NEW: Daines “Abruptly” Changes Tone on China After National GOP Guidance & Facing Tough Reelection

New Report Details How Senator Daines Became “China’s Ambassador in Congress” & Is Now Following NRSC Guidelines to “Attack China” As New Poll Shows Daines Trailing Steve Bullock

A new report from The Daily Beast today details how Senator Steve Daines has “abruptly” flip-flopped from years as a “China cheerleader” to now running ads that have “closely mirrored talking points” from an April memo circulated by the National Republican Senatorial Committee urging its candidates, “don’t defend Trump…attack China.” Daines’ record earned praise from a Chinese official, who called the vulnerable incumbent “China’s ambassador in Congress” but goes “beyond what you see from any other member [of Congress],” according to one former senior U.S. official involved in China policy.

“This quick shift reveals how worried Senator Daines is about his reelection, and he’s now misleading Montanans about his record,” said DSCC spokesperson Helen Kalla. “It says a lot that Senator Daines takes the easier route of following what Washington Republicans tell him to do, instead of just standing up for what’s right for Montana in the first place.”

The Daily Beast: GOP Senator Abruptly Goes from China Cheerleader to Anti-Beijing Hawk

By Lachlan Markay

Key Points:

• In mid-April, national Republicans urged their Senate candidates to focus their coronavirus messaging on Chinese misdeeds. The day before, Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) had already started buying television ads doing just that.

• The Daines ad campaign is standard fare for Trump-allied Republicans these days. But unlike many of his Senate colleagues, Daines is criticizing China after years of feting high-ranking officials in its government, most recently as a senator whom the country’s top diplomat in the U.S. praised as a steadfast ally. Years earlier, Daines worked in China for a Fortune 100 company that worked closely with local Communist Party officials to market and distribute its products.

• Daines’ office did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

• The contrast between Daines’ tone since last month and his work in the years prior shows the challenges that some lawmakers will face as they attempt to lean into anti-China messaging in the absence of a more coherent, positive list of coronavirus-related accomplishments that they can sell to voters in an election year.

• Daines too had some kind words for the early Chinese response to the coronavirus. “The Chinese government aggressively worked to contain it,” he said during a February 25 interview on the Fox Business Network. 

• Daines’ position now is that not only was Chinese data inaccurate, but that the Communist Party deliberately covered up the true nature of the virus, and must now be punished for it.

• That language closely mirrored talking points circulated to Republican Senate campaigns by the National Republican Senatorial Committee in a memo dated April 17. 

• Daines is just one of a number of U.S. lawmakers who’ve pressed for that sort of inquiry. But he has a lengthier track record than most of not just working with the Chinese government but actively courting senior Communist Party officials. “Some people tend to see China as a binary choice, between a friend or a foe, but in reality you can’t put China into some kind of well-defined box,” said Daines, then the co-chair of the the Senate US-China Working Group, during a 2017 keynote address at an annual gala for the US-China Business Council.

• Daines has also welcomed high-ranking Chinese government officials to the U.S. in his official capacity. In December 2017, shortly after winning that Chinese beef export deal, Daines hosted a delegation of party officials who oversee the disputed territory of Tibet. The event was timed to undermine a simultaneous visit to Washington by the leader of Tibet’s government-in-exile.

• Daines also opposed a Senate resolution earlier that year to rename the street outside of the Chinese embassy in Washington after an imprisoned Chinese dissident. A spokesperson told the Washington Post at the time that Daines was “focus[ed] is on making change with tact and wisdom, not flashy headlines.”

• A former senior U.S. official who was deeply involved in policy towards China told The Daily Beast that Daines’ accommodations of Chinese officials and priorities, even in the context of his efforts to open up markets to Montana exporters, went beyond the normal give-and-take generally required to win concessions from that government.

• “If you want to choose to engage you have to do so in a balanced way so your constituents don’t feel that you’re capitulating to every whim in order to get access,” the official said. “What you see in Sen. Daines is an imbalance at a minimum and overtures that are beyond what you see from any other member.”

• “You’re allowed to want bilateral trade,” the official added. “You just aren’t allowed to bend over backwards to do it and then claim you’ve been tough on China.”

• Daines’ work with the Chinese government even earned him plaudits from senior Party officials. Cui TianKai, China’s ambassador to the U.S., lavished praise on Daines during an event in Montana in 2017 promoting the state’s livestock industry, according to a Bozeman Daily Chronicle report. 

• “TianKi hailed Daines, and called him China’s ambassador in Congress,” the paper reported. “Daines said the friendship with China is greatly appreciated.”

• The senator’s work in China goes back to the 1990s, when he worked for consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble. Daines lived for years in Hong Kong and mainland China, where he helped expand the company’s business in the country and ran one of its manufacturing plants. At the time, P&G was pioneering the use of Communist Party “neighborhood committees” as local sales and distribution networks to try to elbow its way into Chinese markets.

• That résumé item went unmentioned in the early April radio segment in which he announced his efforts to investigate China’s coronavirus conduct.

Read the full story here.

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