While Communist China Expands Its Threat To The Globe, DC Is Still Acting Like It’s 1991A majority of both parties in Washington still thinks it is 1991 where we are the sole superpower, have money to burn, and haven’t racked up an appalling string of foreign failures.BY: CHRISTIAN WHITON
MAY 13, 2022
Can you imagine living in mortal fear of a 90-year-old man who preaches peace and love? If so, you know what it is like to be a senior member of the Chinese Communist Party. On Wednesday, communist authorities in Hong Kong arrested Cardinal Joseph Zen on a phony “national security” charge.
Zen’s immediate offense was his alleged involvement in a dissolved fund to defend those harmed by the ruthless crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. His real crime is his unwillingness to overlook Beijing’s broken promises about establishing democracy with universal suffrage in Hong Kong—a promise it made to get the former colony back from the gullible British.
* * *
Zen now joins other persecuted pro-democracy figures like jailed publisher Jimmy Lai, the founder of the pro-freedom Apple Daily newspaper, which authorities shut down last year.
Why does any of this matter to the United States? While our bipartisan ruling elite clearly deny it judging by their actions, China is our foremost adversary in the world. Yes, Iran’s government has seen itself as being at war with America since it came to power in 1979, and political Islam, which drives violent jihad, has not gone away. But China with its large economy, military, and population, its advanced technology, and its deep penetration of the American economy, poses a critical threat.
Dissidents like Zen and Lai pose a serious political challenge to the Chinese government. If they didn’t, Beijing would not go to such great lengths to silence them.
Free ethnically Chinese societies like Singapore and Taiwan today and Hong Kong before the crackdown of the past three years also pose a threat. They expose the lie that is at the heart of the Chinese Communist Party’s legitimacy: that democracy is impossible for China and that the only alternative to communist rule is anarchy.
Washington should understand this reality and embrace it. Forget about promoting human rights in the abstract, which in recent years has become more about attempting to spread neoliberalism globally. That woke form of human rights advocacy, which now includes hanging rainbow flags on U.S. embassies and holding up arms sales to longtime allies, has put us at odds with important partners like the Arabian Gulf monarchies, Singapore, and Hungary. It has comforted truly repressive adversaries like China and Iran.
Instead, we should back the political forces that are causing the most concern to our Chinese adversaries. We need to give strong support to dissidents and governments standing up against Beijing and Tehran, not a woke version of the ComIntern.
* * *
Source:
https://thefederalist.com/2022/05/13/while-communist-china-expands-its-threat-to-the-globe-dc-is-still-acting-like-its-1991/
