a press conference held at the Florida National Guard Robert A. Ballard Armory on June 07, 2021, in Miami, Florida. The governor had the press conference to speak about two bills he signed to combat foreign influence and corporate espionage in Florida from governments like China (Joe Raedle/Getty Images).
Biden is currently on a diplomatic campaign to mend fences with the Communist Party following an incident in February in which an air balloon, later identified to be a Chinese surveillance aircraft, flew across the United States, including floating over sensitive American military sites. The Biden administration allowed the balloon to travel across the continental United States before shooting it down over North Carolina. The balloon only made news after locals in Montana alerted the media to its appearance in the skies. According to an NBC News report published in April, the balloon managed to collect intelligence about multiple sensitive military sites before Biden approved its shootdown.
U.S. President Joe Biden, right, stands with Chinese President Xi Jinping before a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit meeting, Monday, Nov. 14, 2022, in Bali, Indonesia (AP Photo/Alex Brandon; Screenshot).
Beijing accused the Biden administration of “dramatizing” the balloon, insisting it was a civilian weather device, and claimed to be offended that the Pentagon ultimately took it down. The Communist Party canceled a planned visit to the country by Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the time and largely shut down communications with Washington. Biden Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo met with her Chinese counterpart, Wang Wentao, in Washington on Thursday, the first high-level meeting since the balloon controversy.
China Daily, another state-run newspaper, covered DeSantis’s entry into the race more plainly, though emphasizing the technical difficulties plaguing DeSantis’s announcement on a Twitter Spaces broadcast alongside pro-China social media, car, and space mogul Elon Musk.
This illustration photo shows the live Twitter talk with Elon Musk on a background of Gov. Ron DeSantis as he announces his 2024 presidential run on his Twitter page, May 24, 2023, in Los Angeles, California (CHRIS DELMAS/AFP via Getty Images).
“When DeSantis was experiencing Twitter difficulties, the former president [Trump] wrote on his Truth Social post: ‘Wow! The DeSanctus TWITTER launch is a DISASTER! His whole campaign will be a disaster. WATCH,’” China Daily reported to its audience.
China Daily attacked DeSantis this week in other coverage highlighting his policies in Florida to prevent Chinese nationals and those of other hostile states from monopolizing the real estate market in the state. The newspaper highlighted a lawsuit by Chinese citizens defying the law, which listed China among several other socialist and communist states as “countries of concern” for elites buying up Florida land. Citizens and corporations from Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, and Venezuela also face limits to land ownership as part of the law.
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