Peter Schweizer’s new bestseller Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win blows the whistle on a little game played by pro-Beijing politicians in Washington, a tactic summed up as “big help With a little badmouth.” The idea is to throw out a little tepid public criticism of China to maintain deniability while collaborating with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its business interests behind the scenes.
“Beijing pragmatically accepts some level of public criticism from the elites with whom it is working,” Schweizer observes. “As long as these elites deliver on key policies and actions that benefit the regime, some criticism is acceptable.”
The modest toughening of President Joe Biden’s previously indulgent rhetoric toward China could be taken as an example of big help with a little badmouth, as Schweizer argues Biden’s introduction of a…
