Beijing’s strategy to infiltrate
At the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue taking place in Beijing (“China, US fail to reach consensus over S China Sea,” June. 7, page 1), the call for trust by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is the fox speaking to the chickens, or worse. There is no trust. There is only Beijing’s incessant attempts to infiltrate.
When Xi mentions “sharing the Pacific,” he means “stop preventing us from expanding our influence everywhere, dammit!”
When Xi says: “We must make our best efforts to achieve a mutually beneficial China-US investment agreement at an early date and create new bright spots in bilateral economic and trade cooperation,” he means we will allow your companies to come here and get caught in Chinese Communist Party (CCP) traps by pretending to offer money and access, and we need to be free for our tentacles to spread everywhere into the US landscape, like a Trojan Horse, into every industry and every sector sucking information, intellectual property (IP) and influence.
US investments in China are financial investments by independent companies not controlled by the US government. The Chinese investments are political, as Chinese companies are controlled by the CCP. For China, finance is a tool, or worse, a weapon. Beijing invests abroad (think Africa) to rape undeveloped countries of their natural resources or in developed countries to rape their companies of their IP, to influence their product from a political standpoint or to influence governments by creating or responding to a need for Chinese capital (for example, any film company acquired by any Chinese entity will no longer produce films to be marketed in China that violate Beijing’s “sensibilities,” or contain terms prohibited by the so-called “Great Firewall,” and China will have no Chinese villains in those films, and no suspicion of a tyranny whitewashed for the camera.
As Wang Jianlin’s (王健林) Wanda faux theme park has shown, China’s products are mostly empty vessels bereft of quality or waiting for stolen substance, just as Beijing’s policies are empty words bereft of understanding or substance. So too, Xi uses words and phrases as tools, neither understanding nor appreciating them for their value and import because the concepts of freedom, trade, mutual respect and friendship are anathema to the CCP. Xi should understand that the only way for China to achieve these things is for the CCP to perish.
Unfortunately, China is negotiating with US President Barack Obama’s administration, sheep milling around, looking to appease anyone and anything. I fear this moment. Like former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) betraying Taiwan, Obama has nothing to lose by trying to commit the US to his horrible policies of appeasement and weakness against a CCP eager to take advantage. Whenever US Secretary of State John Kerry talks about finding a “diplomatic solution” to anything, my hair stands on end. Kerry negotiating with Beijing is like a child in the gingerbread house ready for the slaughter.
Unfortunately, there is no one waiting to lead after Obama who can improve this, only possibly worsen it. We might have to continue to rely on the good offices of the US Congress to support Taiwan.
US Senator John McCain’s misspoken statement about “Chinese soil” does not help, though he has been a staunch supporter of Taiwan and critic of the CCP.
I hope the US Congress can pass legislation clarifying the important role Taiwan will play in the pivot to Asia, and in the region and world as a successful economy and democracy, and significantly upgrade US contacts with Taiwan.
Lee Longhwa
Los Angeles
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