January 1, Trump Drops BOMBSHELL on China — Xi Jinping Faces Reckoning

Wyatt’s Take

• President Trump just exposed China’s massive theft of American voter data — 220 million files stolen during 2020 — and Beijing is scrambling to deny it.
• China hawks say Xi Jinping is panicking, while swamp Democrats try to downplay the breach as ‘publicly available’ information.
• The allegations put Trump’s working relationship with Xi on the line just as a major summit looms — will Trump stay tough or fold?

President Donald Trump’s explosive allegations against China are sending shockwaves through Washington and Beijing. Speaking from the White House Thursday night, Trump accused the Chinese Communist Party of orchestrating what he called “the largest compromise of election data in history.”

According to Trump, Beijing illicitly obtained information from roughly 220 million American voter files during the 2020 election cycle. The Chinese government fired back immediately, denying everything.

“China has all along adhered to the principle of non-interference in others’ internal affairs. The U.S. election is an internal matter of the U.S. Its outcome is determined by the votes of the American people. China has never and will never interfere in the presidential elections of the U.S.”

That statement came from Chinese Embassy spokesman Liu Chang, but few Americans are buying it. The real question now is whether Trump will follow through with consequences or let Xi Jinping off the hook.

The timing couldn’t be worse for U.S.-China relations. Trump has been seeking a high-profile summit with Xi later this year, reportedly to extract commitments on trade and other issues. But how do you shake hands with a leader whose regime just got caught red-handed stealing American voter data?

Bill Bishop, publisher of the influential Sinocism newsletter, asked the obvious question.

“So how can he still be friends with Xi after what he says the PRC [People’s Republic of China] just did in stealing 220m voter files? If any of these allegations are true how can this not be a rupture?”

China hawk Gordon Chang, author of “Plan Red” and “China Is Going To War,” argued that Beijing’s leadership is deeply rattled by Trump’s decision to publicly release the intelligence.

“China’s leaders are almost certainly in a panic right about now. Bravo, President Trump, for revealing China’s massive interference in our elections and in our society.”

“Trump just showed China who’s boss.”

Of course, the Democrat establishment is already running interference for Beijing. Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, dismissed the allegations outright. Warner claimed voter registration data has long been accessible to foreign governments and private organizations alike.

“The idea that somehow these countries are gathering voter files — these are publicly available. You don’t have to hack into them. You can buy them.”

That’s cold comfort for Americans who never gave China permission to buy their voting information in the first place. Warner’s dismissal raises serious questions about whether Democrats are more interested in protecting their own political interests than confronting foreign threats.

Trump’s allegations go further than previously declassified intelligence assessments from his first administration. A January 2021 intelligence community assessment concluded that China “probably continued longstanding efforts to gather information on U.S. voters and public opinion” to better predict election outcomes. Another assessment, partially declassified in 2022, similarly found that Chinese intelligence officials analyzed voter registration data from multiple states during the 2020 election cycle.

Neither assessment concluded that China attempted to alter vote totals or directly manipulate election infrastructure. But the massive scale of data collection Trump described Thursday represents a significant escalation — or at least a more complete disclosure of what China has been doing.

The geopolitical stakes are enormous. Just one day before Trump’s announcement, a Pew Research Center survey found that China is now viewed more favorably than the United States in 25 of 36 countries surveyed. That’s the first time in two decades of polling that Beijing has surpassed Washington in a majority of participating nations.

Researchers attributed the shift to China’s expanding diplomatic and economic influence abroad and declining international perceptions of the United States. Whether Trump’s tough talk on China can reverse that trend remains to be seen — but only if he backs it up with action.

Why It Matters

Millions of working Americans have watched jobs disappear to China, seen our manufacturing base gutted, and witnessed Beijing’s growing arrogance on the world stage. If Trump is serious about protecting American sovereignty, he can’t let this slide. The swamp wants business as usual with Beijing. Middle America wants accountability — and results that put America first.