
How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding - smacktoward
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/how-china-got-a-us-senator-to-do-its-political-bidding/2017/12/17/8eee82c6-e1dc-11e7-8679-a9728984779c_story.html?utm_term=.24c2a532b45c
======
propman
Foreign influence in congress may not be the biggest threat to Democracy, but
it is one of my biggest pet peeves. A country has vastly greater resources
that any other individual, business or entitity. A foreign country's
intentions are also potentially far more nefarious than a company lobbying to
make more profit in a capatilistic system or an individual wanting government
policies to be shaped more according to his needs.

A foreign country should not be allowed so much access. This kind of reminds
me how in one of the Wikileak emails, Clinton removed a country from a list of
human rights violators for a mere donation. China is far far worse than a
small country and this is peanuts in the grand scheme of things. I sincerely
don't understand why no one can publically reprimand China for turning into a
dystopian dictatorship before our eyes. Xi orders complete video and cellphone
surveillance, black bagging without trial, abolishes term limits, makes
disappear any rival billionaire or elite, and no one says a darn thing.
Instead, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerburg are in the front row clapping. Literally.
Xi announces all this and they congratulate him and clap in the front row.

We take a lot of tech freedoms for granted.

~~~
sien
The article bangs on about how China got a single US congressman.

Israel has enormous influence over the whole of congress.

[http://original.antiwar.com/smith-grant/2017/07/17/aipac-
sti...](http://original.antiwar.com/smith-grant/2017/07/17/aipac-still-
biggest-foreign-agent/)

Mearsheimer and Walt is still the big book on the subject:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Fore...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Foreign_Policy)

The US give Israel billions of dollars in foreign aid every year. Allows them
to disgregard UN resolutions and prevents the recognition of Palestine.

Israel has nuclear weapons and is outside the Non proliferation treaty and yet
the US goes crazy about other countries that try to get weapons.

Meanwhile AIPAC isn't even registered as something foreign.

This can be happily discussed online and in every non US country it amazes
people how a tiny country like Israel can get the US to support them no matter
what they do.

Now even Jerusalem is recognized as the capital of Israel, by one country in
the whole world.

~~~
godzillabrennus
Reminds me of how the NRA is supported by a small but active part of the
population that votes.

Jews may be small in number but I would bet dollars to Latka’s that they vote.

If Tech issues brought people out to vote like guns or Israel I bet we would
have more engineers in Congress.

~~~
itdpyddpfyfuug
The Jewish people aren't a monolith. Some of us prioritize freedom, democracy,
and peace for all people and stand against theocracy. You're probably right
about voting.

------
Feniks
The US has decided that its politicians are for auction. I don't see why its a
problem if the bidding is from China instead of Comcast? Besides foreign
governments have been lobbying in Washington for decades. There is a whole
industry about it.

~~~
verylongaccount
What particularly strikes me about this story is the highly selective concern.
What about all the lobbying done by Israel and Saudi Arabia?

------
Top19
The amount of corruption I’ve heard against US Senators is staggering. I had
no idea stuff like this was done except maybe in some cartoon version of the
1870’s Gilded Age.

Good example, Max Baucus shorted various financial companies for petty/risky
wins as he was helping construct the 2008 bailout. He then later became the
ambassador to China :(

> Financial markets were experiencing the greatest volatility on record.
> Trillions of dollars in stock profits were being washed away. But for Bachus
> it was different. According to his financial disclosure statements, Bachus
> netted as much as $50,000 in capital gains by aggressively playing the
> market during this volatile period. And he netted tens of thousands more in
> early 2009, when financial reforms were put in place. What makes these
> results impressive is the fact that options trading is extremely risky.
> There is a rule of thumb in the financial industry that 75% of options are
> worthless when it comes time to redeem them, and that 80% of options traders
> lose money.

[http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/excerpt-peter-schweizers-
bo...](http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/excerpt-peter-schweizers-book)

~~~
stevenwoo
Congress specifically excluded themselves from insider trading laws. It's
outrageous but that makes it pretty much a free for all for US congress folks
to do insider trading.

[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/congress-insiders-above-the-
law...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/congress-insiders-above-the-law/)

~~~
alien_at_work
I've often wondered about starting a fund where I simply follow any trades
certain congress members are making. That's not insider info at that point,
right? I guess this strategy can't work for some reason (or others would be
exploiting it) but what is the reason? Time delay?

~~~
Raidion
I don't think the trades of congress are public record. You simply aren't able
to get that information. And if you are able to get that info, and the rest of
the public doesn't have it, then that's inside trading.

~~~
alien_at_work
I thought trades past a certain size had to be disclosed? But yes, this is
probably the reason: I simply wouldn't be able to know until long after the
fact.

------
DrScump
These allegations are tame compared with what Richard Blum's (husband of
Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-CA) financial interests with the Chinese have
done. The Chinese even benefited from elements of her so-called Desert
Protection Act.

~~~
compliance_data
Is there an article you could link to? Interested in the details

------
vinceguidry
China is an extremely interesting study in geopolitics.

Nations should _never_ be able to do this, rise in prominence completely
unobjected. You see examples of this throughout history, whenever one nation
starts to expand its power and influence, another nation or group of nations
tends to deploy power to check the rise.

Accession of new geopolitical powers is therefore an extremely rare event, a
complete failure of the nation's rivals to provide an adequate check. Those
checks go all the way to declaration of war if it becomes necessary.

We're seeing that with China, and no one is quite sure why. Russia is falling
in line with Chinese interests, the US is just keeping mum, in the same way
Europe kept mum for decades while the US rose in prominence.

My theory has to do with nuclear weapons making the 'buck-stops-here' solution
politically infeasible. Nuclear weapons didn't meaningfully change
conventional warfare, but it threw a monkey wrench into international
diplomacy, creating a situation in which China can push relentlessly hard to
rise without a corresponding check.

~~~
adventured
There are several reasons for it, including your nuclear weapons practical
consideration.

\- The US allowed China into the WTO, urged by globalist corporations who
thought it would be massively to their benefit. That was the spark that sent
their economy skyrocketing. Their economy had been growing at a healthy clip,
however immediately after joining the WTO it doubled in size in just five
years from $1.4t to $2.8t. It is still widely believed, perhaps naively hoped
for, by major US corporations and financial interests that China can be a
growth opportunity for investment and trade. That keeps the criticism more
subdued than it otherwise would have been (and that appears to be gradually
fading, as it becomes obvious China is running an almost strictly mercantilist
economic nationalism strategy).

\- China repaid some of the trade imbalance, which provided them with vast
piles of dollars, by buying up a small chunk of US debt. China recognized it
as being in their self-interest, just as it was with Japan, providing some
additional influence. That bought them a small amount of political cover.

\- China has largely stayed out of several prominent spheres of US military
dominace, including in the Americas, the Middle East and Europe. That may
change of course, as China has begun pushing its military outwards. [1]

\- The US has a slightly unusual liking of China, which goes back a century or
more. The US protected China from being nuked by Russia in 1969 [2]. The US
destroyed the Empire of Japan and fought side by side with the Chinese to push
the Japanese out of mainland Asia. The US was primary in working with China to
open its economy, including work done by politicians like Nixon / Kissinger,
and US companies / investors. The US is among the few global powers of the
last 500 years that didn't seek to invade, conquer or humiliate China, but
instead traded massively with them and invested massively into them (despite
the fact that they were hard Communists and the US Capitalist). There's some
kind of kinship (despite the occasional adversarial tones) between the two
nations, the US maybe sees some of itself in China's rise. On the _economic
side_ there was actually less hysteria in the US about China's rise to global
power than there was with Japan during the 1970s and 1980s (with Japan
actually overtaking the US GDP per capita figures by 1987), despite China's
climb being far more dramatic.

[1] [https://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2017/07/china-
djibo...](https://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2017/07/china-
djibouti/533385/)

[2]
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/7720461...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/7720461/USSR-
planned-nuclear-attack-on-China-in-1969.html)

~~~
vinceguidry
I don't think any of these are salient.

In the first place, politics is more often the driver of economics than the
other way around. No way would American political leaders sacrifice the good
of the nation for the good of individual corporations. To allow China to do
this literally means they're sleeping at the wheel. Americans have always been
fiercely America-first, up to and well beyond the point of being willing to go
to war over it.

This is, quite literally, the one job that a lot of people in government have,
to come up with foreign policy strategies and assess the situation and
recommend policy to political leadership. Those people are still there, doing
their jobs, assessing and recommending. Yet we still have not started pursuing
an effective strategy for containing China. Why?

Your other theme, that Americans just somehow like China, doesn't really hold
water either. Americans had a similar like for Russians, but that didn't stop
us from fighting a decades-long proxy war with them.

American leaders just seem legitimately confused over the direction the nation
should be going, allowing China to fill a leadership void. It almost seems
like we're just tired of global hegemony.

------
puppetmaster42
Old news: [http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/clinton-foundation-
scandal...](http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/clinton-foundation-scandal-
echoes-clinton-china-controversy-from-1998/article/2600931) .

Also Russia, Ukraine, Saudi.

Our current POTUS seems will not be influenced by China.

~~~
thrillgore
Probably because Russia outbid them.

~~~
lamarpye
That is probably why we stopped fracking when Trump was elected. To help the
Russians.

------
SkyMarshal
Also worth reading (linked in the sidebar of the OP):

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-
opinions/chin...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-
opinions/chinas-foreign-influencers-are-causing-alarm-in-
washington/2017/12/10/98227264-dc58-11e7-b859-fb0995360725_story.html?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.9664f091930d)

------
ainiriand
What a piece of corrupt shit, pardon my french. I have a strong belief that US
senators are, in its vast majority, completely innocent and this does a lot of
harm to the 'clean' ones.

~~~
detcader
Barbara Lee was the only representative in Congress to vote against the 2001
AUMF

------
candiodari
What I thought was really funny was how the Clinton foundation lost pretty
much all it's foreign funding in a matter of weeks after Hillary lost the
election.

Who knew that even Australia, both the premier privately AND the government
bribed the US president ?

I wonder what they pay for ...

[http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-
economy/au...](http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-
economy/australia-ceases-multimilliondollar-donations-to-controversial-
clinton-family-charities/news-story/219577919ed8dfbd79cf808321234eba)

Ukranian billionaires: (who, by the way definitely did not earn his wealth. In
a way, this guy got it from Putin, or at least certainly approved by Putin)

[http://prn.fm/clinton-foundations-deep-financial-ties-to-
ukr...](http://prn.fm/clinton-foundations-deep-financial-ties-to-ukrainian-
oligarch-revealed/)

Norway's government:

[https://www.thelocal.no/20160704/norways-funding-of-
clinton-...](https://www.thelocal.no/20160704/norways-funding-of-clinton-
foundation-under-scrutiny)

Irish "businessman" (who got his wealth from government monopolies, I might
add)

[https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/denis-o-brien-
and-d...](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/denis-o-brien-and-digicel-
biggest-irish-donors-to-clinton-foundation-1.2764987)

Googling around you find many others, like the beheader-in-chief, the king of
Saudi Arabia. Chinese politicians. More Russian oligarchs. Etc.

And here is what they paid for:

[http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/emails-foundation-
resource...](http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/emails-foundation-resources-
used-for-chelsea-clintons-wedding/article/2606615)

And VERY well paid jobs for the extended family:

[https://www.dailywire.com/news/8561/7-things-you-need-
know-a...](https://www.dailywire.com/news/8561/7-things-you-need-know-about-
clinton-foundation-aaron-bandler)

An example of thier projects an extremely expensive "public" library garden,
which comes with a "private residence" and a mini-golf course. The Clintons
stay there "on an off", according to the NY Post. (needless to say, most of it
was financed, not even by the Clinton foundation itself but by local
government)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hrCZbMUYzE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hrCZbMUYzE)

[https://nypost.com/2016/10/02/bill-clintons-executive-
suite-...](https://nypost.com/2016/10/02/bill-clintons-executive-suite-is-a-
private-pad-above-165m-library/)

No worries, the Bushes have something similar, and Obama is constructing his
version.

~~~
1_2__4
NY Post, Washington Examiner, The Daily Wire, and a blog written by someone
whose bio starts out "An internationally renowned expert in the field of
health and nutrition...".

Perhaps you have sources that aren't part of an insane right-wing echo
chamber? Oh wait, no, of course you don't, or you would have posted them. Must
be some of that Deep State infecting the MSM (am I doing this "right")?

~~~
candiodari
Okay, let's give a few more links ... let me know which one is sufficiently
left wing (none I guess). Also, please state what exactly you're claiming ...
there are plenty of links in here by organisations that certainly have a
reputation for integrity so slant, sure, factually inaccurate, certainly not.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/25/arts/design/an-earnest-
bui...](http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/25/arts/design/an-earnest-building-for-
a-complex-president.html)

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2014-10-17/bill-
clin...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2014-10-17/bill-clinton-in-
bubbaland)

[https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2001/mar/12/20010312-02...](https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2001/mar/12/20010312-021554-4736r/)

[http://www.greenroofs.com/projects/pview.php?id=190](http://www.greenroofs.com/projects/pview.php?id=190)

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/11...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/11/18/AR2007111800379.html)

[https://www.npr.org/2017/03/01/517840118/arkansas-weighs-
whe...](https://www.npr.org/2017/03/01/517840118/arkansas-weighs-whether-to-
remove-the-clinton-name-from-little-rocks-airport)

------
mac01021
Senators do a lot of underhanded stuff.

But, in this case, if it were put to a vote, probably the senator's
constituents in Montana would want him to do exactly what he's doing?

------
telltruth
WaPo had been doing great reporting these days. I just don't know how much
money they lose in ad revenue by being behind paywall. Any summery of the
article?

~~~
dmode
Sorry, if you think they are doing great reporting, isn't it worth to pay for
a subscription? It is dirt cheap for Prime members

~~~
telltruth
No it isn't because there are other dozens of such outlets there. I can't buy
dozens of subscriptions for everyone doing good reporting. Either they have to
come up with some subscription bundle that covers large number of outlets
(like Netflix or Google Music) or rely on ad revenues. I just don't know why
these people don't think of this and just assume people would just swipe away
their credit cards for new subscriptions.

~~~
corvallis
How many newspapers do you need to read in order to be well informed? I
subscribe to two newspapers and a magazine. I don’t feel like adding more
would give me additional value. Surely you wouldn’t feel the need to read
every newspaper in existence to feel well informed. I encourage you to
subscribe to one or two that you feel provide a valuable product to you.

~~~
mac01021
If there was a way to get a single subscription for access to every article
linked from HN (whether it be from NYT, WaPo, WSJ, or whatever) I might pay
for that. I don't think most people read a newspaper front to back anymore.

~~~
corvallis
“I want to buy some Lucky Charms but I only want to pay for the marshmallows
because I don’t eat the other bits.”

“I want to rent this apartment but I don’t use the oven so I dont want to pay
for that portion.”

“I want a whopper from BK on a bun from Mickey D’s, And I only want to pay for
one burger with that combination.”

“I want iOS on my new Galaxy.”

I’m sorry for mocking you but I find your stipulation for paying for
journalistic content absurd. However, this is not the first time I’ve heard
similar conditions requested for things that are not the speaker’s to place
conditions on. I’m wondering where this line of thinking comes from. I seem to
hear it from the younger generation (20s/early 30s). (I’m not tying to be
purposefully ageist or overgeneralize.)

~~~
mac01021
I didn't request anything. I merely stated some conditions under which I would
feel inclined to pay for journalistic content. Nowhere did I say that anyone
is obliged to create such conditions for me.

Just like I don't buy lucky charms because I don't like all the things in
there. That doesn't mean I think they're depriving me of something to which
I'm entitled. It just means they're not getting my money.

------
diogenescynic
S&P and Moody’s and other credit rating agencies need to downgrade the US for
our total and complete political dysfunction. We are being passed by as other
counties address real problems, while we argue about plain as day facts that
only one political party in the world still refuses to acknowledge. America’s
power will continue to fade the longer republicans are in power.

------
jessaustin
One hopes this is just the daily recommended dose of general "fear
foreigners!" pablum that WaPo is assigned by its CIA handlers, rather than the
first rumblings of the foredoomed "Operation Tibetan Freedom". We've gotten
our asses kicked enough this century already; let's chill out for a few
decades.

It is ridiculous to think that beef export, in particular, should be held
hostage to concerns about injustice in Tibet while the rest of the economy
happily bubbles along doing billions and billions in business with China. If
WaPo dislikes Montana beef people so much, why not get them kicked off the
federal lands they destroy while paying pennies to rent? Ranchers like me who
have to actually pay for the land their cattle graze, could support that.

------
justicezyx
First, Chinese government has no human rights abuse in Tibet; they developed
the area and treat the people well. Second, corruption is everywhere, if there
is not China, there will be another country. The election system is not to
find the people loyal to voters.

~~~
coupdejarnac
Don't spend your 50 cents all in one place.

~~~
jessaustin
If that's what an account that old with that much karma is doing, we have to
be impressed by the commitment at least.

