by Jeff Minick
“We are at risk of losing a war today because too few of us know that we are engaged with an enemy, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), that means to destroy us.”
With these words Brian T. Kennedy kicked off a speech he gave at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar in late September. Kennedy is the author of Communist China’s War Inside America, was president of the Claremont Institute for 13 years, and currently serves as presidentof the American Strategy Group.
Kennedy points us to a variety of dangerous CCP trends, many of them spanning the past thirty years or more. America’s trade relationships with China not only erased much of our nation’s own manufacturing – including, as COVID-19 taught us, our pharmaceutical industry – but it also helped create a Chinese economy that now rivals our own.
Perhaps most frighteningly, because of neglect under the Bush and Obama administrations, our navy does “not have enough ships and munitions to defeat China’s navy absent the use of nuclear weapons.”
Meanwhile, many American corporations, sports outfits, and the folks in Hollywood are in bed with a government that suppresses its people through a social credit system, constantly monitoring them through social media and other means. Several million people, including Uyghur Muslims, members of Falun Gong, Christians, and others are either in concentration camps or are denied the right to work, travel, or earn a university education. In addition to persecuting Christians, Kennedy also notes that Chinese schoolbooks have changed the teachings of Christ in the Gospel, and yet Pope Francis will still “be renewing his agreement with the CCP that gives it effective control over how the Catholic Church, or what passes for it, is run in China.”
Kennedy reminds us that the CCP was directly responsible for the coronavirus and the subsequent worldwide pandemic. That government locked down the city of Wuhan from the rest of China when the virus began spreading there, but it continued to allow flights from Wuhan to Europe and America. From the first signs of this outbreak, the CCP was deceptive about the origins of the virus, and it remains so, making it all the more difficult for other countries to develop effective testing methods.
The enormous financial bonds linking American banks and Wall Street to the Chinese, are also problematic, with the former placing economic benefits and wealth above our country’s national interests. In addition, the efforts of “China-based cyber criminals yields $500 to $600 billion of intellectual property theft annually.” There is even evidence that “some of the funding for BLM and Antifa is coming from CCP-sponsored or affiliated groups: Liberation Road, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and the Chinese Progressive Association.”
In his speech, Kennedy addressed the subject of a “People’s War” declared on the United States by the People’s Republic of China in May 2019. This was in response to U.S. tariffs imposed on Chinese goods and American acknowledgement of the CCP’s ongoing intellectual property theft. He then wonders, “Was the phrase essentially rhetorical or did it signal a fundamental shift or escalation in Chinese thinking?”
Here are some takeaway thoughts from “Facing Up to the China Threat.”
As Kennedy writes, the PRC has a population of 1.4 billion, of which only 90 million are members of the CCP. Another 300 million “are deeply invested in the regime’s success.” But what about the other billion Chinese? Surely many of them are unhappy with communism and with the wealth disparity between themselves and their overlords.
Having read of the infiltration of the CCP into American universities, labs, tech companies, and corporations, we must work to stop this thievery. Secondary schools – such as the one we have one here in Front Royal, Virginia, and colleges that admit Chinese students do so primarily because of the money. Those institutions need to come up with alternate revenue streams.
We need to wake up. We must remember the deceptions practiced by the CCP regarding COVID-19. We must remember we are dealing with a government who may well be unofficially at war with us and which acts accordingly. We must continue to rebuild our military. We must force corporations and organizations like the National Basketball Association that have strong ties to China to publicly disclose those ties, particularly when they defend CCP practices.
Brian Kennedy calls for some of these same measures and ends his speech with these words:
Equally important—especially given the violence in our cities that our foreign enemies cheer—is defending our American way of life and teaching our countrymen why America deserves our love and devotion, now and in the days ahead.
When that love and devotion fade, so too does America.
Let the teaching begin.
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Jeff Minick lives in Front Royal, Virginia, and may be found online at jeffminick.com. He is the author of two novels, Amanda Bell and Dust on Their Wings, and two works of non-fiction, Learning as I Go and Movies Make the Man.
