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Why China wants Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom to be US president

Progressives have long branded President Trump as a stooge for Russia. 

Yet the more important story may be who President Xi of China wants in office.

Unlike Putin, he has the financial muscle, ties to business elites, and technical skill to promote his agenda.

And California’s Gavin Newsom is likely to be Xi’s favorite in 2028. 

Indeed, just after Biden’s poorly-received performance in his June 2024 presidential debate with Trump, the Asia Times, South China Morning Post, Bloomberg, and Business Insider all reported that Beijing liked Newsom as the ideal replacement for the doddering president. 

The governor was widely seen in China as “a fresh but also positive and more sober-minded politician in the U.S.”

Certainly Beijing would like to duplicate across the country the unequal relationship that it already has with California under Newsom.  

What the Golden State has with China resembles a classic colonial tie. 

China buys roughly $15 billion annually from California, but exports $122 billion to the state. 

The disparities in such things as electronic machinery are immense, while California dominates mainly in agricultural exports. 

California does better with services, notably software and other tech licenses, but that total of $5 billion is chump change compared to the merchandise imbalance.  

Historically, many Democrats –– like some MAGA Republicans –– might see this pattern as harmful to working people who might lose their jobs.

But Newsom is more attuned to the views of his longtime ultra-rich supporters in the Bay Area. 

He hears not from workers who cannot make a decent living, but from the likes of Apple’s Tim Cook, whose products are largely made in China, and who waxes enthusiastically about a “common future in cyberspace.” 

One leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm, Sequoia Capital, even has employed the offspring of China’s Politburo........

© New York Post