China and Russia - PLUS - China: The Elephant in that Room in Cornwall

 

In this mailing: Peter Schweizer: China and Russia Amir Taheri: China: The Elephant in that Room in Cornwall China and Russia by Peter Schweizer  •  June 20, 2021 at 5:00 am       The actions of the Beijing government since the earliest days of concern about the disease have shown in stark relief how a closed, authoritarian society tries to deny and shift blame for its misdeeds. How it seeks to co-opt international health agencies. How it tries to bribe foreigners to do its bidding. How it has infected more than not just American bodies, but American society and its institutions at many levels. Almost no one in American politics, on the Left or Right, has been hailing the Chinese communist government for its efforts to stem the fourth deadly pathogen to come from its shores and devastate the rest of the world. The Chinese government concealed all information about how the virus originated, encouraging speculation they did so intentionally. According to Gordon Chang, they may even be preparing to do so again, only worse.... By comparison, Russia's crimes against the West, real and imagined, amount to a relative nuisance. Foreign policy, however, is made towards nations, not individual leaders. In geo-political terms it asks: What is another country's ability to help you, or harm you? In the 1980s no one would have suggested that Idi Amin, Fidel Castro, or Muamar Qaddafi was America's greatest enemy. They were obnoxious sideshows, annoying tinpot dictators with a flair for the microphone, but not existential threats on the order of the Soviet Union. What this poll suggests is that threat assessment has somehow become a partisan issue, based on political grudges and perceptions that have little to do with a particular nation's real capacity to damage American interests. The divide among Republicans and Democrats between China and Russia as our largest threat fails to account for a modern analysis of China's power, influence, aggressiveness in action, and willingness to corrupt American political and cultural leaders. It should not be a partisan issue, no matter how obnoxious one nation's current leader may be. Putin loves to tweak America; Xi prefers quieter, more damaging forms of aggression. It is vital for American voters to understand that bribery is a key part of doing business for both China and Russia. No matter how much he might like to, Vladimir Putin cannot threaten the balance sheets of huge American companies such as Apple and Microsoft; China could do it tomorrow. Russian President Vladimir Putin loves to tweak America; Chinese President Xi Jinping prefers quieter, more damaging forms of aggression. (Photo by Kenzaburo Fukuhara - Pool/Getty Images) Imagine yourself sitting at a poker table with one opponent who fingers his dwindling stack of chips while glowering at you and daring you to bump the pot. Meanwhile, your other opponent with more chips sits quietly behind his cards while his paid spies behind your chair signal him the contents of your hand. A national poll this spring showed a sharp divide between Democrats and Republicans over whether Russia or China is America's greatest international adversary. Democrats, perhaps still seething from Russia's clumsy efforts to sway the 2016 election to Donald Trump, see Vladimir Putin as a Bond movie villain and master manipulator. Republicans focused on commerce, cyber-security, and Asian ascension, look at emerging China as their greatest threat. Continue Reading Article China: The Elephant in that Room in Cornwall by Amir Taheri  •  June 20, 2021 at 4:00 am       While Obama looked the other way, China militarized a string of atolls in seas around it as part of a long-term plan to forge an aggressive profile against its neighbor and the United States. The Chinese challenge can and must be met both in the global arena and inside the People's Republic itself. Any move in that direction would require a realistic assessment of the People's Republic in terms of hard and soft power. China's pursuit of global power and influence is modelled on the Western empire-buildings of the 19th century, which consisted of importing raw material, exporting manufactured goods, and weaving networks of trade with the help of a seemingly endless flow of settlers, gunboats and colonial outposts across the globe. China cannot fully adopt that model for a number of reasons. Its model is based on the assumption that capitalism can forever do without democracy, something that the experience of the Western imperial powers of the past proved to be fallacious. China's President Xi Jinping's pretension for global leadership is more a sign of doubts about a model of capitalism without democracy. He hopes to replace the deadwood of Communism with the rotten timber of pseudo-nationalism. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images) At the G7 summit in Cornwall last weekend, US President Joe Biden warned his fellow-summiteers that unless something was done "China would eat our lunch." Did Biden overegg the pudding with his colorful language or is the world ignoring the invisible chopsticks at work? In a sense China, as the biggest trading partner of almost all the G7 members, is already eating part of their lunch while it is clear that without Western investment, technology and, of course, markets, China might have remained hungry and stuck between the madness of Maoism and the inertia of Ah-Quism. Continue Reading Article