Chinese Checkers

April 6, 2007

 

Sometimes you have to question the wisdom of our policy-makers in Washington. The Washington Times recently reported that China is bulking up its military in the form of anti-satellite technology. Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright told the Senate Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee that the Chinese military has “undertaken what we would call a very disciplined and comprehensive continuum of capability against ... our space capabilities.” Subcommittee Chairman Bill Nelson said that China is expected to have enough anti-satellite weaponry by 2010 to “basically knock out most of our satellites in low-earth orbit.” In other words, they're developing weapons of mass disruption, to take out our satellite infrastructure and, in essence, gouge our eyes out, leaving us wide open for an all-out attack.

Why, then, would we possibly allow the Chinese to have a hand in formulating our annual report on their military? Apparently, the Chinese have been complaining that the annual report to Congress is too harsh. So, guess what we've done? We've invited the Chinese to Washington to help the Pentagon write the report. I kid you not. Are we crazy?

D.J. McGuire is president of the China e-Lobby. They're an advocacy group for democracy in China. He was incredulous upon learning of the Chinese deal. “This is unreal,” McGuire said. “What you're basically doing is you are asking an entity that has a vested interest in keeping the facts from you to help present the facts to you.”

When you and I see China we see red, as in Red China, as in communists. When the Bush administration sees China they see green, as in money, as in selling our soul to the devil. We are now so inexorably intertwined with China that it would be economically agonizing to extract ourselves from this web. Over 70 percent of the items you buy in Wal-Mart are made in China. That's not to pick on Wal-Mart because Target and other retailers are in a similar pickle. It just demonstrates how conjoined our economy is with China's. Not a very wise move when their very way of life is the natural enemy of freedom and democracy.

Ah, but if we just trade with the Chinese we'll turn them into capitalists, right? Wrong. China's human rights record is at an all-time low. There's money in China now but it's in the hands of the communist party stalwarts. Slave and near-slave labor churns out millions upon millions of items to be sold to the Yankee dogs while the money coming from America funds the burgeoning war machine. Much like the scrap metal we sold the Japanese prior to World War II that was turned into bombs on December 7, 1941, we are sowing the seeds of our own destruction. We've been blinded by greed. American shoppers are blinded by cheap goods.

I'm all for capitalism and allowing the marketplace to decide which goods are bought for what price but dealing with communist nations short-circuits the capitalist system. Oppression should not be fueled by American capitalism. Capitalism is the life-blood of our republic but we need capitalism with a conscience. As it stands, unbridled greed causes us to do all sorts of things we wouldn't ordinarily do, like allowing the proverbial fox to guard the henhouse.

We assert our influence and might over totalitarian regimes in an attempt to cut them off from the rest of the world and affect change. In the case of Iraq, we even used that military might to topple an unjust government. How can we continue to trade with the most brutal regime the world has ever known?