MAGA diehard Darren Beattie — who was fired from a White House speechwriting job early in Donald Trump’s first term for appearing at a conference attended by known white nationalists — has been tapped by Marco Rubio for a top State Department job.
But Beattie and Rubio have opposing views of China: Rubio sees it as oppressive, yet Beattie has repeatedly applauded the Chinese government for being “non-woke.”
In social media posts between 2020 and 2024, Beattie frequently praised the Chinese Communist Party and suggested it would be better for the citizens of Western countries if their governments were more oppressive — or if the Chinese government actually invaded them. His firing and past social media posts supportive of Jan. 6 rioters already made Beattie a controversial choice. But he may also have a tough time winning over China hawks in the Senate as he tries to get confirmed as acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs. He’s already in the job in an acting capacity.
A NOTUS review of Beattie’s writings found he has often posted about crimes in America, arguing that China’s use of prison camps, organ harvesting, forced labor and mass internment are better than the U.S. criminal justice system. At the same time, Beattie has repeatedly dismissed human rights abuses in China that the State Department has raised alarms about — including genocide in Xinjiang, which Rubio worked to respond to while he served in the Senate.
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Beattie’s posts often feature videos of violence in the United States. In June 2024, he posted about one such video: “In China this vagrant would be sterilized and his organs donated to science.”
In May 2023, he posted that violent criminals in the United States would have to “work the Cobalt mines for 20 years” if they committed such crimes in China. “China will win the 21st century and deserve it because they don’t coddle violent third world trash,” he wrote in another post that month.
In April 2023, he commented on another post about violence: “Imagine if they tried this in China… China would know exactly how to take care of it. Biden’s tranny generals would whine about ‘human rights.’”
The month before, he made similar comments: “Say what you will about China, they would know exactly how to deal with this ‘juvenile’ problem,” he wrote in response to a video of violence. “Would be solved in two weeks.”
A store being looted? That also would be fixed by Chinese government-style policing, in Beattie’s view.
“This doesn’t happen in China,” he wrote in August 2022. “Wonder why ;)”
“China understands the answer to this problem,” he wrote after a shooting in June 2021.
“China would deal with this pest problem in a day,” he wrote that March about violence in Washington, D.C.
In another post, he wondered why people with criminal records and mental health problems are “allowed to walk around.”
“Dispose, sell their organs to China, and use the proceeds to subsidize fertility of high quality humans,” he said.
In other tweets, he wrote that China “does not tolerate this uncivilized element” and that the Chinese government “knows how to deal with that particular element.”
Beattie’s comments praising the Chinese government’s repression and abuses conflict with Rubio’s longtime focus on human rights in China. Rubio has served on the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, a panel created to monitor human rights violations there. He pushed pro-democracy legislation over the finish line after Chinese officials steamrolled freedom in Hong Kong in 2019, and he helped pass landmark anti-forced labor legislation to respond to the Chinese government’s mass internment of mostly Muslim ethnic groups in Xinjiang.
Rubio emphasized in his speech to State Department employees after starting his new job last month that “all men are created equal because our rights come from God our Creator.”
Beattie, meanwhile, has repeatedly tweeted about race and said, “Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work.” He has claimed that “America treats rural whites far worse than China treats Uiguhrs [sic].”
“When will China make a play for white refugees?” he wrote in December 2020. “They could get some serious human capital if they made a good offer.”
Britain, too, “treats its own native white people far worse than China treats its muslim Uighur population,” he argued.
“China doesn’t give a shit about racism,” he celebrated in another post. “Good for them! They’re busy taking over the 21st Century (and Africa!) while we whine about ‘whiteness.’”
“The future does not belong to ‘liberal democracies’ that care about racism,” he added. Beattie has also said the “rise of non-woke (China) and anti-woke (Russia) geopolitical competitors to the Globalist American Empire is not a bad thing.”
Other posts are both racist and supportive of sterilizing Americans.
“When a population gets feral, a little snip snip keeps things in control,” he wrote in October 2023 in response to a video of police in an Atlanta neighborhood. “Could offer incentives (Air Jordans, etc.).”
He also said he might not mind if the Chinese government took control of Western countries.
In February 2024, he commented on a post from London’s police department about a suspect: “Imagine if China conquered the UK, rounded up all of the non native Brits and forced them to work in Cobalt mines in Africa,” he wrote. “Would this be a net improvement for Britain?”
“Let’s say China invaded the UK and crushed the UK government, the UK citizens now living as subjects of China,” he wondered in a different post. “Would the quality of life for average white Briton improve, get worse, or stay the same?”
The same day, Beattie argued that “the UK is infinitely more repulsive than China.”
The relationship between Russia and China, he has written, “is an increasingly exciting development on geopolitical stage.”
“NATO is a far worse threat to the health, liberty, freedom, and flourishing of American citizens than Russia and China combined,” Beattie said in February 2021, shortly before Russia launched its full invasion of Ukraine.
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment for this story. At a press conference this week, Rubio told reporters that Beattie will focus “on not wanting this Department of State to be involved in censorship.”
“That’s the reason why he wanted to come work at the department, is because, unfortunately, elements of the State Department were being used to censor American voices, and that’ll be his focus,” Rubio said.
Rep. Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat who worked on China policy with Rubio in Congress, told NOTUS he was dumbfounded by Beattie’s appointment.
“Rubio worked with me,” he said. “To have someone like that appointed to a high position — what the hell is wrong with everybody?”
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Haley Byrd Wilt is a reporter at NOTUS.
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