https://thefederalist.com/2019/12/06/newt-gingrichs-essential-primer-on-the-challenges-of-communist-china/
The former speaker of the House’s latest book, ‘Trump Vs. China,’ is an indispensable guide for understanding our greatest foreign policy challenge.
While the media frequently reduces U.S.-China relations under the Trump administration to a so-called “trade war,” the U.S. federal government has, after decades of willful blindness and neglect, embarked on a multifaceted mission to reorient the relationship towards America’s national interest.
This underappreciated, revolutionary effort was borne of an almost intuitive understanding by President Trump, increasingly accepted across the national security and foreign policy establishment, that China itself is engaged in a multifaceted—and malign—struggle to achieve global superpower status, at the cost of our people, and ultimately our freedom.
Seemingly with each passing week, a new story emerges illustrating the magnitude of China’s ambitions, and the litany of issues such ambitions present for the free world. Recently, many recoiled at the ghastlyrevelations of the Uighur concentration camps of Xinjiang, which, on top of the chaotic and bloody scenes from the streets of Hong Kong, have underscored the totalitarian nature of a Communist regime that the rest of the world has effectively been underwriting. If this is how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) treats its own citizens, and those in its orbit, how will it treat the rest of us should it achieve global dominance?
China’s Illicit Efforts
With respect to China’s efforts abroad, consider just a few recent stories in the areas of espionage and foreign influence:
A purported Chinese spy defected to Australia, revealing to authorities remarkable details regarding alleged political and societal influence operations, evincing widespread infiltration of civil society institutions in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Australia. Whether the specific allegations are proven, it is undeniable that China has sought to influence nearby foreign countries, and beyond. (With respect to China’s efforts in Australia in particular, which implicate the entire Anglosphere, see Clive Hamilton’s Silent Invasion).
Northwestern University faced a major backlash from Chinese nationalists over student support for Taiwan, and Columbia University cancelled a panel discussion on “Panopticism with Chinese Characteristics: The Human Rights Violations by the Chinese Communist Party and how they affect the world,” according to organizers “because a Chinese student group threatened to stage a protest outside the venue on campus.”
The U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a reportdemonstrating that “American taxpayer funded research [of upwards of $150 billion per year in the sciences] has contributed to China’s global rise over the last 20 years…[with] China openly recruit[ing] U.S.-based researchers, scientists, and experts in the public and private sector to provide China with knowledge and intellectual capital in exchange for monetary gain and other benefits…undermin[ing] the integrity of the American research enterprise and endanger[ing] our national security.”
