America's Future Update on China

Update on the Military Threat from China

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper uttered an inconvenient truth in March when he told the Senate Armed Services Committee that China presents the greatest "mortal threat" to the United States. Several committee members were shocked at the thought that China and Russia have the actual ability to attack continental United States with nuclear weapons.

Clapper was asked whether any country intends to pose such a threat to the United States, and he responded that China did. The stunned Senators tried to get him to soften his judgment and, after a confusing colloquy, Clapper said he was describing those countries’ capabilities, not their intentions. But his initial statement stands on the record that he was talking about both capabilities and intent.



Russia easily surpasses the number and range of ballistic missiles that can reach any part of continental United States. China can target only our West Coast. Nevertheless, Clapper said he ranks China as the greater threat because China keeps building up its own nuclear stockpile. That may be an indication of China’s intentions.

Update on How Reagan Would View Trade with China

A group of former officials from the Reagan Administration met with newly-elected House Members on Feb. 15 to explain that conservative principles are consistent with tough trade action about China. The officials pointed out that President Reagan took key trade actions to protect U.S. manufacturing and jobs and would do the same today to combat China’s currency manipulation, illegal subsidies, and other unfair trade practices.

Reagan "was not a pure free trader," said Robert Lighthizer, who served as Reagan’s Deputy U.S. Trade Representative with the rank of Ambassador. A Reagan appointee in his Commerce Department, Gil Kaplan, said that Reagan and his Commerce Secretary, Malcolm Baldridge, "cared a great deal about protecting and building up U.S. manufacturing and taking steps necessary to make sure trade did not hurt the U.S. jobs base."

China's "indigenous innovation" rule requires U.S. companies to give China their patents and advanced technology. U.S. products cannot be sold in China unless the U.S. companies give China their current patents plus their research and development of new products.

China has no plans to be a market for U.S. products. China's principal imports are and will continue to be U.S. jobs.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a former Reagan speechwriter, said that our open-market policies with China, while the Communist Party "manipulates the rules of the game," have facilitated a transfer of wealth from the United States to China, and allowed China to grow from an insignificant actor on the world stage to "a factor that can bring us down."

Update on China's View of the New World Order

The respected economist who writes in the Washington Post, Robert J. Samuelson, has some words of caution for Americans about our relationship with China. He said the current system "methodically transfers American jobs, technology and financial power to China in return for only modest Chinese support for U.S. geopolitical goals." He pointed out that China’s and America’s goals differ radically. "China pursues a new global order in which its needs come first -- one in which it subsidizes exports, controls essential imports (oil, food, minerals), and compels the transfer of advanced technology."

Samuelson gave an example of how China manipulates its trade. Evergreen, a U.S. maker of solar panels, shut down its Massachusetts factory, laying off 800 U.S. workers, and moved production to a joint venture in China. Despite $43 million in Massachusetts state aid, Evergreen’s chief executive said China’s subsidies and low interest loans from state-controlled banks were too great to pass up. China’s share of global production of solar panels jumped from 9% to 48%, and 95% of them were exported. This pattern is repeated in industry after industry.

The U.S. is losing not only jobs, but our technology through required licensing agreements, mandatory joint ventures, reverse engineering, and outright theft.