Justin Smith addresses the ever looming confrontation
between the United States and Communist China.
JRH 5/15/19
Your generosity is always appreciated:
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The United States and China Collide
America Must Ensure Her Global Dominance
By Justin O. Smith
Sent 5/14/2019 6:54
PM
"Tariffs will make our Country
MUCH STRONGER, not weaker. Just sit back and watch! In the meantime, China should
not renegotiate deals with the U.S. at the last minute. This is not the Obama
Administration, or the Administration of Sleepy Joe, who let China get away
with “murder!” ~ President Trump on May 10th
2019
The first opening salvos in the most bitter trade war
between the United States and China, unlike any witnessed since the 1930s, are
simply part of a broader agenda, as both nations jockey for positions of
dominance on the global stage. For those who are crying that tariffs are a tax
on the consumer, they are much more than a simple tax, and they are a means to
ensuring our economy leads on all fronts in the global markets and the U.S.
dollar remains the global reserve currency. And as such, this isn't so much a
trade war as it is an effort by President Trump to ensure America's global
dominance and national security far into the future, by increasing and
safeguarding our technical advantage and ability to win any war forced upon us,
including the next world war.
The U.S. and China relations are testing a new low and the
United States and China are on a collision course. Goodwill between the two
that was purchased by U.S. dollars is rapidly breaking down.
As promised, President Trump
raised duties on $200 billion of Chinese imports to twenty-five percent from
ten percent on May 10th, and in response, China's commerce Ministry has vowed
"necessary countermeasures" are forthcoming. After eleven rounds of
negotiations and no deal, President Trump is also now considering applying
tariffs to the $300 billion in Chinese goods that are currently tariff
free.
Even the Obama administration complained during Obama's
second term about China's unfair trade practices, such as duties on U.S.
chicken, Chinese protectionist acts in the aircraft industry, Chinese subsidy
of its corn, rice and wheat production and export duties on various
metal.
At the heart of the matter, China has stated its plan to be
the world's leading superpower, and they are positioning themselves to rocket
past the U.S. in economic and military strength on the back of technology China
steals from the United States and every other nation that does business with
China. China's President Xi Jinping believes he can turn China into a super
competitive nation and a technical juggernaut and superpower by 2025, in the
areas of information technology, aerospace, advanced robotics and artificial
intelligence.
Although China is more than willing to increase its
purchases of U.S. goods, especially soybean and natural gas purchases to offset
last year's record $419 billion trade deficit, China will not accept any
limitation on its grander vision and its desire to control the technological
mountain top. They may stop talking about it, but they'll never end China's
Made In China 2025 program; they may become even more secretive, but they will
never cease their industrial espionage, and they will continue to coerce
technology transfers, if only in a less blatant manner.
Since 2010, China has promised eight times to stop forcing
foreign companies to transfer technology to China, as a cost of doing business
in China. And yet according to a 2018 Office of U.S. Trade report, the coercion has continued.
Noted by two retired senior
Department of Defense officials in 2017, a problem that costs America $600 billion
annually, technology and intellectual property theft must be America's primary
focus over the trade deficit. Although few companies publicly acknowledge the
problem, forty-four percent of those aerospace companies and forty-one percent
of the chemical concerns operating in China felt pressured to "share"
technology with China, according to AmCham Shanghai Business (July 2018), and
Rand Corp warns its employees against taking their personal electronics with
them to China, since several U.S. businessmen have caught people (spies)
searching their rooms. Chinese spies have already stolen documents concerning
the U.S. F-35 fighter and the space shuttle, along with secrets on our most
significant weapons systems.
All of this only confirms that the widening rift between
D.C. and Beijing goes beyond trade, and it is further exhibited by China's massive military buildup,
which was only made possible through the near $500 billion trade deficit --
or more once one includes intellectual property theft -- and U.S. wealth. Among
other problems, China is claiming ownership and control of international waterways in the South China Sea and disregarding other nation's territorial
claims, as well as the 2016 International Tribunal on the Law of the
Sea ruling (although I'm not a big
fan of sovereign nations bowing to international entities), it has
significantly suppressed liberty in the ostensibly autonomous region of Hong
Kong, and it is increasing pressure on Taiwan -- a de facto
independent and sovereign nation -- to reunite with "the
Motherland".
"It was way past time to confront China on many of
these problems", Michael Wessel, a member of the congressionally chartered
U.S-China
Economic Security Review, recently stated. "They've been
allowed to skate for too many years."
In the meantime, complaints that the cost of these tariffs
will be borne by Americans is exaggerated, since it appears that China absorbed
the last round of tariffs out of their profits rather than raising the cost of
goods at Walmart. It also appears that China underestimated President Trump's
resolve on this issue and their own miscalculation is biting them in the rump
right now. President Trump couldn't have picked a better time for this
confrontation, with the American economy riding high.
China also didn't count on the rising antipathy of Americans
towards it, as Americans see China unfairly undercut our economic prosperity,
threaten our security and challenge our values. Republicans and Democrats alike
are rallying around the flag on this issue, in a rare bipartisan consensus that
America must stand up to China.
If nothing else, any shift away from China will only be a
benefit to America, when U.S. businesses and manufacturers return to America
out of cost concerns. Although tariffs do hit consumers, they don't if one
chooses not to buy those particular goods, opting instead to buy comparable
goods made in other nations or America. So, President Trump should place
tariffs on all Chinese goods and cripple China's economy, however long or temporary.
Just as the Plaza Accord of 1985 forced Japan to act more fairly on trade,
by devaluing the dollar against the yen, and eliminated trade barriers, it also
demonstrates that White House initiated trade wars do not automatically end in
disaster. Aggressive trade measures can and often do work and succeed in
placing the global economic system on a more feasible trajectory of an open and
rules based economic order.
Pat Buchanan recently noted: "Of the nations
that have risen to economic preeminence in recent years -- the British before
1850, the United States between 1789 and 1914, post-war Japan, China in recent
decades -- how many did so through free trade? None. All practiced economic
nationalism."
President Trump recognizes the party is coming to an end and
that America must extricate Herself from the unholy alliance with "the
Dragon" and enabling its path to global dominance. He understands that
economics do not receive an exemption from the dynamics of geopolitical
competition and growing national security concerns associated with China; and,
by walking a fine line and between targeted measures and negotiations,
President Trump should be able to hand China a face-saving defeat that protects
and saves America's own economic independence, sovereignty, greatness and
national identity, without devolution into all-out war. Simply stated, this is
one war America must win.
By Justin O. Smith
______________________
Edited by John R. Houk
Source links are by the Editor.
© Justin O. Smith
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