Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Day 98: COVID-19(84) A Multi-front War
It seems like an eon ago but, in reality, it has only been a matter of weeks. We thought we were confronting a novel coronavirus. Now we understand that we are confronting that, certainly, but also the forces that would transform our world.
Powerline blog this morning is highlighting how China is using the COVID-19 crisis to wipe away the rights of the citizens of Hong Kong secured in the treaty with Great Britain as a condition of transferring that colony to China. Just six months ago, the Hong Kongers had succeeded in gaining international attention to their plight such that China was deterred in their ambitions. Now that the Wuhan flu has subdued the world, China is proceeding apace. Of course, this is not the only area where China is pushing ahead. Michael Pillsbury has documented the Chinese plan in The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower.
President Trump’s policy toward China was a major disruption in their plans. And China was suffering major economic setbacks before the Wuhan flu outbreak. I do not suggest that the virus was part of a Chinese plan, but the Chinese Communist Party is seeking to make lemonade out of lemons. They have been gifted an international opportunity that they do not want to miss. The Wuhan flu is threatening to level economies all over the world. Like the two hikers confronted by the bear, the only thing one hiker needs to survive is to be faster than the other hiker. So, too, China need only preserve more of their economy than that of other nations, including the USA.
In that ambition, the Chinese Communist Party has powerful allies — the progressive establishment in America. It is no secret that the Left in America is seeking to use the novel coronavirus crisis as an opportunity to re-order America. As conservatives and classic liberals, we see our nation facing the same crisis from the Left that Hong Kongers are seeing from Beijing. The MSM are propaganda arms of this effort, not neutral observers providing critical information necessary to self-government by the citizenry.
Liberty lovers are speaking out. Over the coming days, events are occurring nationwide to support Main Street. Search the internet for “#reopen” and you will likely find a local group to join to add your voice for liberty. FreedomWorks.org has a partial list. Operation Gridlock is my preferred demonstration — staying in my car, but showing up with signs and making my voice “heard.” #FullyOpenCA is organizing several events in California. No doubt FB groups are organizing in your state as needed.
We are in a multi-front war for liberty: freedom from illness at home, economic freedom and personal liberties nationally, and freedom from international actors that would exploit and constrain us. Let Freedom Ring.
[Note: Links to all my CoVID-19 posts can be found here.]
Published in General
Just wanted to thank you for all the fine work you’ve been doing on this.
Me too (no hashtag).
This makes me very nervous. Ten years ago I read an enlightening book on our relationship with China called ChinAmerica. The author had conducted business in China for decades, and he had a lot of experience with the Chinese Communist Party. Then a year later I read another book called The Ten Trillion Dollar Gamble. That book made me nervous because the author delved into the amount of our debt the Chinese hold. Whew.
In the latter book, the author pointed out that a little bit of inflation would actually be a good thing because of that debt. It would mean that we would be paying China back in dollars that were worth less than the price at which we had sold the bonds to them. The CCP would not be happy, but it would actually be a good thing for us.
It is not a great relationship for us. To some extent, the consumerism of the last two decades has been driven in part by the gap between the cheap prices we pay for durable goods (toys and electronics) that we don’t need and the very high prices for the healthcare and education we do need. Healthcare and education (and I would include legal services too) costs are so far out of reach for average-income Americans while interest rates on simple savings have stayed very low that people have frittered away their income on a lot of cheap stuff that contributes little of real value to their daily life.
Meanwhile that type of consumerism has unwittingly been fattening the CCP’s coffers because the CCP owns something like 50 percent of all businesses in China. We probably paid for those artificial islands in the South China Sea, however wasted the money might have been for the CCP. The Chinese do not have the same types of safety-net programs that we do, and they get away with paying paltry amounts of money to the labor force. That wouldn’t be as terrible as it is without the one-child policy, which has meant that in a culture historically known for being very family oriented and concerned for their parents and grandparents, that cultural safety net is also gone. Living conditions in rural China are nowhere near where they should be. It’s terribly sad.
Xi Jinping is quite popular in China with the middle class. Just as Saddam Hussein did for the middle-class Ba’athists who prospered on oil money, Xi Jinping has managed China in such a way that the middle class has built up some capital.
Interestingly, it is that middle-class wealth that contributed to the spread of this virus because the Chinese middle class has been traveling a lot in the last ten years. :-)
Xi Jinping will be difficult to deal with going forward I think. He has a powerful political base now. And added to that, the CCP is embracing western victimhood with the world events related to this virus.
It is worrisome.
Is Xi Jinping popular with the millionaires in China?
I would assume so. But he’s not too popular with the Chinese Christians. :-)
Except the US is China’s largest customer.
Yes and no. The millionaires are desperately trying to get there money out of China, because the CCP runs on full employment not efficient means of capital transfer.
Basically you have to pay for workers you dont need.
If you want to have to have your capitol work more efficiently you have to get it out of the country.
It’s interesting to read about Diane Feinstein’s long history with China going back to 1975. She and her husband have built their fortune on China and, of course, her influence on the relationship between China and the US. Her “driver” was the least of it.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/04/americas-china-dependency-syndrome-lloyd-billingsley/
I was in the office of Diane Feinstein’s husband, Richard Blum, nearly 20 years ago now. He had on display many mementos of his travel and connections in East Asia. One of them was an autographed photo of the Dalai Lama. Given the antagonism between the CCP and the Dalai Lama, I wonder if it is still there?
I have never liked her. I remember in 2001 people in SF telling me how much they dislike her. She and Barbara Boxer were first elected to the Senate in 1992. Boxer retired in 2016 yet Feinstein (who is pushing or over 80) still continues.
Isn’t she on the Senate Intelligence Committee? Was she ever censured for employing a Chinese spy/driver?
Hence the popularity of Bitcoin. One reason bitcoin mining is popular in China is that electricity is cheap. China has too many power plants. Bitcoin mining is a form of energy storage in China.
All governments hate bitcoin because they can’t control it. A state-less currency, a libertarian’s delight.
I know trade agreements are not the topic of this thread so I will spend little time on it.
In light of our supply chain problem with China, one option is to move everything to USA but there is a third/concurrent option: join Trans Pacific Partnership which doesn’t include China. The 12 nations have normal friendly relations with US and the benefit is we can diversify our supply chain and encircle/isolate China economically.