RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-woke-chinese-communist-party-11615153949?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

Chinese state media rarely deserves attention but lately it’s taken a notable and instructive turn. It is invoking the woke themes of American progressives as a propaganda weapon against the U.S.

“Canada, the UK and Australia, three members of the Five Eyes alliance, have recently taken action to put pressure on China. They have formed a US-centered, racist, and mafia-styled community,” said a Feb. 23 editorial in Global Times. “They are becoming a racist axis aimed at stifling the development rights of 1.4 billion Chinese.”

The Communist Party-run paper notes that the members of Five Eyes, an intelligence-sharing network, “have a strong sense of civilization superiority.” U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton is a “neo-Nazi and extreme racist” and “the Trump administration is an extremely typical white supremacy government.” By resisting this bloc of English-speaking countries, the editorial concludes, “China is not only defending its own interests, we are also defending the diversity of the modern world.”

Note the use of “white supremacy” and “diversity” and “civilization superiority,” which come straight from the progressive critique of America as a country that is “systemically” racist and oppressive. The Global Times editors may be crude but they’ve obviously been reading the New York Times. Their dismissal of Mr. Cotton as racist is what you see on progressive Twitter.

The Chinese Military Threat

Communist China views the United States as its major adversary and is building an awesome military arsenal, with modern weapons, planes and missiles. China already has the world’s largest army (3 million men), 5,000 combat aircraft, and 300 nuclear warheads. The Chinese shopping list includes aircraft carriers, missile-equipped warships, nuclear attack submarines, fighter aircraft, and land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles with multiple warheads.

China is capable of buying such costly, warlike luxuries only because of the U.S. cash that flows from the pockets of Americans, known as our trade deficit, which has been running about $40 billion a year for some years. That’s enough money to build up a military/nuclear force capable of threatening the United States, as well as dominating the Pacific.

China’s expansionist aspirations are no secret. Now that China has pocketed Hong Kong, China can turn its avaricious eyes on Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, Guam, and even threaten the sailors of the U.S. Seventh Fleet. When China was harassing Taiwan during its election, General Chi of the People’s Liberation Army crudely commented about China’s ability to deliver a nuclear warhead on Los Angeles.

A classified Air Force report released in May 1997 warned that China’s effort to build an advanced ICBM capability is “steadily increasing.” The report stated that this missile “will be a significant threat not only to U.S. forces deployed in the Pacific theater, but to portions of the continental United States and to many of our allies.”

China is determined not only to become a nuclear superpower but also a world-class industrial power, and the Communist bosses expect slave labor, theft, and U.S. folly to help them achieve those goals. They require a transfer of U.S. high technology as part of every business deal so that, in the next round, they expect to manufacture the goods without U.S. help and become a major exporter of cars, chemicals, steel, electronics, and aircraft. China has made several spectacular deals, which pretended to be merely commercial, but will vastly expand China’s military and industrial espionage and subversive capabilities.

The China Ocean Shipping Company (Cosco), a 600-ship global shipping company controlled by the People’s Liberation Army, is trying hard to acquire a 20-year lease on the U.S. Naval Shipyard in Long Beach. Clinton personally lobbied for the Cosco deal at a White House meeting in September 1995. U.S. taxpayers recently spent $500 million to modernize this deep-water port at the epicenter of our defense research and production in southern California. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) is trying to amend the Defense Authorization bill to stop the deal from going through.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/03/what-china-really-wants-a-new-world-order/?itm_campaign=headline-testing-what-china-really-wants-a-new-world-order&itm_

Translated speeches from a leading Beijing scholar-adviser provide a rare guide to the Chinese Communist Party’s plans for domination. Call it a rhapsody in red.

What does the Chinese Communist Party actually want? Sometimes, the regime’s plans can seem inscrutable. Other times, they are more blunt. The latter is certainly the case for one high-profile Chinese scholar serving the Party: Jin Canrong, the Chinese “State Master,” a professor at the Chinese People’s University in Beijing, a U.S. expert, and an adviser to the Chinese Communist Party’s Organization Department and United Front Department. It’s unclear how close he is to Xi Jinping. But he is one of the intellectuals sarcastically referred to in China as “the Emperor’s Literary Men” or “the State Masters.” He has spoken throughout China and is well-known among Netizens. That the U.S. State Department suspended the ten-year visa of this State Master, along with nine other Chinese scholars, in January 2020 suggests that Donald Trump’s administration must have been aware of him as well.

His speeches may reflect the thought of CCP leaders. In 2018, I first read the transcripts of two of his public speeches from two years earlier. I was greatly alarmed. His words contradicted all the beautiful public utterances of CCP leaders, such as, “We will never become a hegemon” and, “We have no intention to challenge the U.S. leadership.” That was the first time I was truly impressed by the degree of China’s power and ambition. I have kept the transcripts. As the U.S. reckons with the growing CCP threat not only to the U.S.-led international order but also to the U.S. itself, now seems a good time to share the content of these speeches.

The two speeches range widely and erratically. I am not attempting a complete translation. Instead, I am excerpting some parts relevant to the U.S., regrouping them into a “rhapsody” of six “movements.” A rhapsody is an epic poem, or part of one; a medley, with extravagance of ideas and expressions. That describes the two speeches excerpted here. They also serve as part of the ode of the CCP’s grand plan in the so-called “Chinese Century” to dominate the world. The State Master’s own words appear below in a different font from my notes or comments; my comments in the speech itself will appear in unitalicized brackets. The English translations are mine; I am responsible for their accuracy.

In 2012, at the CCP’s 18th plenary, it publicly announced two centenary goals. First, that, at the 100th anniversary of the CCP in 2021, all Chinese people will be free of poverty, and China will be a “well-off” society with per capita GDP of $10,000. Second, that, in 2049, at the 100th anniversary of the People’s Republic, China will be a well-established socialist power with per capita GDP at $30,000. In Jin’s words, when the second goal is reached, “China will enter the club of developed countries.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2021/03/22/deter-beijing-from-attacking-taiwan/

Policies to keep great-power competition from becoming great-power conflict.

Over several decades, the People’s Republic of China has been coercing and intimidating Taiwan in an attempt to force “unification” of the de facto independent democratic island with the mainland. The U.S. has responded through mostly diplomatic means, working to help Taiwan avoid international isolation. But now the risk of a Sino–American military conflict over Taiwan is growing. Chinese Communist Party general-secretary Xi Jinping has stepped up his muscular rhetoric about “recovery” of what he views as lost Chinese territory, and his military is more ready than ever to act forcefully if called upon. But through coercive diplomacy the U.S. still has time to head off Chinese aggression. What is needed is a new diplomatic campaign backed by a quick strengthening of U.S. military posture.

On the matter of Taiwan, Xi is a dangerous man. His strategy for political survival inside the brutal, jungle-like CCP is to initiate constant political purges, mass campaigns to strengthen Communist Party ideology and discipline, crackdowns on dissent, and nationalistic adventures abroad, from Hong Kong to India. Taiwan is the logical next target, and Beijing is beating the drums of war.

On January 2, 2019, General-Secretary Xi declared that the annexation of Taiwan was necessary for China to achieve its “great rejuvenation” — his personal grand strategic ambition. Ending a commitment upon which the one-China policy was predicated, Xi also declared that China would not renounce the use of force to accomplish its Taiwan objectives. The CCP released a policy paper expanding on Xi’s claims. It said: 

Solving the Taiwan problem and achieving complete national unification is in the fundamental interest of the Chinese. It is obviously necessary for achieving the great Chinese rejuvenation. . . . China must be unified and obviously will be. . . . If anyone splits Taiwan off from China, China’s military will pay any price to totally defeat them.