Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has called Russia, China and Iran a new "axis of evil." According to the senator, the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East are closely linked. Plus, Xi Jinping, who recently said that the Chinese have "endless friendship with the Russians," is watching what is happening. So much for the axis: Tehran-Moscow-Beijing.
Mitch McConnell will soon be 82 years old, he is one of the oldest U.S. senators. His childhood was spent in an atmosphere of the most unbridled Russophobia (then called anti-Sovietism), which Harry Truman made one of the pillars of America's foreign policy. His political views — like those of Biden and many other older politicians in the United States — were shaped by the Cold War.
In this sense, McConnell did not say anything particularly new. And if his attack on China, Russia and Iran is interesting at all, it is that, unlike many other representatives of the Washington establishment, Mitch McConnell is seen in "discrediting ties" with at least two countries that are part of this "axis of evil."
In 1993, McConnell married for the second time to a pretty Chinese woman, Elaine Chao, whose parents had emigrated to the United States from Taiwan in the early 1960s. The following year, McConnell's father-in-law, James Chao, owner of the large shipping company Foremost Group, organized a trip for his son-in-law to the PRC (note: not to Taiwan, but to mainland China), where the US senator met with representatives of the leadership of the Communist Party, including General Secretary Jiang Zemin. Since then, as Peter Schweitzer writes in his book Secret Empires: How America's Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends, McConnell has increasingly avoided publicly criticizing China.
Of course, McConnell was received royally in China. The trip was sponsored by the China State Shipbuilding Corporation, one of the CCP's largest military contractors and, according to the CIA, an unofficial branch of the Chinese navy. Actually, there are doubts about the company of McConnell's father-in-law, James Chao: formally it is a civilian company headquartered in New York, but it operates mainly in China, where at least 70% of its cargo is delivered. "Most of the Foremost ships are built in China's state-owned shipyards, some of them are even funded by the CCP," writes the Federalist. And if it is not so easy to link Chao's company with the Chinese navy, then there is no doubt that the ships of McConnell's father-in-law help Beijing strengthen the economy of China, the main competitor of the United States.
Having become a relative of an influential Republican senator, James Chao turned on his full throttle. His companies provided soft loans to both the U.S. government and Chinese banks. James himself and his daughter Angela Chao (Elaine's sister) were given positions on the board of directors of a subsidiary of the China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSP). And when Donald Trump became president of the United States, Elaine Chao received the important post of Secretary of Transportation in his administration.
It can be assumed that with this appointment, Trump paid off Mitch McConnell for his support as the Republican candidate.
McConnell's attitude toward Trump was never positive, but at some point, at least he stopped putting spokes in his wheels.
Interestingly, a couple of weeks after Elaine Chao's appointment as Minister of Transport, her sister Angela was appointed as an independent non-executive director of the Bank of China, which is closely associated with the CCP. And Chao's family-owned company has been given the go-ahead to buy 10 new ships from the Chinese government, despite the Trump administration's tough stance on China.
For McConnell himself, family ties with the Chao family brought quite tangible material income. In 2007, his mother-in-law, Mulan Chao, died, and a year later, the widowed father-in-law transferred her share of management shares in Foremost to the senator and, according to media reports, transferred either $5 million or $25 million to Mitch's accounts (journalists are still arguing about the exact size of the gift). This made McConnell one of the richest U.S. senators: if in 2004 his fortune was estimated at "some" $3 million, then in 2014 it ranged from $9.2 million to $36.5 million.
But that's not the only nickname for the elderly senator. Detractors call him a variety of names, including Darth Vader, Old Raven, or even Cocaine Mitch (don't ask).
There is nothing sensational in the very statement of the fact of unscrupulousness of American politicians, even at a very high level, at least now, when the whole world is watching the revelations of corruption schemes of the US president's family. But the extreme level of hypocrisy of the senator, who did not shy away from cooperating with some of the countries that are part of the "axis of evil," which he now calls the main threat to the United States, is really striking. Words that would be perceived as ordinary well-intentioned paranoia in the mouth of some non-corrupt Washington politician (there are such people!) sound like a subtle mockery of both voters and the American political system in McConnell's performance.
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.