OPINION:
Half of Americans taking part in a survey from Pew Research said China is the greatest threat to the United States.
This is great news. If a problem cannot be fixed so long as the problem isn’t recognized, then at least half of Americans are getting the big picture: China and its Chinese Communist Party-spreading influences are perils to the entire world. That America has awakened to this peril is a “good gosh — finally!” type of moment.
“In an open-ended question allowing Americans to name which country they see as the greatest threat to the U.S., 50 percent name China — almost three times the share who name Russia (17 percent),” Pew wrote.
Four percent say “no one” is the “greatest threat” to the United States; 2 percent say North Korea, 24 percent say they “don’t know” or they refused to answer — and 2 percent say America is America’s biggest threat.
What a relief that America’s awakening to the dangers of the CCP, though. There was a time when even Republicans — even Republicans who should have known better, but didn’t — when even free market-loving Republicans thought that China, with enough incentives and motivation, would abandon its communist ways and turn toward a freer, more capitalist system that mirrored the West. Au contraire.
As Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said on the Senate floor a little more than a year ago: “[N]o issue dominates our attention more these days than our growing rivalry with China, and rightly so. It’s a historic challenge. It’s one that I think we waited way too long to recognize, and now we’re scrambling to make up for that.”
The root of America’s present lag versus China came decades ago, when policy wonks decided the best way to foster peace was to spread capitalist ideologies to willing countries that could then become allied markets against governments hostile to liberty, against governments hostile to the United States. The practice was advantageous to America — until the end of the Cold War.
“And our leaders became intoxicated with hubris,” Rubio said. “[The idea was if] you flood a country with capitalism … that country will not just get rich, but [will become] one of our democratic allies. In pursuit of that gamble, which had no historic precedent, we entered into all kinds of trade deals and treaties and rules and regulations on an international scale. And we invited all kinds of countries that were not democracies, did not share our values and did not have the same long-term goals for the world as we did. Their long-term goals, in fact, were incompatible with ours.”
That’s China.
That’s where America went wrong with China.
In May of 2000, the House passed legislation granting Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China, a move described by then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright as “the right decision for America.” In 2001, with the support of the United States, China became the 143rd member of the World Trade Organization. And on that, the U.S. State Department wrote, “China’s accession to the WTO and the terms of the U.S.-PRC [People’s Republic of China] agreement will encourage reform in China.”
No. No it did not.
What it did was allow China to spread its communist rot throughout the world all the while pretending it was not — and all the while exploiting the good graces of naive politicians in America who were hoping against hope and reason that China was going capitalist
“They argued that capitalism was going to change China,” Rubio said. “Now we stand here 23 years later and realize capitalism didn’t change China — China changed capitalism.”
In fact, China changed capitalism to such an extent that the leading force behind the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, said all the world’s economies needed to abandon the Western and American style of capitalism, called shareholder capitalism, and instead mimic China’s model of capitalism, called stakeholder capitalism.
In other words, the WEF states, corporations shouldn’t be in business so much to generate profits for their shareholders, but rather to satisfy the interests of their stakeholders — with stakeholders defined as anyone and anybody and everybody who can claim an interest in that business. Black Lives Matter believes the company should put profits toward hiring more Blacks people? Done. Environmentalists think the company should put profits toward offsetting carbon dioxide emissions? Done, done. LGBTQ loons think the company should put profits toward special employee training on LGBTQ lunacy? Done. Done. Done.
Stakeholder capitalism removes the profit-loss motive of companies — and in so doing, taints the purity of the free market — and sets up a system that rewards businesses for their social justice, or political correctness, or payoffs and payouts to special interests. How is that a free market? How is that capitalism?
How is that not a stage set for oligarchy?
America has sold its free market soul to communists.
Those U.S. companies that were allowed to enter China’s market and establish businesses within the borders of China had to partner with Chinese companies — “and they stole your trade secrets,” Rubio said. Then they built America’s products using American technology and American ingenuity — then they undercut America’s pricing for those products and technologies — then they got rich selling their stolen American creations around the world.
China has its claws in America’s economy; in America’s farmland; in America’s food supplies.
Chinese communists have infiltrated America’s colleges; America’s places of entertainment; America’s social media platforms.
The CCP is busily locking up its dominance in the green-energy sector — and taking full advantage of the climate alarmists in the Democrat Party who would gladly sell America down the river if it meant saving a salamander from relocating, or a forest from clearing, or an auto manufacturer from selling gas-powered vehicles.
The solution?
Donald Trump has it right when he says: America first.
It’s irrational to think that it’s possible to do business with evil, to partner with evil, to get in bed with evil, yet emerge 100 percent pure and clean. This is the faulty logic of what’s driven much of the pro-China policy in America. China must be regarded with clear eyes; with the understanding that it’s a country of communists and that communism is completely counter to American liberties, interests and long-term successes.
America first.
At least 50 percent of Americans now see China for the threat it is — for the threat it always was — for the threat it will always be so long as its guiding government is communist and collectivist. But awareness is only half the battle. Next comes action.
America first.
If it ain’t compatible with American Exceptionalism, with individualism, with the concept of an individual’s rights and liberties coming from God, with the Constitution and the limits placed on government by our Founding Fathers — then it ain’t an America-first agenda and it has no business being pushed onto the American people.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
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