China struggles to build ties with Trump campaign

Chinese officials struggle to build ties with Donald Trump’s campaign

Chinese officials are failing to secure meetings with Donald Trump’s campaign officials and surrogates, underscoring the hawkish sentiment in Washington and concerns about espionage and influence operations.

Beijing’s attempt to build ties with Trump’s team have included deploying Cui Tiankai, ambassador to Washington during the Trump administration.

But the outreach efforts have been largely unsuccessful, according to eight US and Chinese people familiar with the situation. Chinese officials and visiting scholars — some of whom are seen as proxies for Beijing — have already been struggling to meet US lawmakers but are now facing similar barriers with Trump’s team.

Trump’s views on China were well known and there was a risk that meetings would be “misconstrued”, Yates said, adding that the former president’s election campaign was focused on winning in November. “There is a much higher degree of discipline among Trump campaign members and surrogates than . . . in 2016,” said Yates, a Trump surrogate in that campaign and former deputy national security adviser to vice-president **** Cheney.