NEWNow you can listen to Fox News articles!
President Donald Trump flew to China to meet Communist leader Xi Jinping this week. It didn’t feel like the Cold War, or the recent trade wars. The word “détente” was in the air, so for anti-communists who didn’t like President Richard Nixon of China or President Jimmy Carter kissing Soviet dictator Leonid Brezhnev on the cheek, it wasn’t a very good look.
Trump called Xi a “great leader,” which sounded more like the Chamber of Commerce than the Victims of Communism Museum. The word “communism” is often absent from China’s network broadcasts, which began to cry about “capitalism” in China decades ago under Deng Xiaoping.
The worst network in Beijing, unsurprisingly, was ABC News, which reliably casts Trump in the worst possible light. The China trip was interrupted by the Iran war, which Trump is said to have lost. White House Correspondent Mary Bruce, who has often been heard making positive or defensive points about President Joe Biden, hit the spot.
“The president had a vision that he was going to come here today victorious in Iran,” he announced, “that he was going to use that momentum to help secure deals in trade and technology, other investments and artificial intelligence, that this was an opportunity to reset the US-China relationship. But those ambitions, now, have been overshadowed by the war with Iran.”
TRUMP-XI’S CHINA SUMMIT IS AMERICA’S DEFINING TEST IN THE NEW ENERGY WAR
President Donald Trump listens as he meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People, Thursday, May 14, 2026, in Beijing. (Mark Schifelbein/AP Photo)
ABC turned to foreign correspondent James Longman, who also weighed in on the situation in Iran: “The big question: how much pain can the US take from the high gas prices caused by the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz? And, in many ways, you know, the Iranians have realized that they don’t need a weapon of mass destruction, a nuclear weapon. They’ve got this weapon to disrupt the Strait of Hormuz. The front page of the Economist magazine in a month ago, which quoted Napoleon Bonaparte, saying, ‘never interrupt your enemy when he makes a mistake.’ That sounds like China’s strategy right now. “
The Economist magazine is as reliably anti-Trump as ABC News, so the quote was not surprising.
Then, with another body blow, ABC foreign correspondent Ian Pannell saw America sinking: “In a way, this is a diminished America. I think its influence, if not its power, is now very much in doubt, not only among its enemies, but also among its friends.” The Iran war alienated Trump from the European allies: “The general opinion here, I think, is that this was a war of choice, it brought nothing but economic misery not only to the old world, but especially to Asia.”
KORNING GLORY: WILL XI RELEASE LAI?
The surprising network was CBS News, because – surprise! – somehow failed to get a visa for their new evening anchor Tony Dokoupil to enter China. Instead, he broadcast from Taiwan this week and ended on Wednesday, May 13, “CBS Evening News” on another note. “Finally, tonight from Taiwan: as President Trump and Xi Jinping of China prepare to meet, you will hear more about the decline of America and the rise of a new and powerful China.” Yes, from ABC.
He continued: “Xi’s China is amazing by many measures,” but there is also something wrong: “China’s population is declining, however, the rate of change is very low. Unemployment is high, with millions in rural provinces living in poverty, and large housing complexes that are now sitting empty. Most importantly, and perhaps I am stating the obvious here, none of these problems are the subject of the Internet itself. The freedom we have, they just don’t have.” This is the benefit of not having “directors” following you.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW MORE FOX NEWS
On Thursday, Dokoupil continued the theme that, although “communism failed in the old Soviet Union” and democracy seems to be winning, today China is challenging that argument. So Dokoupil raised “democracy activist” Jimmy Lai, who is now in a Hong Kong prison. He played a clip of CBS’s Holly Williams commenting that Hong Kong is a beautiful and successful city. Lai replied: “That’s what the Chinese think. They think we only have a body, we don’t have a soul. You guys make money, live comfortably, don’t think about politics, don’t think about freedom, don’t think about human rights, don’t think about the law, just eat. Enjoy life….We have a soul. We’re not a dog.”
The worst network in Beijing, unsurprisingly, was ABC News, which reliably casts Trump in the worst possible light.
Dokoupil concluded: “And when you step back, that’s the big picture this week, not just which superpower is going with the strongest military or the biggest economy, but whose ideas should lead the future?” This is a marked difference from the classic model of Peter Jennings or Dan Rather, and could make an argument that Bari Weiss changed things, at least part of the time.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS PROGRAM
NBC’s Tom Llamas was in Beijing and got an interview with Trump who thought liberals weren’t controversial enough. CNN’s “fact checker” Daniel Dale said Trump lied repeatedly, and Llamas failed to correct him in real time. Some of them were clearly false (like Trump saying he won in 2020) and some were nitpicking (China doesn’t pay tariffs). NBC published its “reality check” online.
Because the tone between the two leaders was positive, the result was worse than a typical week on social media. But if Trump’s conservative supporters start complaining about being too communist-friendly, they could be in for a “MAGA split” and “Trump’s worst news.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM TIM GRAHAM
