If the United States is to be true to our values and interests it must go on offense in our strategic competition with a rising China.
After his recent 2-hour Lunar New Year phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping, U.S. President Joe Biden said that China may “eat our lunch.” His statement contradicts his May, 1, 2019 downplaying of the increasing Chinese threat in which Biden said: “China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man… I mean, you know, they’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what? They’re not competition for us.” Already off to a slow start in the face of multiple foreign policy challenges, with noteworthy skepticism about his longstanding record in foreign affairs, and concerning questions about his own family’s business ties to China, Mr. Biden would do well to reverse his long record of appeasement of China to pursue a much firmer approach to the serious strategic challenges that China presents to the moral, military, and material interests of the United States and our allies. Mr. Biden would do well to reverse his long record of appeasement of China to pursue a much firmer approach to the serious strategic challenges that China presents Let’s do a quick rundown of the Chinese record: The West has long been repulsed by China’s one-child policy of “gendercide” and systematic human rights abuse against women and girls, including forced sterilizations, birth control surgeries, and the insertion of inter-uterine devices. The Chinese regime oppresses Tibetans, Turkic Muslims, ethnic Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, Muslims in Ningxia and Xinjiang, the Falun Gong faithful, and Christians in Henan province in an attempt to erase minority cultures through a virtual slave labor market based on “re-education” camps that enforce totalitarian control. Some 1 million Uyghurs are in concentration camps where victims endure food and sleep deprivation and gang rapes with electric batons. A 13-ton shipment made out of Uyghur prisoners’ human hair was recently seized by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers at the Port of New York/Newark. The shipment originated in internment camps, where political prisoners are reportedly subjected to torture, cruel and inhumane treatment, physical, psychological and sexual abuse, forced labor, forced organ harvesting, and death. An ethnic Uyghur man holds his grandson as he sits outside his house in an area waiting development by authorities on June 28, 2017 in the old town of Kashgar, in the far western Xinjiang province, China. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images) The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is a digital dictatorship which uses an Orwellian social credit score system to track and evaluate people and businesses for “trustworthiness and merit.” Human Rights Watch has reported the deployment of mass surveillance systems to collect biometrics including DNA and voice samples as well as real-time monitoring of individuals via cameras. Neighbors report on each other, resulting in punishment such as denial of the right to travel or attend school. China’s control of all state media includes the denial of internet privacy, censorship of social networks, and the expulsion and arrest of journalists and dissidents like publisher Jimmy Lai and the mother of a Chinese virologist. Images from U.S. naval surveillance reveal that China has a land reclamation project to place military equipment on a chain of artificial islands as it seeks maritime dominance across the South China Sea and the Indo-Pacific. Repudiating its treaty commitments, on the 23rd anniversary of the 1997 handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) completely engulfed the sovereignty of Hong Kong, outlawing its future independence. Reminiscent of the crackdown in 1989 at Tiananmen Square, the CCP has now criminalized dissent in one of the world’s most dynamic financial centers. Tensions have increased throughout Asia, including across Japan and South Korea. Taiwanese hopes for continued independence now face the threat of invasion and war from the mainland. China’s recent incursion into the Lakath region resulted in a violent skirmish with India. China has a robust military in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). It has more ships than the United States Navy and is building its 3rd aircraft carrier. In response, the U.S. Naval 7th Fleet has launched area military exercises led by two U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, the USS Ronald W.
