Two of the last three American ambassadors to China, and the son of the third, followed up their stints in Beijing by signing lucrative deals with Chinese state-backed companies or firms, Peter Schweizer details in his new book Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win.
Gary Locke and Max Baucus, who served as top diplomat to Beijing under President Barack Obama, and Terry Branstad, who served in the role under President Donald Trump, all maintain public stances in media and commentary that oppose limiting the Chinese Communist Party’s access to the American economy. Each, Schweizer details, has a distinct relationship with the Chinese companies that stand to lose from policies meant to keep China from using its money to influence America’s elite. Several of the companies in question have been accused of enabling the Chinese regime’s human rights abuses.
Gary Locke
Locke was governor of Washington before entering the Obama administration. The lowlight of his tenure as ambassador to Beijing was the Chen Guangcheng fiasco. The “barefoot lawyer,” as Chen is known, fled to the American embassy seeking asylum in 2012 after years of advocating against China’s policy of forcing women to kill their children, born and unborn, in the event that they were “illegally” pregnant after having one child. Chen, now a U.S. citizen, would later accuse Locke’s embassy of pressuring him to leave and go back to China, facing potentially fatal consequences for his human rights advocacy.
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