The former top U.S. intelligence official, John Ratcliffe, has warned that China is the greatest threat to democracy and freedom since the Second World War.
Similar warnings have come from Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state, and Christopher Wray, the current chief of the FBI. Therefore, we can be under no illusions about the threat to our personal lives, to our economic security and our personal liberty coming from communist China.
Remember, the Korean War was not so much a war against North Korea, as a war against the Communist Chinese government.
In light of these warnings, we need to ask pointed questions to our federal and state governments on why certain facts are occurring.
Why do we permit 290,086 Chinese students in America, many of whom are graduate students, working in high technology areas, when we know for sure that many of China’s technological advances have been due to the stealing of both military and commercial new technologies by Chinese nationals in America and the corrupting of professors in American universities? Did You Know? has just discovered that Chinese companies are now buying up American, private K-12 schools across the country. It appears that these buyers are using, what might be a loophole in F1 US visas, to enable Chinese students to go through all grades prior to applying to U.S. universities.”
Why have we permitted Chinese companies and investors to buy 384,000 acres of land in America, some of which is adjacent to American military bases?
China owns or controls 96 seaports in 53 countries across the world. Five of these ports are in Miami, Long Beach, Houston, Los Angeles and Seattle. This provides China with a strategic advantage in the potential control over the shipment and flow of goods and information on the passage of U.S. commercial and military cargo and ships.
Ever since Jimmy Carter gave the Panama Canal to Panama, American influence in Panama declined and Chinese influence and investments there grew rapidly. America is still the greatest user of the Panama Canal. Many U.S. naval ships pass through it every year. Much of the goods flowing through the canal are of Chinese origin.
The key strategic issue is that Chinese companies control the ports at both ends of the canal. In addition, a Chinese company controls a deep-water port on Grand Bahama Island. This port is used mainly to ship goods to American East Coast ports.
In September 2022, a Chinese company, Shandong Bao Shuan Group, paid $8.55 billion for 79.5% control of America’s largest chicken producer, Tyson Foods. Another Chinese company owns Smithfield’s, the largest pork producer in America. Chinese companies own or control other U.S. companies, but the ownership is often murky.
Why have we allowed China to monopolize our medicine supply? China produces 97% of U.S. antibiotics and about 80% of active pharmaceutical ingredients used in American drugs. This gives the Chinese Communist Party absolute control of potentially life-saving medicine. The Chinese also produce 70% of the world’s acetaminophen used in Tylenol. Sounds a lot like putting Americans’ heads in a noose.
America is heavily reliant upon China for the rare earth and metals that are essential to the working of products and devices from smartphones to military aircraft, to the storage batteries necessary to transform from an oil, gas and coal fuels economy to an electricity-based economy. This vulnerability alone could stop America in its tracks.
It is important to remember that the Chinese Communist party works through Chinese companies that are controlled by the party and often financed by the party, as part of their plan to become the dominant world power in this century.
We know that Communist China is not going to invade America with armed troops. We know that any armed conflict with China is most likely to be over Taiwan or over the artificial islands being created by China as military bases.
Therefore, we can conclude that a conflict with China will be conducted through the incitement of political conflicts, cultural conflicts, democratic conflicts and ethnic conflicts to subvert, divide and weaken American society and strength of purpose, from within. If relations deteriorate, even sabotage. We can also conclude that in the supply of goods and the passage of U.S. ships, that Chinese control of strategic ports around the world and in the immediate vicinity of America would present a threat to the economy of the US, in a time of conflict.
As we plow forward on our quest for a non-fossil fuel economy, we need to understand our supply chain weaknesses, in addition to shipping. According to the International energy agency, 80% of solar cells are made in China. According to Bloomberg, seven of the top 10 wind turbine manufacturers are Chinese companies. In 2020, more than half of the world’s WindPower was built in China.
A big question is, how many other essential products or services are we dependent on China for supplies?
Just one more example will suffice. China is the almost exclusive supplier of the raw materials for the manufacture of fentanyl to the Mexican drug cartels who manufacture and smuggle into America millions of deadly Fentanyl-laced pills that are killing and destroying the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans every year.
House Dems vote against the bill to permanently classify fentanyl as a Schedule 1 controlled substance.
Did you know on Thursday the Washington Examiner reported that the arrests of Chinese immigrants illegally crossing the US-Mexico border jumped by 1,230% in January to 1,064 people? We don’t know how many got across the border without being caught.
We might also ask:
How many U.S. universities have revealed that they are accepting funds from the Chinese government or Chinese corporations for any reason?
How many American or Chinese people working in America as university professors, or graduate students are signed up with the Chinese government’s “Thousand Talents” Program?
How many U.S. Universities have Confucius Centers funded by the Chinese government? The Chinese government from 2006 until 2018 spent $150 million in setting up 100 Confucius Centers in American universities.
How many U.S. professors and U.S. universities have been sanctioned, in any way, by the U.S. government, for not revealing they are being paid money by foreign entities?
Danger: If you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!
— Winston Churchill
Bonnie Donovan writes the “Did You Know?” column in conjunction with a bipartisan group of local citizens. It appears Saturdays in the Voices section.
