America's Future Update on China

Update on China Buying American Businesses

The world's largest pork producer, a $4.7 Billion firm, was just sold to Communist China, the largest acquisition of an American company by a Chinese firm. At a congressional hearing, witnesses brought warnings of dire long-term consequences from witnesses who argued that China would never allow any American acquisition of such a large Chinese company. Daniel Slane, commissioner of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said "They can buy our companies, but we can't buy their companies. Their endgame is to dominate our markets. It's important to understand that the Chinese government is behind China's global economic expansion."

Usha Haley, director of the Robbins Center for Global Business and Strategy at West Virginia University, said short-term benefits are outweighed by potential longterm costs — including a possible threat to American food safety. In 2011, it was revealed that some Shuanghui products contained a hazardous and banned chemical used to make meat leaner. The case was just one part of a scandal involving tainted or fake Chinese meat. "This deal will affect food safety," Haley said.  The Hill, 7-10-13

Update on China's Cyber Theft of U.S. Data

U.S. intelligence leaders said that cyber attacks and cyber espionage have replaced terrorism as the top security threat facing America. Communist China has been stealing our intellectual property and trade secrets , according to U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. He said he raised his concerns about cyber security when he met with China's President Xi Jinping in China recently. Computer hacking is a hot issue between the U.S. and China.

Lew also used his recent visit to Beijing to try to convince the Chinese to reduce barriers to U.S. trade and open up the country to wider foreign investment. U.S. companies face obstacles to investment in 100 Chinese sectors. There was no indication that China would acquiesce in Lew's arguments. Lew appeared annoyed that China doesn't abide by U.S. practices of so-called free trade, but there is no evidence that Communist China considers trade as a two way street.  Reuters, 7-1-13

Update on China's Change of Position on Nuclear Weapons

Communist China's 2013 White Paper on defense is particularly significant and even alarming because it omits any promise that China will never use nuclear weapons first. That explicit pledge had been the cornerstone of Beijing's stated nuclear policy for the last halfcentury. China had explicitly and unconditionally included a pledge of "no-first-use" in each of China's defense White Papers, from the first in 1998 through the sixth and most recent in 2011. This year's White Paper, however, introduces dangerous ambiguity. It endorses the use of nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear attack and does not rule out other uses, too.

The change was apparently started when Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and China's President, in a speech to China's military, said that nuclear weapons create strategic support for the country's status as a major power. He omitted China's no-first-use promise. We should remember that China's military expansion is financed by the extraordinary sum of U.S. dollars raked in by so-called free trade.  New York Times, 4-18-13