The U.S. aircraft carriers USS Reagan and USS Nimitz sail in the South China Sea on July 6, 2020.
The Washington Times said in an article Tuesday (Dec. 22) that the Chinese Communist Party is using the global devastation caused by the plague pandemic and global expansion such as the Belt and Road to try to undermine the United States as the world’s superpower. This has been countered by the Trump administration. But Biden, if he takes office, could soften his policy toward the Communist Party.
The Washington Times article says that the coronavirus (Chinese Communist virus) pandemic has intensified the “cold war” between the United States and China. In an unprecedented move, Beijing is trying to undermine the U.S. as the world’s superpower.
The following is a translation of the article (excerpt).
While the recent development of a vaccine for the Chinese Communist Party virus offers hope for an end to the plague, foreign policy analysts generally agree that the expanding geopolitical conflict between Washington and Beijing will only intensify in the post-pandemic era.
Clifford May, president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank, said in an interview, “There is a full-blown cold war going on between the United States and China. This war actually started years ago, but the American elite, Republicans and Democrats, have been denying it. Because Wall Street has so much investment in China, American consumers have become accustomed to cheap Chinese goods that are usually produced by exploitation (if not slavery).”
May praised the Trump administration for having made clear adjustments to U.S. policy toward China before the plague broke out, but he said the U.S. establishment has been reluctant to abandon a long-held and erroneous view that the Chinese Communist Party has gained growing wealth from its dealings with the United States, and the U.S.-dominated world economic order, so it will open up its political system and become moderate in its behavior on the world stage.
But hard-line hawks of the Communist Party say none of that is happening.
Beijing is picking up the pace and casting itself as a more organized and reliable partner than the United States, especially to non-developed countries that are suffering from the plague and global recession.
Beijing is already claiming to be a better global citizen than Washington. It is boasting of its dedication to multilateral organizations such as the World health Organization, the Paris climate agreement and the World Trade Organization. These are organizations that the Trump administration has shunned.
The Trump administration, dominated by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, has embraced the idea of a Cold War against the Chinese Communist Party and warned that Beijing could be a more powerful enemy than the Soviet Union.
“What’s happening now is not Cold War 2.0. The challenge of resisting the (Chinese Communist) threat is in some ways more acute,” Pompeo said in a speech in the Czech Republic in September, “and (the Chinese Communist Party) has infiltrated our economy, our politics, our society in a way that the Soviet Union never did. “
The increasingly powerful Chinese Communist Party military has also become involved in more regional military operations, apparently testing U.S. resolve in the event of conflict erupting in Hong Kong, Taiwan or the South China Sea region.
According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Asian Maritime Transparency Initiative, the Chinese Communist military has accelerated its activities in Taiwan and in areas near many disputed reefs and islands in the South China Sea.
The study found that Communist Party military activity in the Indo-Pacific region has increased by about 50 percent in the past year, according to Communist media reports. And U.S. military activity in the region has also increased, but not by much.
U.S. officials predict that Beijing may have more military operations as it celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party next July.
The Communist Party’s power operations will also affect the behavior of other U.S. adversaries, such as Russia. The Trump administration is quietly trying to keep it separate from the CCP. The Trump administration wants to form a united front that includes India, Australia and Japan to confront the CCP.
Trump administration hawks say to be wary of the Chinese Communist Party’s global ambitions. They say Beijing is poised to take advantage of the global economic crisis triggered by the plague pandemic to expand its ambitious “One Belt, One Road” program by providing loans to a growing number of countries in need of assistance.
China’s gross domestic product, estimated at $13.4 trillion, is only two-thirds that of the United States. But since Xi Jinping announced the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, its growing prominence has become increasingly difficult to deny.
Since then, the Belt and Road has grown into a vast network of deals, contracts, grants and loans. Beijing has granted more than $100 billion in loans to more than 100 countries to finance roads, bridges, ports and railroads.
U.S. officials accuse the Communist Party of providing predatory loans because it knows countries will have trouble repaying the money and will end up paying off the debt only by giving up control of their natural resources.
Beijing vehemently denies such accusations, but over the past decade the CCP has become the preferred source of loans to cash-strapped countries in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and parts of Europe. It has become an additional source of capital for the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Criticized for failing to provide concessions to its troubled borrowers in the early days of the plague crisis, the Chinese Communist Party now tries to pass itself off as providing generous debt relief to countries in need. It says it has provided some $2.1 billion worth of debt relief to developing countries, but that figure pales in comparison to the huge debt developing countries owe the CCP.
A World Bank study found that the world’s poorest countries owe Beijing more than $112 billion through the Belt and Road Initiative. This raises the question of whether such an overreach by the Chinese Communist Party could be self-defeating, as markets and national economies struggle to recover.
Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the CCP’s handling of the virus in the early days of the plague crisis and Beijing’s arrogance in using its position as the world’s leading supplier of protective medical equipment had damaged its reputation. The CCP insisted on demanding loyalty to emperor-like statements as a prerequisite for delivering personal protective equipment,” he said. This has been widely criticized around the world.”
In response, the Trump administration and lawmakers from both parties have called for the development of drug manufacturing in the United States that has been outsourced to China and a handful of other countries.
Republicans have expressed concern about Biden if elected president because of his son Hunter’s long-standing business ties to the Chinese Communist Party. May said a key question going forward if Biden is elected president is how Biden’s policy toward the Chinese Communist Party will be affected by legal issues arising from Hunter’s business ties to the Communist Party.
Uncertainty about CCP policy will affect the way the next administration responds to other global issues, including North Korea and Iran. As a neighbor and ally of North Korea and a veto-wielding permanent member of the United Nations, the Chinese Communist Party already exerts significant influence in both areas. In the post-plague era, which has endured severe devastation, the CCP’s influence is likely to be even greater.
Rudd said the next four years are likely to be as dramatic as the last four in terms of geopolitical change. He said the world should not take lightly the possibility of a massive policy shift in the next U.S. administration.
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