Tag Archives: war

Memorial Day

This is a good day to think about how NOT to have a bloody war in the Pacific that will cost the lives of American Sailors, Soldiers and Marines.

The best way to do that is to support regime change in China. America (and the West in general) must stop funding the growth of the Chinese fascist military. We must stand up straight to China’s increasingly aggressive territorial claims against Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, India, Tibet, The Philippines . . .

Twenty-five years of appeasing this dictatorship with our “engagement policy” has been an economic, military, and human-rights DISASTER Continuing this policy while executing an expensive “Asian Pivot” to counter the enemy we are building is INSANITY. Borrowing money from an enemy to fund our response to their aggression is SUICIDAL.

We must make it clear that  America will no longer support the communist government politically or economically. We will no longer trade our principles and our children’s future for cheap consumer goods. We must leave no doubt that if the people of China wish to continue or accelerate their economic progress it will have to be done under civilized leadership with respect for the rule of law and they bear the responsibility to remove their sociopathic government.

As always America will find peace through strength, truth and courage.

Korea Mem sm

Korean War Memorial, Washington DC

 

 

Greg Autry serves as Senior Economist with the American Jobs Alliance, Economist with theCoalition for a Prosperous America and is co-author (with Peter Navarro) of Death by China: Confronting the Dragon – a Global Call to Action. He blogs regularly at: http://www.gregautry.us/blog  and on the Huffington Post.

Peace in Our Time

KerryChinaSo, our brilliant and tough (heavy sarcasm intended) Secretary of State, John Kerry has recruited China as a “partner” in calming down the artificial crisis on the Korean Peninsula.  What an amazing accomplishment of diplomacy and how wonderfully convenient for the Chinese leadership that we cannot “risk” confronting them over the massive Cyber Warfare directed at the US., since we suddenly need them to calm down their Korean pit bull.

OMG! Why don’t we just send over a couple of really nice junior high school girls to deal with China? They’d love the panda bears, it would be cheaper and the outcome would be exactly the same.

Greg Autry serves as Senior Economist with the American Jobs Alliance, Economist with theCoalition for a Prosperous America and is co-author (with Peter Navarro) of Death by China: Confronting the Dragon – a Global Call to Action. He blogs regularly at: http://www.gregautry.us/blog  and on the Huffington Post.

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Is Chinese democracy really worth protecting? – Guest Post by Richard Scotford

Recently, Paul V Kane wrote a piece, To Save Our Economy, Ditch Taiwan, that quickly spread like wild fire around the Internet, suggesting that in order to appease China and get relations on a better track the US could sell-out Taiwan. The basic jist of his argument was, that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could magically make the $1.2trillion in US bonds disappear, if the US military stopped selling arms to Taiwan and basically agreed that it was no longer under any US protective umbrella.  Obviously, in doing this, Taiwanese democracy would be seriously compromised, as it would be essentially extinguished by a democratically averse CCP.  However, according to Kane, the trade off would be worth it, even a “game changer.”  He adds, “part of the savvy package” could include getting the CCP to stop supporting other pariah states, like Iran, Syria or North Korea. The deal could potentially save the US billions.  Giving up Taiwan would be the proverbial silver bullet that could quickly dispose of America’s most stubborn “cold-war-era entanglements.”  To boot Kane excitedly declares that the move could also shave off 10% off the National Debt without even doing a thing.

 

Essentially what Kane is saying is that throwing the fledgling democracy of Taiwan on the funeral-pyre in order to balance the US budget is a price worth paying. After all, they’re Chinese not American and they’ll probably be forced to embrace the Communist Mainland at some stage anyway, so why not now?  In this way, the US can also do a bit of diplomatic horse-trading to its financial benefit as well.  Without this, Kane argued, the US risks a very costly, multi-billion dollar war with China over Taiwan that would benefit no one, least of all Taiwan.   In Kane’s confused head the “The battle today is between competing balance sheets, and it is fought in board rooms; it is not a geopolitical struggle to militarily or ideologically “dominate” the Pacific.”

 

Why Kane would want to be singing from the CCP’s hymn sheet is anyone’s guess.  Let’s hope he’s getting paid more than 50cents for this trash.  After all it’s no great secret that the CCP is collecting up US debt in order to gain political leverage. They’re not buying US debt because they love America.  Kane has hardly hit on anything new here. The CCP would gladly pay $1.2 trillion for Taiwan. However, what’s shocking and somewhat disappointing is that Kane openly declares that in 2011 balance sheets trump democracies.

 

On a human level, the idea is so lacking in any moral substance that it hurts to really digest it.   The fact that anyone could equate the real notion of basic human freedoms with the ether of a country’s balance sheet is beyond callous and unfeeling. Yet, we all know this kind of thing has happened before in history, many a country’s government has been sold down the river in order to make a buck.  Kane seems to have no problem with history repeating itself again and concludes that the mercy killing of Taiwan’s democracy is ultimately a utilitarian move to save the greater democracy of the United States – his momma must be proud of his patriotism!

 

Running in tandem with the notion that money trumps freedom is the idea that Chinese people just aren’t suited for democracy anyway. So, Kane would certainly proffer, why should Americans die trying to give it them?  Instead of ideology, go with the money, just like the CCP has done to its incredible advantage.  China has 1.3 billion people who aren’t exactly dying for democracy, so why should the ‘free world’ sacrifice lives and more importantly their balance sheets for a mere 23 million Chinese in Taiwan?  This idea that Chinese people aren’t suited to democracy isn’t only limited to the delusional Kane.   It’s a common mantra of the CCP that is cleverly manipulated into the mainstream global media by so called western China experts.  Only recently I saw a TV clip where Oded Shenkar, author of The Chinese Century, unashamedly extolled, “with the exception of Taiwan, there is no precedent of a democratic Chinese Society”.  Of course, Shenkar may want to make himself out as an expert on Chinese people, but he couldn’t be more wrong if he tried. Sadly, this shows the level of delusion seemingly educated people can reach when they only focus on the economic numbers and not on the greater picture.  In relation to Shenkar’s remark, which is basically a mantra of the CCP propaganda machine, repeated verbatim, I’m guessing that he was forgetting the nearly 4 million Chinese that live in the US under democracy, which is equal to population size of the State of Kentucky or the country of New Zealand.  Or the nearly 8 million Chinese that live in Thailand, which is larger than the entire population of Switzerland. Don’t forget the 7million Chinese that live in democratic Indonesia, that’s the same population as Israel.  Or the 6 million in Malaysia, which is greater than the population of Denmark. Or the 1.3 million Chinese that live in Canada, out numbering the entire population of Hawaii.  All told, there are over 40 million ethnic Chinese living around the world in democratic countries. Which is equal to the population of Argentina.

So, let’s go back to Shenkar’s comment again, “with the exception of Taiwan, there is no precedent of a democratic Chinese Society”. Is he suggesting that these 40 million Chinese people are not engaging in society or are not Chinese?  I’m unclear?  In reality, everyone knows that the global Chinese Diasporas are some of the most upright and contributing groups in their chosen democratic societies.  Maybe Shenkar should start quoting these figures next time he is on TV rather than the ones the CCP produces on the economy. Only then may he get a little more perspective and more importantly, integrity!

Unfortunately, it’s a sad fact that the likes of Kane and Shenkar can still be taken seriously when they extort such ridiculous ideas, which are in essence CCP propaganda proliferated by devious United Front tactics.   If we really are to listen to the likes of Kane and Shenkar and conclude that democracy is not for Chinese people and therefore the likes of Taiwan should be sacrificed for the greater good of the world, or at least for a buck, then we truly are as morally bankrupt as the CCP.

Taiwan, is a thriving, sometimes jittery, fledgling democracy.  It deserves the protection of every freedom loving person on the planet and it can’t be thrown to the CCP lions in order to balance the books.  Taiwan has a population of over 23 million people.  That’s a greater population than Australia and little less than Texas, or on a par with the combined populations of Portugal, Ireland, Finland and Norway.

Would the global community torpedo the freedom and rights of these places in order to balance the books?

Exactly.

So, why would over 23 million democratic Chinese in Taiwan be worth any less?

 

Richard Scotford is a freelance writer living in Hong Kong.

He holds a Master’s Degree in Chinese Studies from CUHK and writes the China Rising blog at:  http://chinarisingblog.blogspot.com/


 

Please Don’t Feed the Dragon

The Pentagon has released its annual report to Congress on the “People’s Republic” of China’s rapidly growing military menace and once again, we are presented with a frightening armory designed to rain death on America and her allies. This time around the PLA’s toy list includes a new stealth fighter and aircraft carrier as well as improved ICBMs and nuclear warheads. Of particular interest is the DF-21D missile specifically designed to destroy U.S. Navy carriers at sea.

Let’s just be honest, China is working overtime to assemble the force required to eject America from her role as peacekeeper of the Pacific so that it can have its way with its Asian neighbors. The Vietnamese know it, that’s why they are buying submarines from Russia as fast as they can get them. Taiwan knows it, which is why they are nearly in a panic for higher tech U.S. weapons. Even ancient enemies Korea and Japan are coming together over their mutal fear of Chinese hegemony.

Meanwhile, President Obama says, “I absolutely believe that China’s peaceful rise is good for the world and it’s good for America.” Well, Mr. President, this DOD report details the most expensive “peaceful rise” since Hitler’s, as everyone’s favorite communist dictatorship has once again increased military spending by double digits to a whopping $160 billion. In fact, China has been growing its military budgets even faster than its phenomenal GDP for the last decade.

While China invests, builds and trains, the U.S. military is wearing out its people and its equipment in fruitless desert conflicts and faces a future of painful budget cuts. You don’t need Excel to understand where those two trajectories lead. The question is what can we do about it? Rather than dwell on the obvious fact that we cannot afford another Cold War build up, let’s ask ourselves just how is China funding theirs? Any ideas Wal-Mart shoppers?

It turns out that America’s trade deficit with China – on track to easily break last year’s record $273 Billion– covers the whole thing with room to spare. Imagine if American businesses and consumers had been funding the Soviet Union’s military machine; Doctor Strangelove would have a seizure. Yet, here we are and so we must ask this question:

Why does America do business with a nation that is preparing to attack our allies and threatens our own families with nuclear death?

Further, if the fact they are preparing to kill your kids isn’t enough to send you screaming from the shelves at Target then consider that China also:

1. Delivers a hugely disproportionate percentage of defective and dangerous products, while effectively avoiding liability and burdening U.S. taxpayers with the regulatory costs.

2. Regularly hacks the computers of our businesses, government offices, military, and humanitarian groups.

3. Cheats on nearly every World Trade Organization rule.

4. Maintains a record on human rights, censorship, women’s rights, and religious tolerance that is on par with Syria and Iran – two countries China regularly provides weapons to.

5. Represses the rights of its own workers in order to gain economic advantage.

6. Terribly pollutes its own and the world’s environment for financial gain.

8. Steals our intellectual property and counterfeits our products.

9. Is taking nearly a million jobs per year out of our economy via the reduction in U.S. GDP caused by the trade deficit.

We could write an entire book detailing the personal tragedies and national costs behind each of these criminal acts (and we did). Suffice it to say most Americans accept that these charges are accurate, but have failed to grasp that together they detail a threat much larger than the sum of the parts. China’s dictators love America’s inability to think strategically about the costs of our fruitless China policy. While they are running a carefully integrated game of economic-military-geopolitical dominance America’s diplomats stick with a flailing, tactical plan of “divide and be conquered” from the last century.

Mr. Kissinger’s policy of “engagement” with China was necessary right up to the day the Soviet Union was driven bankrupt fighting a double-ended cold war. Since then it has been little more than a giant subsidy for the expansion of another communist threat and it is America that will soon face default or obliteration.

While U.S. shoppers may think they are saving money and large multinationals reap short-term profits on this trade, it is clearly not in the long-term interest of America to continue business as usual with the Boys from Beijing. If we must, there are a plethora of countries where we can find cheap labor for Wal-Mart without funding a repugnant regime that views us as its enemy.

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Greg Autry is the co-author of Death by China. He teaches Macro Economics at the Merage School of Business, UC Irvine. He writes and speaks on China, space, economics, investing, and business strategy. Please follow us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/DeathByChina

 

We are at War and it is Time to Admit it

 

Everyday, every hour, this very minute perhaps, dark forces attempt to penetrate this castle’s walls, but in the end their greatest weapon . . . . is you.

– Albus Dumbledore

 

 

News stories of Chinese cyber-attacks against Western corporations, government offices and defense agencies are getting to be as routine as the ones that show Lindsey Lohan returning to rehab.

Last year, Google revealed that a Chinese hacker group, obviously under Communist Party control, had compromised the Internet giant’s servers, gained access to Chinese dissident’s email accounts and stolen the firm’s precious source code. Dubbed, “Operation Aurora” the attack also appears to have hit as many as 200 other major corporations – although virtually none of them have stood up to admit it. The year before, a sophisticated attack called “Ghost RAT” was shown to have infiltrated the Dali Lama’s Tibetan Government in exile along with several US agencies and foreign embassies.

Last week, CCTV, the Chinese government mouth piece let slip a video that showed Chinese cyber soldiers in the process of attacking a computer at the University of Alabama because it hosted a religious website (Falun Gong) that offends their communist sensibilities.

Last month, McAfee, a leading US based computer security software firm, released details of an investigation into an attack they call “Shady RAT.” McAfee engineers were even able to gain control of one of the hacker’s command and control servers and thereby identify the plot’s victims from the servers log files. This list points an unwavering finger at the despots in Beijing as well as offering much fodder for some creative speculation about the damage that it has caused in America.
The McAfee report, written by VP of Threat Research, Dmitri Alperovitch, revealed that at least 72 computer systems in the US, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, India and Canada were attacked over a five year period from 2006 through 2010. The targets include the usual high-tech companies, government agencies (Federal, State, and County), Asian democracy advocates, and defense contractors. However, this attack also infiltrated the systems of the United Nations, the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Secretariat, several national Olympic committees, the World Anti-Doping Agency, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

As usual, the Chinese government denies everything, but it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out who spies on Taiwan, sabotages Democracy advocates, and cheats in the Olympics. If you don’t believe that the Chinese government was complicit here, then you probably also believe that the girls on their gymnastics team are really of age.

The cyber-assaults on China’s Olympic competitors were, of course, done before the 2008 Beijing games. While McAfee has politely anonymized the firms and agencies in their report other interesting conspiracies are suggested by matching the descriptions of the targets and the timing of the attacks to major news events.

My eye immediately caught one very tantalizing possibility. The logs show that a “U.S. Solar Power Energy Company” was compromised in September of 2009. Just two months later, on November 5, 2009, Evergreen Solar shocked the state of Massachusetts when it quite surprisingly announced the complete closure of its solar module production plant in Devans, MA. Incredulously, a brand new, $58 million facility, championed and supported by the state was to be mothballed and all production moved to Wuhan, China. 800 American workers lost their jobs. Since a manufacturing job typically supports four or more other jobs in the service and government sectors as many as 3,000 downstream families were probably devastated by Evergreen’s sudden relocation.

You’ve really gotta wonder just what on Earth provoked this abrupt decision. Sure, Evergreen’s CEO was eager to blame America when his firm rushed to embrace China’s huge subsidies, currency manipulation scheme, pollution-friendly environment and jackbooted control of labor; but what sort of reckless manager opens a factory and then closes it a year later? Had China’s Red Hacker Brigade simply discovered the perfect buyoff to lure Evergreen to Wuhan or did they uncover some scandalous corporate or personal data with which to black mail the firm? This is all pure speculation, but in keeping with the Chinese Communist Party’s people-be-damned approach to business and society.

Regardless of what happened with whichever unidentified “U.S. Solar Power Energy Company,” the fact remains that industrial espionage has material consequences and Alperovitch makes this chillingly clear when he writes:
What is happening to all this data — by now reaching petabytes as a whole — is still largely an open question. However, if even a fraction of it is used to build better competing products or beat a competitor at a key negotiation (due to having stolen the other team’s playbook), the loss represents a massive economic threat not just to individual companies and industries but to entire countries that face the prospect of decreased economic growth in a suddenly more competitive landscape and the loss of jobs in industries that lose out to unscrupulous competitors in another part of the world, not to mention the national security impact of the loss of sensitive intelligence or defense information.
Let there be no mistake, despite the lack of actual missiles and bombs we are at war with China – or more correctly China is at war with America – and the control freaks in Beijing are winning. This is not some massively multiplayer video game. This is an outright assault on the Western world and the US in particular with very real and incredibly devastating results for actual American families and the values we cherish. The question is simply, are we going to do anything about it?

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Greg Autry is the co-author of Death by China. He teaches Macro Economics at the Merage School of Business, UC Irvine. He writes and speaks on China, space, economics, investing, and business strategy.