US-China Cold War

In the Wall Street Journal today there is an opinion piece that says Vice President Pence just announced a cold war with China.  That is a very short-sighted opinion and more than a little late in coming.  We have been at war, in this context, for at least five years.

The Vice President laid out in his speech at the Hudson Institute the situation we found ourselves in when China started to combine its government resources, commercial companies, and quasi-government businesses into a strike force that championed world dominance by China.  I should add, dominance by any means, ethical or unethical, by theft or good business practices, or by pressure or force when needed.  When I started to speak publicly about this many years ago, and wrote my first book, The Chinese Information War (McFarland Publishing),  the reaction was hardly agreement.  Most people were skeptical.  A few agreed with parts of the Chinese approach and not others.  Very few agreed completely.  The Vice President put it this way:

     "But I come before you today because the American people deserve to know… as we speak, Beijing is employing a whole-of-government approach, using political, economic, and military tools, as well as propaganda, to advance its influence and benefit its interests in the United States."

But the real kick in his speech was the statement that China was interfering in the domestic politics of the United States.  That too has been going on for many years.  Several analysts have said there is very little the US can do about the way China has chosen to do this part of its campaign because it is perfectly legal.  That should come as no surprise, since that is the chosen behavior of China - not to violate the laws of the country they are in.  This chosen way is not applied to economics and trade where a criminal enterprise has replaced the government and made it similar to Russia in that one respect.  The Chinese steal everything, patent their own inventions that come from that theft, and express surprise that anyone would accuse them of such behavior. 

What they have done in the South China Sea is war - capturing territory claimed by others, using force to do it.  The rest of the world called it "annexation" for reasons nobody can understand, but avoids making things worse between China and its neighbors.  Why we owe China that is beyond me.  Just as Russia stole Crimea, China is trying to steal the South China Sea.  The two of them are at war with a lot of their neighbors while routinely denying it all.  It is about time someone called them out - much more forcefully than did the Vice President.

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