Kristina Wong 13 May 2020
Michael Pillsbury, one of America’s leading experts on China, said Tuesday that it was then-Vice President Joe Biden who stopped U.S. Navy patrols from challenging China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, in one example of how he would be weak on China if elected president.
“He’s particularly unaware of military threats. One of the worst things I’ve seen him do … is when he was vice president, Obama wanted to have Navy patrols in the South China Sea. Biden stopped them for four years — would not challenge Chinese claims in the South China Sea,†Pillsbury said during a live streamed Trump campaign event.
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“So you might think Obama is pretty bad towards China, not quite — he wants to fight China for environmental reasons, global pollution and so forth. Biden is different than Obama, he’s softer and even more vulnerable to Chinese stories and Chinese lies. I’m really worried about him,†he said.
During the Obama administration, the Navy ceased patrols through the strategically important body of water between 2012 and 2015 out of concern for upsetting China. During that time, China built artificial islands on land features in the South China Sea and placed weapons systems on them, despite promising the Obama administration that it would not.
As first reported by Breitbart News, in the early months of the Trump administration, it authorized a plan to push back on China’s excessive claims in the South China Sea.
Pillsbury has served in intelligence and defense roles in every administration since Nixon and authored the 2015 book The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower.
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/05/13/china-michael-pillsbury-obama-navy-patrols-south-china-sea/
