By: Ken Willette
9-23
Chinese President Xi Jinping has mobilized his totalitarian regime against the United States and her allies, with a strategy that has all the hallmarks of a new Cold War. If leadership in Washington is blind to this new reality, we must vote for new leaders in 2024.
I am fearful that Biden and his negotiating team will repeat the same colossal mistakes of FDR, who trusted Stalin’s word that he would not seek a sphere of influence in Europe after World War II. The fact that White House envoy John Kerry couldn’t even acknowledge that Xi is a dictator during a recent congressional hearing, leads me to believe that a bold course of action reminiscent of Reagan’s Cold War strategy is paramount to our national security.
Reagan won that contest of good versus evil because he recognized that the Soviet Union’s vision of humanity was rotten to the core. That the foundation could collapse if sufficient external pressure was applied. Reagan’s modernization and rebuilding of America’s military might, bolstered by our inherent wealth and technological superiority, bankrupted any Soviet efforts to match our forces and liberated Eastern Europe.
Our nation’s complacency during hostile Chinese military incursions across Asia must cease immediately. Taiwan, the Philippines, Japan, Australia, and South Korea have been witnessing missile tests, illegal military bases, naval and aerial confrontations and other provocative actions by either China or her puppet state in North Korea.
Meanwhile, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and state-owned businesses have purchased farmland near our military installations in the United States. The CCP served as the lowest qualified bidder to construct new railcars for the T system in Boston, which have experienced numerous technical problems since delivery. And although some federal and state government entities have banned their workers from using TikTok due to data collection concerns, the rest of our population, especially our children, are vulnerable to privacy issues. Why is Congress and the President allowing these questionable transactions to continue?
Imagine during the height of the Cold War, the voters found out that the Soviets purchased land near our air bases, constructed our subways over American companies and had an undue programming influence on our children. They would throw the bums out of office who allowed such a mess. Where is the outrage in 2023?
The CCP still engages in massive intellectual property theft, unfairly subsidies their companies at the expense of foreign competition and sends spies into our research facilities and universities. In fact, XI could invoke an anti-espionage law at any time—which theoretically empowers the communists to target the sensitive data of any foreign firms operating in China.
As leaders of the free world, the United States can never fully trust Xi, but we can achieve peace through a new mutual defense alliance of Asian democracies, similar to the now defunct Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, and enforceable international treaties.
Furthermore, we must decouple our economy from theirs before it is too late. Trump already started the transformation to confront this new Cold War on multiple fronts. He applied punitive tariffs against China, ushered in a new and robust North American free trade agreement (USMCA), encouraged companies to relocate back to America through corporate tax reform, opened our natural resources and substantially increased military spending. As a direct result, domestic manufacturing has boomed, products are being sourced once more in our hemisphere and we are curtailing our supply chains from bureaucratic entanglements in China.
COVID-19 revealed the sinister authoritarian mentality of Xi, who refused to let WHO teams into the hot zone of Wuhan for months during a global crisis. Xi has created a disturbing cult of personality, akin to Mao and Stalin. He has consolidated power through his exclusive, uncontestable authority, weakening the central committee and removing key senior members.
He has rewritten communist dogma in his image, and instituted a philosophy that the nation must endure sacrifices to achieve victory against the West. Instead of promoting a consumer and entrepreneurial class, he is assigning the newest generation to a life of unwanted industrial drudgery. Economic liberalization has not translated into capitalism, free enterprise, and freedom.
The last time there was such a stark consolidation of power in China, it tragically occurred under Mao. Approximately 80 million people were killed during the Great Leap Forward—twice the estimated deaths under the Stalin regime. Is the world prepared for a similar course of action under Xi?
Given the systemic ‘reeducation’ and persecution of the Uyghurs Muslim minority, the Orwellian lockdown of millions during COVID and the continued threats against perceived enemies abroad, how can Xi be identified as an honest broker of peace?
Xi props up the repressive socialist regimes of Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea. He gives aid and comfort to Russia and Iran, whose actions have caused the direct deaths of Americans and Syrian civilians.
However, China’s centralization of power and its authoritarian policies have created a paper tiger ripe for potential revolution. The youth unemployment rate is at least 20% and could be as high as 50%. China is so corrupt with statistics that it has stopped even publishing data on youth employment and consumer activity. China’s overall debt-to-GDP ratio is fast approaching 300%.
A dangerous commercial and housing construction bubble has developed, which could engulf 30% of the economy. Defaults on loans are worsening by the day. And Chinese workers placed much of their savings into these dubious ventures. The population is declining, and because of the disastrous one child policy, China’s elderly population will soon explode.
We must expand our military superiority in the Pacific aligned with our Asian allies, curtail trade incentives with Xi, encourage companies to return jobs domestically and pass sweeping reforms in Congress to restrict any further CCP activities on the home front. Peace through Strength will prevail once again over the party of concessions and ineffectual moderation. ◊