Reuters reports that the Chinese authorities are being told by their own intelligence services that they need to be prepared for a global backlash over SARS-CoV-2 greater than any that has been experienced in 30 years and which could conceivably lead to war:
BEIJING (Reuters) – An internal Chinese report warns that Beijing faces a rising wave of hostility in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that could tip relations with the United States into confrontation, people familiar with the paper told Reuters.
The report, presented early last month by the Ministry of State Security to top Beijing leaders including President Xi Jinping, concluded that global anti-China sentiment is at its highest since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, the sources said.
As a result, Beijing faces a wave of anti-China sentiment led by the United States in the aftermath of the pandemic and needs to be prepared in a worst-case scenario for armed confrontation between the two global powers, according to people familiar with the report’s content, who declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the matter.
The report was drawn up by the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), a think tank affiliated with the Ministry of State Security, China’s top intelligence body.
Not only do I not support war with China, I think we should do what we reasonably can to avoid it. However, I also think that the events of the last half year have demonstrated that as long as the Chinese Communist Party runs China, it is simply too risky to have China as a trading partner even indirectly which means we should discourage our other trading partners from trading with China as well.
The question is, I think, do we continue our constant carping about China or change our own internal policies? If companies weren’t rewarded so much for going to China they would stop. If the advantages to working in China did not go to the wealthy we would stop going there. Finally, since this is all directed at China I have thought all along that since we are unwilling to change our internal policies if we decrease our presence in China it just means we open shop somewhere else and we get to face similar problems with those other places. Maybe we wont see quite the level of corruption and misinformation elsewhere, but it wont benefit many Americans very much and it certainly wont address national security issues.
Steve
You may recall that my repeated message has been that we can’t change Chinese behavior but we can change our own. That’s getting harder rather than easier as more and more American companies (and politicians!) become dependent on Chinese cash.
The repeated message from the Trump supporters is that we need to punish China. Make them play fair. We arent that good at acting decent policy in our own country and we are getting to force another country to do so? LOL. If we just start leaving, which wont happened unless US policy changes, then China will beg us to stay and offer great terms. Then we can decide if we want to stay or not.
Steve
Short of war the mechanisms we have available for “punishing China” are actually quite limited. However, the president has the authority to ban trade with China, at least in the interim and the Congress should be enacting measures the push our economy farther apart from theirs. I’ve suggested a number of possibilities.
I think the backlash has already begun in Europe, its just that many are dependent on medical equipment right now, so they are willing to censor their criticisms, and stop short of expelling the Chinese ambassador to France. The UK appears to be teetering on the brink of revoking its deal with Huawei to help with its 5G network (my understanding is that there are a majority of Tories that want to revoke, but don’t want a confrontation with the PM right now).
We certainly have the ability to change the incentives for US businesses operating in China. But decoupling our economies is going to be painful and given that everything today is sublimated into domestic politics, that pain will be used for partisan advantage. We’ve already seen those opposed to Trump – even including liberals who were once protectionist – criticize his Chinese tariffs because they hurt American businesses.
Well, the reality is that sort of pain is unavoidable and at least in the US, the Trump and Dem proposals seem pretty weak overall – the equivalent of repainting a room and claiming a renovation.
As long as the CCP allows manufacture and export of fentanyl, amphetimines, and now horse tranquilizer to criminal gangs in our hemisphere, we have no reason to treat them as anything but an enemy pursuing a covert war with the long term goal of our own destruction.
Unless, of course, the Reagan CIA really was importing billions in cocaine in the 80’s to fund the contras. Then it’s all relative, there is no “usâ€and we can’t trust anyone.