Red Star Rising
But is Anyone Watching?
Part 3: Most Favored Nation?
James F. Gauss
America believes that capitalism will defeat socialism and that this is the
best way towards a democratic society. I am confused. If money can
change tyranny, then former President Ronald Reagan was wrong when
he called the Soviet Union “the Evil Empire” and said, “Tear down this wall.”
He should have instead been giving the Soviets trade favors and money.
Harry Wu
20-year survivor of Chinese labor camps
Most Favored Nation? In spite of this plethora of ongoing atrocities against mankind, China, this supposedly fine, upstanding role model of the “civilized” world community, was enthusiastically accepted as a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on December 11, 2001, and conferred legitimacy as a permanent normal trading relations (PNTR) partner of the U.S. when President Bush proclaimed on January 1, 2002 that:
“(1) Nondiscriminatory treatment (normal trade relations treatment) shall be extended to the products of China;
(2) The extension of nondiscriminatory treatment to the products of China shall be effective as of January 1, 2002.”
This, despite the overwhelming evidence of continual and wanton human rights abuses of historic proportions and the fact that China’s markets remain closed to competitive U.S.-made products. Such a one-sided relationship with barbaric leaders in the past has only lead to further human rights atrocities and eventually war.
Now that the annual PNTR debate for China has been effectively removed from Congress’ agenda and collective conscience, Rep. Tom Lantos of California, the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, doubts that there will be any great positive developments for Chinese human rights---that is, unless we, the American people take a stand and go into action.
By establishing permanent normal trade relations with the PRC and welcoming it into the WTO with open arms, we have legitimized its oppressive rule over its people and its neighbors. We have also guaranteed it unlimited financial resources by which it can and will become more powerful and oppressive, only this time with military might that threatens to be second to none.
China Opposed to Terrorism? “...China is firmly opposed to international terrorism of all forms,” professed President Jiang Zemin, on February 21, 2002 before a partisan audience of Mainland Chinese in The Great Hall of the People in Beijing. However, once again, the facts would quickly contradict such an assertion. China is a known instigator, supporter and supplier of terrorists and terrorist organizations worldwide.
“My government hopes that China will strongly oppose the proliferation of missiles and other technologies,” President Bush stated before the same crowd.
In a take-off on the often quoted “Golden Rule”, Jiang stated that, “What China wants most is a peaceful and tranquil international environment with long-term stability, to not do unto others what you would not like others to do unto you. Even if China becomes more developed in the future, it will not go for bullying or threatening other countries. Facts have proven already, and will continue to prove that China is a staunch force dedicated to the maintenance of peace in the region and the world, at large.”
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Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer
which we use to crush the enemy.
Mao Tse-tung
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Uh, Mr. President Jiang, sir? I have a question, or two. Can you explain why, within a few hours of the terrorist attacks on America, your communist-controlled China Central Television and Beijing Television with the assistance of Xinhua Information Agency was producing a video titled ‘Attack America’ and DVDs, and mass marketing them to the Chinese people as a derisive tool to show that America finally got what it deserved? Oh, and while you’re at it, what about the Chinese-made ammunition, arms and anti-tank rockets found by U.S. soldiers among the caves of Taliban and al Qaida terrorists?
Oh, oh, and would you care to comment on why dead Chinese soldiers were found among the terrorist dead in Afghanistan? Oh, yes, and would you like to explain why your “staunch force dedicated to the maintenance of peace in the region and the world” is exporting arms, rockets and nuclear bomb technology to such fine peace-loving peoples as Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and who knows where else in the world?
Is it true that the PRC and PLA are willing to train and supply terrorists anywhere in the world, particularly if they are targeting the United States?
Why was the PLA-connected Chinese Overseas Shipping Company (COSCO) trying to smuggle automatic weapons into Long Beach, California in 1998?
And what about those nuclear missiles you have pointed at U.S. cities? And the boat loads of heroin you’re shipping to our country through your Panama Canal? Is that the way a Most Favored Nation (MFN) trading partner and cum-civilized nation is suppose to act? I don’t know, I’m just asking.
The War on Terrorism has effectively changed the focus of U.S. politicians and military leaders from the discernible face of the Red Star rising in the east to the imperceptible face of terrorism around the world. The idea that China would change in the face of encounters with Western entrepreneuralism and examples of religious tolerance and human rights has given way to the harsh reality that those in control in China still wield the heavy hand of dictatorship and they will take and exploit what they can through deception, theft, coercion or any other spurious method to achieve their communistic and military objectives. The sooner the West wakes up to this indisputable fact, the safer we will all be.
Just Thieves at Heart. In January, 1999, a U.S. Congressional Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People’s Republic of China (a.k.a. The Cox Report) decisively revealed that communist China or the PRC had been involved in intense espionage activities in the United States for a number of decades. However, the U.S. Intelligence Community did not discover such infiltration and theft of highly secret military technology until 1995.
“The People’s Republic of China (PRC),” a declassified overview of the report noted, “has stolen classified design information on the United States’ most advanced thermonuclear weapons.” Such repeated thefts “give the PRC design information on thermonuclear weapons on a par with our own.”
Despite the ease of such systematic thefts by Chinese spies, the report glumly revealed that our security at national nuclear weapons labs and our counterintelligence efforts do not even meet minimal standards to prevent such future penetration.
The report also detailed the illegal activities of a number of U.S. corporations, notably Hughes and Loral---with the interference-running of then President Clinton---in the transfer of sensitive technology that has greatly enabled the People’s Liberation Army to develop more efficient and more accurate long-range nuclear missiles that the PLA plans on aiming at the U.S.
On February 2, 1999 a testimony by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director, George J. Tenet, before the Senate Armed Services Committee, warned of China’s potentially daunting military power of the near future.
“...Mr. Chairman,” Tenet cautioned, “we cannot, in focusing on [terrorism], overlook some more traditional concerns in two nations of critical importance to the United States: Russia and China.” Thanks, in part, to the hundreds of billions of dollars of foreign (and largely U.S.) currency flowing freely into China, the PLA was able to support a 17 percent increase in military spending. China’s increase in military spending and preparation has dramatically increased while U.S. military spending and support have dramatically waned during the past decade.
In January of this year, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released an unclassified version of the CIA’s most recent report titled: Foreign Missile Developments and the Ballistic Missile Threat Through 2015. The report is sobering and frank.
“The Intelligence Community [IC],” it stated in part, “projects that Chinese ballistic missile forces will increase several-fold by 2015, but Beijing’s future ICBM [Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile] force [will be] deployed primarily against the United States---which will number around 75 to 100 warheads---will remain considerably smaller and less capable than the strategic missile forces of Russia and the United States.”
They could be wrong, of course. Remember, this is the same IC that was unable to accurately predict or warn the U.S. of the terrorist attack on September 11, and still cannot tell us with any reasonable exactitude of when the next one might occur. It also should be noted that just twenty nuclear warheads strategically launched at major U.S. cities all at once would be enough to wipe out half the population. Also, the missile defense system proposed by the Bush Administration, if deployed, would only be sufficient to intercept two dozen incoming missiles (if it were 100 percent accurate, of course). The PLA is also expected to have several hundred short-range missiles aimed at Taiwan by the end of this year in preparation for an all-out assault on that tiny break-away island.
Securing a Western Presence for What? While we scatter our military and intelligence personnel around the globe, China is busy establishing a very firm and troubling presence within short-range launching distance of America.
Right after the United States surrendered the 360,000-acre Panama Canal Zone and abandoned 70,000 acres of military property, buildings and billions of dollars in military equipment to the Panamanian government, the Chinese shipping company of Hutchison Whampoa secured a 25-50-year contract to run and control both ends of the canal. The same company has just completed the world’s largest shipping facility in the Bahamas just 55 miles east of Palm Beach, Florida. This company has strong PLA connections and their nearby presence has a number of members in Congress apprehensive.
Recently, this Chinese conglomerate, in partnership with Singapore Technologies Telemedia Ltd., has secured a buyout bid for bankrupt Global Crossing, a state-of-the-art U.S. global telecommunications and secure fiber-optic network company. This purchase will give the Chinese, and likely the PLA, a highly sophisticated and protected communications system in Europe, North and South America, Africa, Australia and Asia.
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...Will America continue to stand for freedom?...
The answer we send will tell much about how brightly our city
still shines.
...China’s shadow looms large. And the decisions of today
will determine whether America alone will shape the tomorrows
in which we live...
Former Senator John Ashcroft
Congressional Record, United States Senate
105th Congress, April 23, 1997
_______________________________________________________________
...The events of September 11, the January CIA report noted, and its aftermath have caused the Intelligence Community to focus significantly more resources on the threat from terrorism, and we are obtaining more information on potential terrorist actions [Author’s emphasis]. Perhaps a gross understatement as the U.S. spends billions of dollars daily and uses thousands of Intelligent Community operatives and military personnel in the “War on Terrorism” that are being diverted from the critical monitoring of China’s military build-up and deployment.
With the decades of success that the Chinese have had in stealing U.S. military secrets and technology, particularly that of thermonuclear weapons, is it likely that we could find ourselves defending our homeland against our own weapons hurled at us from Mainland China and elsewhere? Let us all hope in the years ahead we do not look shamefully back and realize that we sold the economic and military soul of America for a few pennies in the hope of even greater, but illusory wealth.
What you can do. The time to take action is now. It is vital that you express your concerns to the President and Congress. Stop supporting China’s oppressive government and military build-up by boycotting all China-made products and the U.S. companies that make or import them. Be a patriotic, discriminating consumer. If you cannot find the product you need made in the U.S. or by a freedom-loving country that supports the U.S., then do without. Our forefathers did it, so can we. If you see a product you need, but it is made in China, call the customer service number on the carton and voice your disapproval. Finally, share your patriotic concerns with other Americans.
If history teaches anything, President Ronald Reagan said on June 8, 1982, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly [author’s emphasis].
Sidebar
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...Throughout our history, America has been a nation
dedicated to a proposition, a country committed to freedom---
freedom of religion, of speech, of assembly, and of the press.
That undying devotion has allowed us to know both wealth and
power, for they are the natural fruit of the democratic ideal.
...And so as we stand on the verge of a new century...we
would do well to ask ourselves: how stands the cause of freedom?
...For while America is safer, stronger, more prosperous today
than at any time in recent history, a sound like a bell tolls softly in
the night; and it warns of coming conflict.
Mr. President, there is a destabilizing force in the Pacific
rim today...which through its emerging economic and military
might, intends to assert its power---and it is not the Asian
democracies...a political system that sees as its enemy the free
people of the world...the expansionist force in Asia is Communist
China, a country that cares little for international law, and even
less for the sacred nature of human life.
...Communist China is presently engaged in a military
build-up that is as spectacular as it is unsettling...
Just as troubling as Beijing’s [military] buying binge is
its decision to sell missile and nuclear technology to Pakistan,
Syria, and Iran...Communist China has undertaken another
drive: a campaign of persecution and repression aimed at
crushing internal dissent. Beijing’s policies of torture, arbitrary
arrest, and execution in Tibet have made horror ordinary.
...China has pursued Western consumer goods as a means
by which to fuel its military expansion. The West has willingly
obliged. But at what cost, and to what end?
...But some in Washington today seem confused about
what is a decent political system and what is not...what is right
and what is wrong.
...The way to bring China into the community of nations...
is to talk truthfully and forcefully about the evils found there...
and maintain a military superiority that makes the cost of
conflict too high.
...The theme is freedom. And the fundamental principle
upon which we should base U.S. trade policy is this: Truly free
trade can only exist between free peoples...
...Will America continue to stand for freedom?...The
answer we send will tell much about how brightly our city
still shines.
...China’s shadow looms large. And the decisions of today
will determine whether America alone will shape the tomorrows
in which we live...
Former Senator John Ashcroft
Congressional Record, United States Senate
105th Congress, April 23, 1997
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Postscript. In 1985 the United States had an insignificant trade imbalance with China. Since 1992 America’s trade deficit with China has mushroomed from $18.3 billion to over $100 billion in 2001 and 2002. The nation’s overall trade deficit has become unweildy and economically burdensome, hitting $435 billion in 2002. In 2003, the deficit is on pace to go over one-half trillion dollars. America cannot have that kind of money leaving the country, never to return, and expect to have a robust or even mediocre economy.
Americans will continue to lose jobs to China where the hoards of Chinese workers average a pitiful 60-cents per hour wage. Not even Mexican workers making $1.40 per hour can compete. Mexico has lost an estimated 300,000 jobs to China recently and many of those jobless Mexicans are heading north across the U.S. border to seek work. Along with the influx of thousands of other unskilled immigrants this puts an ever-increasing strain on American workers, taxpayers and the overall U.S. economy. So do not expect the U.S. economy or investment climate to turn around anytime soon.
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been
granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger.
I do not shrink from this responsibility---I welcome it.
President John F. Kennedy
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James F. Gauss is a free lance writer, frequent public speaker and the author of Christians Confronting Crisis, We the People, Volumes I, II (historical document series) and other books. He may be reached at ampatriot@charter.net.
Copyright 2002. James F. Gauss. All Rights Reserved.
Related Information
Red Star Rising: Resources (see below)
Resources (Red Star Rising, Parts 1, 2 and 3):
1. An Evitable War: Engaged Containment and the US-China Balance, Roy C. Howle, Jr., Autumn, 2001, Parameters, US Army War College, Carlisle, PA.
2. Beijing Produces Videos Glorifying Terrorist Attacks on ‘Arrogant’ US, Damien McElroy, November 4, 2001, Telegraph (United Kingdom).
3. Beijing to Acquire Espionage Network? Jon Dougherty, February 22, 2002, WorldNetDaily.com
4. Bejing’s Cave-dwellers Also Threaten United States, Don Feder, January 30, 2002, Townhall.com.
5. Boycott China, Rip Rense, November 28, 2001, WorldNetDaily.com.
6. Bush Warns China on “Evil” Arms Sales, February 22, 2002, Taipei Times.
7. China and the U.S.: The Sparks May Start Flying, November 16, 1998, Business Week.
8. China Behind Christian Persecution in S.E. Asia, Anthony LoBaido, March 22, 2000, WorldNetDaily.com.
9. China Building Air-defense Site, Bill Gertz, December 22, 1999, The Washington Times.
10. China Buys U.S. Satelitte Data to Target Taiwan, Bill Gertz, February 7, 2002, The Washington Times.
11. China Company Grabs Power Over Panama Canal, Rowan Scarborough, August 12, 1999, The Washington Times.
12. China Deepens Assault on Faith, Philip P. Pan, February 13, 2002, Washington Post Foreign Service.
13. China: Is Prosperity Creating a Freer Society? June 6, 1994, Business Week.
China-Russia Pact and the New Danger, Christopher Ruddy, January 15, 2001, NewsMax.com.
14. China Sells Organs of Slain Convicts, Ian Williams, December 10, 2000, The Observer (United Kingdom).
15. China: The Emerging Economic Powerhouse of the 21st Century, May 17, 1993, Business Week.
16. China: The People’s Oppressor, Jeff Lindsay, October 1, 2001 (http://www. jefflindsay.com).
17. Chinese Ammo Found in al-Qaida Hideouts, December 17, 2001, WorldNetDaily. com.
18. Chinese Billionaire Wants Global Crossing, Charles R. Smith, February 12, 2002, NewsMax.com.
19. Chinese Company Completes World’s Largest Port in Bahamas, Christopher Ruddy and Stephen Archer, January 19, 2000, NewsMax.com.
20. Chinese Fighters Killed in U.S. Strikes, October 22, 2001, WorldNetDaily.com.
21. Chinese Missiles Concern Pentagon, Bill Gertz, April 3, 2002, The Washington Post.
22. CIA: China Expected to Target U.S., John Lumpkin, January 9, 2002, Daily News.
23. The Communist Party of China, China Today (http://www.chinatoday.com/org/cpc/).
24. Congressman: Drugs, China, Terrorism Replace U.S. in Panama, August 8, 2000, NewsMax.com.
25. The Cox Report, Larry Arnn, 2002, Claremont Institute.
26. Foreign Missile Developments and the Ballistic Missile Threat Through 2015, December, 2001, U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
27. Full Text: President Bush’s Remarks in Beijing, February 22, 2002, Religious Freedom for China.
28. Giving the Chinese the Shield They’ll Use to Cream Us, Cal Thomas, September 7, 2001, Townhall.com.
29. Harry Wu on the Real China, Anthony C. LoBaido, April 5, 2001, WorldNetDaily. com.
30. Howard Phillips: U.S. Builds China’s War Machine, Wes Vernon, September 11, 2001, NewsMax.com.
31. Jiang: Sino-US Ties Critical to World Stability and Prosperity, January 9, 2002, China Daily.
32. The Next Strike Could Come From China, Dr. Alexandr Nemets and Dr. Thomas Torda, November 9, 2001, NewsMax.com.
33. Official Chinese Documents Provide Evidence of Religious Persecution, Michael Ireland, February 12, 2002, ASSIST News Service.
34. Panama, The Canal and China, October 4, 1999, Forbes.com.
35. President Bush Meets with Chinese President Jiang Zemin, February 21, 2002, White House Press Release.
36. Red star over America, Charles Smith, October 13, 1998, WorldNetDaily.com.
37. Religion and National Security in China: Secret documents from China’s security sector, edited by Shixiong Li and Xiqiu (Bob) Fu, February 11, 2002 (printed by Voice of the Martyrs).
38. Report of the Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People’s Republic of China [viz., “The Cox Report”), Rep. Christopher Cox, Chairman, January 3, 1999
39. Rethinking China, March 4, 1996, Business Week.
40. Secret Documents Reveal China’s Anti-Christian Measures, Patrick Goodenough, February 12, 2002, CNSNews.com.
41. Senator Lott Calls for Hearings on Chinese Penetration of the Panama Canal Zone, September 29, 1999, NewsMax.com.
42. Statement of the Director of Central Intelligience George J. Tenet As Prepared for Delivery Before the Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on Current and Projected National Security Threats, February 2, 1999, Central Intelligence Agency, Speeches and Testimony.
43. The Theme is Freedom: Reconsidering U.S.-Sino Relations, Senator John Ashcroft, April 23, 1997, Congressional Record.
44. To Extend Nondiscriminatory Treatment to the Products of the People’s Republic of China by the President of the United States of America: A Proclamation, December 27, 2001, White House Press Release.
45. Treasonous Tradeoff, William Norman Grigg, July 6, 1998, The New American.
46. U.N. Supporting Forced Abortions in China? Joseph A. D’Agostino, January 28, 2002, Human Events.
47. U.S. Losing Focus on Asia Threat? Jon Dougherty, November 24, 2001, WorldNetDaily. com.
48. U.S. Trade Balance with China, November 19, 2002. U.S. Census Bureau.
49. U.S. Trade Gap Falls 11.7%, December 12, 2001, CNNMoney.
50. War With China, Charles Smith, August 14, 2001, NewsMax.com.
51. White House Was Warned Chinese Control of Panama Canal Could Threaten US, January 9, 2000, NewsMax.com.
52. Whitewash on China, Chris Smith, December 19, 2001, The Washington Times.
