Dear media: The Chinese Communist Party really is a threat to the US

At the last Republican presidential debate, most candidates took a hard line against the Chinese Communist Party. The growing consensus among GOP contenders reflects a similar consensus on Capitol Hill among Republicans and Democrats when it comes to the China threat. Even left-wing Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) has recently expressed concerns about the CCP’s aggression toward the West.

Most people seem to agree that China is a top geopolitical threat. Everyone, that is, except the legacy media. Politico’s Energywire newsletter, for example, wrote after the debate that “GOP candidates seize[d] on anti-China rhetoric to attack climate policy.” Similarly, Washington Post columnist Philip Bump published an egregious article describing the term “Chinese Communist Party” as a right-wing “pejorative” because it “pits America against communism.”

Conservatives have long lamented that liberal journalists seem to take any opportunity they can to portray the GOP as a collection of sophists, extremists, and hicks. But in this case, left-wing media bias is particularly dangerous because it could drive exactly the kind of negative polarization the United States needs to avoid.

Most in Washington will acknowledge the threat from China is fast becoming an emergency. Conservatives such as Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and liberals such as Fetterman both understand that, and Congress is taking steps to prepare the U.S. for possible conflict. Although critics are certainly correct that these changes are not big enough, nor are they happening fast enough, people should be encouraged to know their representatives are at least trying to work together.

Read more at The Washington Examiner.