XPost: alt.politics.republicans, tx.politics.republic, seattle.politics   
   XPost: alt.fan.sean-hannity, rec.arts.tv, alt.global-warming   
   From: remailer@domain.invalid   
      
   Former ambassador Baucus appears regularly on Chinese propaganda   
   outlets   
      
   As the novel coronavirus wreaks havoc across the world, the Obama   
   administration's ambassador to China has found a second lease on   
   life as a pro-China talking head on regime propaganda outlets.   
      
   Former ambassador Max Baucus has given at least four different   
   interviews to Chinese propaganda outlets in the last two weeks,   
   repeatedly comparing the U.S. rhetoric about China to both the   
   McCarthy era and Nazi Germany.   
      
   "Joe McCarthy [and] Adolf Hitler … rallied people up, making people   
   believe things that were really not true," Baucus said during a May   
   12 interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN), a regime   
   mouthpiece. "The White House and some in Congress are making   
   statements against China that are so over the top and so   
   hypercritical, they are based not on the fact, or if they are based   
   on fact, sheer demagoguery, and that's what McCarthy did in the   
   1950s."   
      
   Since his retirement in 2017, Baucus has been a reliable critic of   
   the Trump administration's increasingly confrontational China   
   policy—chiefly the decision to wage a trade war with Beijing. He   
   once warned that the White House's decision to impose additional   
   tariffs was a "slap on the face" to China. But Baucus's recent   
   comments in the pandemic era have been more sympathetic to China—and   
   critical of the United States—than ever before.   
      
   His post-retirement public statements praising China have coincided   
   with his burgeoning overseas investments. In 2017, he founded the   
   Baucus Group, a consulting firm that advises both American and   
   Chinese businesses, according to his U.S. Chamber of Commerce   
   biography. He also sits on the board of directors for Ingram Micro,   
   a U.S. subsidiary of a Chinese state-owned conglomerate, as well as   
   the board of advisers for Alibaba Group, one of China's largest tech   
   companies.   
      
   Walter Lohman, director of the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage   
   Foundation, said that it was "inappropriate" for a former ambassador   
   to speak ill about his own government on a foreign propaganda   
   outlet.   
      
   "It's like going to China and … talking about your own government   
   that way in meetings. I think that would be pretty inappropriate,"   
   Lohman said. "So it would be inappropriate speaking on state media."   
      
   Baucus's public statements have received considerable attention from   
   Beijing's propaganda outlets. When the former ambassador compared   
   President Donald Trump's criticism of China to rhetoric used by   
   Adolf Hitler and Joe McCarthy during a May 6 interview with CNN,   
   Chinese propaganda outlets quickly amplified Baucus's comments about   
   how Trump was "a little bit like Hitler in the '30s" and that   
   Americans were worried about "getting their heads chopped off" if   
   they voice their disagreement with the U.S. government's China   
   policy. Xinhua News Agency, a state-owned outlet, extensively cited   
   Baucus's attacks in a May 8 article, using it as evidence that the   
   Trump administration is attempting to "deflect criticisms about   
   their blunders by blaming China." The article was syndicated in   
   party-controlled mouthpieces such as Global Times and People's   
   Daily, according to the Investigative Research Center.   
      
   Baucus then appeared on CGTN on May 12 to double down on his Hitler   
   and McCarthy comparison, blaming the Trump administration for   
   flaming "sheer demagoguery."   
      
   "[The current U.S. rhetoric] is somewhat reminiscent, nowhere close   
   to that yet, somewhat reminiscent of the McCarthy era and somewhat   
   reminiscent of Germany in the 1930s," he told CGTN.   
      
   The former ambassador also gave an exclusive interview to Global   
   Times on May 14, where he said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's   
   claim that the virus may have originated in a Wuhan laboratory   
   "makes no sense" and accused both Democrats and Republicans of being   
   tough on China to score political points in an election year.   
      
   Baucus again appeared on CGTN on May 15, where he claimed that   
   America is "sliding toward a form of McCarthyism" because the Trump   
   administration is pressuring policymakers to be tough on China. The   
   former ambassador did another CGTN media hit on May 16, this time   
   appearing alongside his wife Melodee Hanes, who blamed the   
   presidential election for making dialogue "difficult."   
      
   "There are a lot of pretty smart people in the United States who are   
   not speaking up. People in office, moderates, especially moderates   
   on the Republican side," Baucus said on May 15. "They are afraid to   
   speak up, they are intimidated, intimidated by President Trump. And   
   it's kind of sliding toward a form of McCarthyism—how it is   
   politically incorrect to speak the truth, speak the truth to power."   
      
   When the Washington Free Beacon called the phone number listed for   
   Baucus's home address, no one answered. A lawyer representing Baucus   
   Group, the ambassador's consulting firm, also did not respond to a   
   request for comment.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)