“I think that China determined the outcome of the 2020 presidential election,” says Gordon Chang, a well-known Asian policy analyst.
“The Chinese deliberately spread coronavirus beyond their borders,” he recalls. “Then they maliciously assaulted Trump with their political warfare campaign over his handling of the disease.”
During the summer of 2020, almost exactly four years ago, Change wrote a Fox News opinion column that described an all-out effort by Beijing to defeat Trump in the election that would come four months later. That effort ranged from state media, such as The Global Times, and the use of social media such as TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.
Leading up the 2020 election, social media companies were forced to close accounts and block trolls who were attacking Trump from China, he wrote.
Chang similarly predicts the Chinese want to make sure Trump doesn’t return to the Oval Office.
"I think it's very difficult to stop their media warfare campaign. To do that, we'd have to unplug TikTok and even Trump is not in favor of doing that,” he observes. “I think that he just has to counter it with better narratives on China.”
