Obama campaign cites Chinese propaganda machine against Romney

Politico reported that the Obama campaign is using material from a Communist Chinese agency known to be the government’s propaganda outlet in order to attack presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

In a Friday tweet, Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter cited the official state news agency of the Chinese Communist Party — prompting a Republican pile-on.

Cutter linked to a Reuters report about a strongly worded anti-Mitt Romney editorial in the state-run Xinhua news agency — a piece that accused the GOP nominee of wanting to spark a trade war, and hypocrisy in his business dealings. Cutter called it a “must read.”

Understanding the purpose of the agency is important to unwinding the reason for their statement. Obama has been weak on Chinese currency manipulation and product dumping. The Chinese are certain that Romney will not take such a hands-off approach to the unfair trade practices of the Chinese and they certainly appreciate the Obama administration strengthening the false argument.

Back on August 27th, China Daily attacked Mitt Romney saying ““It requires political vision as well as profound knowledge of Sino-U.S. relations as a whole, to make sensible policy recommendations about what are widely recognized as the most important bilateral ties in the world,” Beijing’s English-language newspaper stated.  “Romney apparently lacks both.”

Romney hasn’t backed off. Just yesterday, Romney said of that “the president has had the chance year after year to label, to label China a currency manipulator, but he hasn’t done so and I will label China the currency manipulator they are on the first day.”

The Department of the Treasury has the responsibility to identify nations that manipulate their currency in order to gain trade advantages. During the Obama presidency, no such label has been given to the Chinese despite the fact that their weakening of the Chinese currency is widely known.

Even as the Obama campaign uses Chinese attacks on Romney, they conveniently forget then candidate Obama’s own harsh words during his run for president in 2007 when he said “China has manipulated its currency for years in order to gain an unfair advantage over the United States in trade”

The question is begged: Why hasn’t Treasury labelled China a currency manipulator under Obama’s leadership if he clearly believes they are?