Firebrand by Congressman Matt Gaetz

Author:Congressman Matt Gaetz [Gaetz, Congressman Matt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781642937657
Publisher: Bombardier Books
Published: 2020-07-29T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

China Is Not Our Friend

There is a story we tell ourselves that China will behave just like us. We just need to invite them in, show them more of the Western world, bring them closer. This is a lie. Exposing the truth will help us see China—and our leaders who indulge them—clearly.

When we think of great power politics, we often obscure it in the niceties and sophistries of diplomacy. Gentle words smooth over the harsh reality of Swiss bank accounts and Panama Papers bribe records. It’s easy to talk abstractly, hard to have a real talk. But there is a kind of power that comes with telling the truth, a natural hierarchy that separates who is serious from who is seriously wrong, sometimes identifying good and branding evil. It just so happens Donald Trump is the best brander in the world.

Our first obligation is to tell the truth about China without the clutter of old trade deals and riches that never quite materialized (except for the elites, of course). To be candid, we must know who we are and who they are. We must be as aware of our own weakness as they are of ours. After all, they’ve had centuries of reading The Art of War and we have a president who has written The Art of the Deal. President Trump knows when to use sticks and carrots to get a negotiation moving. But the time may have passed for carrots. Carrots are for rabbits and horses, not dragons. While other generations have sold out to China, our generation must see that the Chimerica dream is actually a nightmare—and we are living it.

This China fiction is spread by our supposed business elites, who imagine untold riches if only we love China a little more. They tell us that China is good for business, but their multinational business successes come at the expense of American workers. The United States Chamber of Commerce seems to fight for everything other than the United States and her commerce. They even criticized President Trump for working to redomesticate critical medical manufacturing in the wake of the COVID pandemic. I was surprised to learn that over 90 percent of ibuprofen is made outside our country. Can we not even have an America First headache anymore?

The Chinese story has been a fairy tale, but like a lot of fairy tales it has come to a deadly end—the coronavirus outbreak there leaving an estimated hundred thousand dead in the first few months of 2020 alone, drowning in their own fluids, alone in a hospital bed. Why is it that so many pandemics seem to come from China? Why can’t they get it together? Why can’t China function like other modern countries? It is not unreasonable to ask these questions.

Motivated by naivete and political correctness, we’ve looked the other way and played pretend. It’s hard to grasp the enormity of the problem. We are outnumbered by the Chinese, and we have lost our focus. Han Chinese is the default setting for the human species—1.

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