Perfect Storm to Cause China Withdrawal

Many Americans recently have drawn some conclusions about the Chinese Communist regime.

We agree that the CCP is responsible for the devastation wrought by the virus commonly known as COVID-19. We are in favor of  U.S. companies withdrawing from the People’s Republic of China, if only to prevent the Chinese government  holding our own products hostage. But there is another threat from the CCP that is not widely known. It is just as dangerous as the Corona virus. Billions of dollars in U.S. military and government personnel retirement funds could any day now be invested in Chinese companies including those producing advanced weapons systems that may be used against the U.S. military. Add up all these situations, and you have a perfect storm to justify U.S. withdrawal from China.

The Chinese regime’s financial machine is driven by the same lust for power that explains its treatment of Christians and other religious believers: control. Persecuted Christians, Uyghurs, Falun Gong practitioners, Tibetans, and Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters all know about the CCP’s need to control every aspect of its citizens’ lives.

But China wants to control more than just its own citizens! What’s so great about controlling 1.393 billion people – give or take however many souls just died from the Wuhan Virus — when you have ambitions for controlling the whole world?

China expert and author, Gordon G. Chang, shows how the CCP is attempting to use the Coronavirus to “annex the world.” The Communist Party’s Global Times, the paper used by Chinese leaders to propagate “nationalist narratives,” accused the Trump administration of “immoral” conduct in connection with the disease, says Chang.

Chang continues:

. . . it is clear the Communist Party is still on the attack. . . the Global Times rolled out another piece promoting Beijing’s new propaganda theme: “COVID-19 Blunders Signal End of ‘American Century.’ ”

The general idea behind Beijing’s new push is that its response to the coronavirus was terrific, America’s was lousy, and China should therefore lead the world. Xi Jinping is boldly using a crisis of his own making to promote his notion of a world ruled by China.

Ruled by China? Xi says he believes in cooperation with others, but for more than a decade he has been employing imagery of China’s imperial era, where its emperors believed they had the Mandate of Heaven to rule tianxia, meaning “all under heaven.”

We already see Chinese hegemony in the CCP’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In “China’s Belt and Road Initiative is Neo-Imperialism,” Sarah-Madeleine Torres and Bradley A. Thayer explain “The BRI is the most expansive undertaking — physically, economically, and politically — of any single state in history. Rather than solely an economic venture, the BRI is a calculated strategic move, intended to lay the foundation for China’s dominance.”

The CCP has been swallowing Africa country by country. In “Takeover Trap: Why Imperialist China is Invading Africa,” Akol Nyok Akol Dok and Bradley A. Thayer reveal that Africa faces a new danger, “Sino-imperialism, the risk of falling under the control of China largely through Chinese economic investment and loans.”

In Mao’s day, China backed African liberation movements (against Western imperialism!) as a way to advance Maoism in the continent. Now China is the imperialist power in Africa, they say, “not to advance Maoism, but to control its resources, people, and potential. From building railways in Kenya and roads in rural Ethiopia to running mines in the Congo.”

Who can most successfully stand against China’s hegemony? The United States. But not if we continue business as usual there. Not if we think everything will stay the same, and we don’t have to strategize to overcome an enemy that knows more about America than we know about them. And definitely not if we are investing billions of dollars in companies controlled by a regime with an agenda to devastate freedom and democracy.

The Committee on the Present Danger: China (CPDC) warns that the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (FRTIB) is poised to invest billions of dollars of U.S. government employees’ pension funds from its Thrift Savings Plan’s $50 billion International Fund in the PRC’s most questionable companies.

Two of the companies into which the personal retirement savings of our men and women in uniform would be invested have actually been sanctioned by the U.S. government, the CPDC warns. One, AviChina Industry and Technology Ltd. and its subsidiaries develop and produce a range of aircraft, unmanned aircraft systems and airborne weapons for the People’s Liberation Army.

The other sanctioned firm, Hikvision Digital Technology, is infamous to human rights activists as the company that manufactures video cameras and other security technology for surveillance, the regime’s “social credit” system, and for the labor and concentration camps used to incarcerate certain religious minorities, particularly the Uyghur and other minorities of East Turkestan.

The other companies are equally disturbing, including companies building advanced weapons systems – designed to kill American troops. To add insult to injury, probably in some cases the weapons systems are designed with stolen American technology.

According to the CPDC, China Industry Shipbuilding Group produces “guided missile destroyers, frigates, conventional submarines, nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems, and, most notably, aircraft carriers.”

That’s what eleven influential flag, general and non-commissioned veteran officers – including two former National Security Advisors to the President – believe. On April 14 these top military leaders sent a letter of appeal to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

These military leaders:

• General James L. Jones, US Marine Corps (Ret.) former Commandant of the Marine Corps and former National Security Advisor to the President;
• Vice Admiral John M. Poindexter, US Navy (Ret.) former National Security Advisor to the President;
• Lieutenant General William “Jerry” Boykin, U.S. Army (Ret.) former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence;
• Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney, U.S. Air Force (Ret.) former Assistant Air Force Vice Chief of Staff;
• Lieutenant General Steven L. Kwast, U.S. Air Force (Ret.) former Commander, Air Education and Training Command;
• Major General Robert F. Dees, U.S. Army (Ret.) former Commander, Second Infantry Division, U.S. Forces, Korea;
• Brigadier General Robert Spalding, U.S. Air Force (Ret.) former Defense Attaché, Beijing, and former Director for Strategic Planning, National Security Council;
• Lieutenant Colonel Dr. Darrell Smith, U.S. Air Force (Ret.) former Deputy Director, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Division, U.S. Forces, Korea and Commander, District of Columbia American Legion Post #68;
• Lieutenant Colonel Allen West, U.S. Army (Ret.), former Member of Congress;
• Lieutenant Commander Robert Charles, U.S. Navy Reserves (Ret.) former Assistant Secretary of State for Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs;
• Gunnery Sergeant Jessie Jane Duff, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.) Commander’s Executive Staff, Marine Forces Pacific;

urged the Joint Chiefs to recommend to President Trump that he intervene to prevent this outrage. The President of the United States has the authority to do this pursuant to the International Economic Emergency Powers Act (IEEPA). These veteran leaders told the Joint Chief of Staffs, “It is especially intolerable to those of us who have proudly served the Nation in uniform that our retirement investments will help its enemies threaten our comrades-in-arms and the country we love.”

The Committee on the Present Danger: China has many resources and a petition for anyone who is interested to sign. Now, as we suffer the economic devastation and health crisis created by the CCP, all those who care about protecting our armed forces, keeping our nation strong, defeating the Communist regime in China, and defending China’s innocent citizens and persecuted believers can also take a stand.