Very few people dislike Communist China as much as do I. At least amongst those who haven’t had first-hand experience with its utter brutality.
Communism is antithetical to human nature. Thus – Communism is anti-human.
Which is why Communism spent the 20th Century murdering 100 million people. Because Communists won’t admit Communism and humanity are irreconcilably different. So Communists spend lots of their time breaking humans they are trying to remake in their image.
For most of the 20th Century, Communist Russia was Communism’s largest purveyor. For half of the century, we fought a Cold War against them.
It was malevolent neglect. We had as little to publicly do with the Soviets as possible. And serially fought proxy wars against their expansionist interests.
Commercial trade with the Soviet Union? Almost completely non-existent. We’d occasionally send their starving citizens some food – but mass economic interaction simply didn’t exist.
The idea being – we’d starve them into oblivion. And it worked. President Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) turned up the pressure dial a few notches – and the Soviet Union collapsed in a heap in 1991.
I’d have applied more negative pressure throughout – but by and large that’s the way you deal with a Communist dictatorship.
But during that same time frame – another large Communist regime existed. China went Communist in 1949. Most unfortunately, we did not deal with them as we did Communist Russia.
Rather than starve the Beast – we decided to feed it trillions of our dollars and tens of millions of our jobs. Predicated upon the absurd notion that we could lessen China’s Communism – the more of our economy we fed it.
This was titanically stupid policy.
Scattered about Russia and throughout the world there have to be aged ex-Soviet officials who are spending their golden years wondering what might have been – had we handed the Communist Russians the trillions of dollars we’ve handed the Communist Chinese.
Communist China didn’t use our trillions of dollars to become less Communist. They used them to become more – and more effectively – Communist. Both domestically – and internationally.
To the point where we are now on the verge of war with them. Which would be the first war in human history – where one side paid for both sides.
This was titanically stupid policy.
Where did our stupidity begin? Many people point to the ridiculously stupid decision to grant in 2001 China membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO). But that was a globally stupid decision – not just ours. And is WAY late on the timeline.
Our stupidity traces all the way back to the 1970s. In 1979, the US first granted China Most Favored Nation trade status. And we got to that stupidity – beginning with President Richard Nixon’s first trip to China in 1972.
We give this historical overview of our stupidity – to demonstrate just how long in the making has been how currently screwed we are.
We are now going on half a century – fifty years – of great and ever-growing stupidity.
We can not wake up on Tuesday – and decide to end all of that stupidity by Friday.
You can not turn the Titanic on a dime.
We have too much of our economy propped up and predicated upon HUGE investments in China. As dumb as that is – it is a reality we must address.
You can’t expect US companies to instantaneously forsake hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese investment. It would kill not just those companies – but our entire economy.
And we would forsake our leadership in some vital national security sectors – like 5G wireless technology. Because we are doing much of our work in those sectors – in China.
The best we can do – is forbid investment in China going forward. And cajole these companies to make their new investments elsewhere – as soon as is humanly possible. We must stop feeding the Beast. We can not do so immediately – but the sooner, the better.
And then there’s the global economic problem. Well, there are several, but let’s just look at one right now.
Most of the nations in the world – are awful. And would sell out their peoples for a pack of smokes.
China has long been very smart in raining (our) money on the world’s “leaders” (including, of course, here in the US). And that has bought them slavish fealty – to the point of absurdity.
But the latest huge example?
When the China Virus went global, the alleged experts at the World Health Organization (WHO) – turned out to be nothing more than China-purchased stooges. Who toed the perfectly absurd China line on the Virus.
So very pathetic.
But it isn’t just the bribes that keep the world loyal to China. It’s the 1.3 billion consumers imprisoned within China’s borders. The planet’s many nations want access to those customers – and will do, say or allow anything to get it.
Ours is the world’s largest economy. China’s is second. But – great news – China is projected to pass US by 2033. Again, mostly using our money.
And while our economy is (currently) larger – our population is not. Our 1/3 of a billon people – pales next to China’s 1.3 billion.
And should we force the planet to choose between commerce with US or with Communist China – most of the feckless planet would choose Communist China. Because math.
We would very quickly succeed in dividing the planet in two. With US on one side – and everyone else on China’s.
And since everyone else will sell to China – we should too.
We Should Sell to – But Not Buy From – Communist China
Because, like it or not, a lot of our economic development – is paid for with sales to China.
And in most national security sectors – again, like 5G wireless – we’re much better off with them using our technology rather than theirs.
We’d much rather have them using our stuff – than, say, China-government-linked Huawei’s. We know what our stuff can and cannot do. We have NO idea what Huawei has going on.
The China Problem is obviously a much longer discussion than just this here.
But I think you’ll find here enough broad stroke reasons why – we simply can not decouple from China by Friday.
As much as I would LOVE to do so.
This first appeared in Red State.