There are two things we know about China: first, their business and government leaders are intermixed with the Communist Party and what one wants, the other produces; second, the anti-corruption campaign going on in China right now is catching some really big fish, not all in China.
Michael Daly, in yesterday's Daily Beast, tells an interesting story about the arrest of a Clinton family friend who gave a $1 million to the Clinton Campaign in 1996. Since then, he has been to the White House 10 times. Money can buy both access and influence.
This goes to the state of campaign financing in general, when a billionaire in China can give money to the Democratic Party and a specific campaign to boot. Nobody is kidding themselves into believing the Party and the leadership in China didn't know this was going on. They don't miss much, what with all of that censorship and monitoring equipment on their infrastructure. They know. Now, whether they directed it to be done is another matter, but they at least tolerated contributions to specific people involved in a U.S. election. Over the years, the Russians have done considerably more, and the Chinese probably have too.
What we should know is who in other countries is giving money to anyone in either campaign. This is foreign influence on a national election and should be treated that way. In countries like Russia, Iran, and China the giving of money by a "private citizen" is not quite the same thing as it is elsewhere. Why don't we recognize the difference? There is room for all kinds of foreign abuse of our election system, and most countries will do what they can get away with. Wake up Congress. We need enforcement of campaign laws keeping foreign governments out of our elections.
No comments:
Post a Comment