YEP: CHINA IS ON THE BALLOT IN 2020.

Following the Cold War, the stated rationale for U.S.-PRC relations was one of economic self-interest and idealism: Economic liberalization would lead to political and cultural liberalization. Relatedly, the story went, an integrated and prosperous China would be a peaceful and stable one.

For decades, Joe Biden has been one of the most senior proponents of this view. During the height of the 2000 debate that resulted in the granting of permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) to China, putting it on a glidepath to World Trade Organization accession that would accelerate its drive toward superpower status, Biden asserted that PRC “prosperity…has put China on a path toward ever-greater political and economic freedom.” This view persisted in the administration Biden served.

It was the Obama Administration—during much of which then-Vice President Biden managed the “China portfolio,” explicitly engaging the then-general secretary-in-waiting Xi Jinping—that was responsible for the plan which would have seen U.S. government employees fund their foes. Every member of the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (FRTIB) responsible for the 2017 decision to tilt its Thrift Savings Plan’s (TSP) international fund toward Chinese equities, was an Obama appointee. They pressed ahead with the plan in spite of withering bipartisan criticism.

It was good for Hunter Biden.