To the Editor:
There is a massive menace out there that should worry every American: China. They are the greatest threat we’ve ever faced as a nation.
In World War II, they were an ally. Five years later, once communism took hold, they were a fierce and determined enemy. When we were fighting in Vietnam, they were a supplier to the North Vietnamese. Then, as their state-run economy ramped up, they became a trading partner.
By 1995, we could no longer call them an equal trading partner, as we bought $40 billion more goods from them than they from us. By 2020, the imbalance was far worse, at $350 billion. They now hold over $1.1 trillion of our government debt.
China has gone from an agrarian economy to being a major manufacturing economy second only to our own. They are well on their way to closing the gap and becoming number one.
This would all be fine if China was content to stay in its lane, as the world’s largest economy, but they have much larger ambitions. China is the largest country on the planet, with 1.44 billion people, 19% of the world’s population. They are 4.4 times our size. They also have the largest military in the world that is about 1.5 times greater than ours.
Again, this would not be a problem if they were content to stay in their lane, but they have growing nationalistic ambitions.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has promised: “The historical task of complete reunification of the motherland will definitely be fulfilled.”
What’s he talking about?
His focus is on taking Taiwan, an island off their coast, with 23 million people, as well as securing their hegemony of the islands to their east and south.
Why Taiwan? Among other things, Taiwan is the home of the world’s largest semi-conductor facility, Taiwan Semiconductor, a company that manufactures computer chips, the key to the world’s economy.
In furtherance of their militaristic ambitions, they have developed and launched a hypersonic missile system capable of flying four to five times the speed of sound that can place multiple nuclear warheads on U.S. cities and against which we have no defense.
They are also launching military satellites to test “Space Debris Mitigation.” Not only will their Long March 3B missile system, the “Shijian-21,” be able to remove space junk, but it will be able to shoot down our critical satellites on which GPS, communication, and surveillance systems depend. If we ever get into a scuffle with China, we’ll be overpowered, deaf, and blind!
Beyond this, they’ve built a large fleet of submarines. We’ve focused on aircraft carriers a.k.a. “targets.”
Biden says we will defend Taiwan if they are attacked. Is he crazy?
Our military and intelligence services were shocked when they found out about this!
As Biden fights to clean up the climate, China is not only the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, but through their “Belt and Road” initiative, they are building coal-fired power plants.
This same “Belt and Road” program is focused on obtaining control of the rare Earth minerals on which so much of the world’s electronic technology depends.
Is our government doing anything about this other than scratching their collective heads?
I sure hope so, but it seems our president and key leaders are far more concerned about getting a massive wasteful spending program through congress or lecturing China on climate change and human rights rather than dealing with the greatest threat we’ve ever faced as a nation.
-BILL DAHMS
Avalon
