Call them the A, B Cs – eight realities – of Communist China. This is not your father’s sleepy, benign, creeping by the night, weak by day Communist China. Things are changing – fast. In sum, “we are not in Kansas anymore, Toto.”
First, or “A” for those who like mnemonics, ways to remember: We are facing an “A-frame” in public understanding of the threat, half who gets that China aims to beat us, is an existential threat to our democracy, is waging “unrestricted warfare” – the other half dopey, sleepy, disengaged, hopeful.
The unengaged half needs to get engaged, understand the stakes, pace of China’s accelerating attack, multiple fronts on which China aims to best us, is making inroads, military, economic, ideological.
Second, “B” for recall, China is on a “Beeline” for supremacy, dominance in virtually every theater of political and military conflict. They are not there, but they are developing, modernizing, laying in ICBMS by the thousands, accelerating maritime abilities, practicing missile and fighter assaults on Taiwan.
That is not all, they are rapidly moving for dominance in quantum computing, cyberwarfare, pushing private and public installation in American engineering, social media, computing, education, and technology infrastructure, enabling everything from “MASINT” (measurement and signature intelligence) to surveillance, theft to blackmail, changing college curricula to pro-China foreign policy.
Third, or “C,” we need a political “sea-change” in this country. Beyond educating, we must understand right now – what Reagan educated America about in the 1980s. Some governments are not legitimate. Communism is quintessentially illegitimate. Soviets Communism was; Chinese Communism is.
Any nation that kills its people for mild political objections, which traps, beats, tortures, and brain washes citizens for not accepting the oppression of religious, personal, and political views, which makes no apologies for inflicting Marxist carnage, suppression, coercion, intimidation, and a global virus, is illegitimate. Sovereignty resides in the people; that is the lesson of God-given rights.
Fourth, or “D,” “deterrence” is vital. It is possible still with China if we sit up, see the threat, and act. As Reagan demonstrated, “peace through strength” is the only way to turn back, roll back, stop aggression. We must do that again. Time is short, but concrete ways exist to show China we win if challenged.
Fifth, or “E,” “enforcement” of laws in the United States and on foreign soil, helping others call out China’s corruption, political, governmental, and personal – is vital. American companies are private in nature and bound by the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act; China’s are governmentally tied and cheat all the time. We must use US laws, international tribunals, and allied action to prosecute their cheating.
Sixth, or “F,” “finance” is an Achilles heal for China. They such money out of free, free-market, enterprising and wealthy countries, especially the US, via publicly traded companies, US government investments, intellectual property theft, corporate coercion even … corrupting politicians. That MUST stop. We would not have invested or indulged building the Soviet war machine; we must not build China’s. They are corrupt, in debt, and endemically unapologetic about cheating – we must stop it.
Seventh, or “G,” is “game theory.” China thinks ahead, around corners, aims for dominance, in 500 years, sure – but also in five to fifteen years. We must understand the moves before they make them, prevent their information and influence warfare, be smarter by half, and understand the game.
Game is theory is not a game, it is a way of thinking strategically proactively, smartly, and winning. It is what China is doing, although the West typically does it better, is more nimble, has free thought, experience ideals, and individual enterprise to rely on. But we have to do this, think forward, engage, look around corners, plan our chess moves, by being ahead of where they are planning to be.
Finally, eighth or “H,” is for “hidden battles for high ground,” which China is totally committed to finding, and we will lose if we let them take those areas of high ground. Arguably, from the Revolutionary War through the “Battle of Little Round Top” at Gettysburg during the Civil War, to many of the big battles WWI and WWI, from Anzio to Iwo Jima, casualties, opportunities, and even outcomes are determined by high ground.
Where is the high ground in our epic contest with China? Brace yourself, because it is everywhere – in near earth orbit and lunar orbit, in cyberspace, quantum computing, public awareness, information warfare, education, multilateral organization domination, the South China Sea, but also in commercial conquest of Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and the Western Hemisphere. It is in leasing ports, and militarizing them, recapturing the Solomon Islands which we died to free, and a thousand fronts.
So, how do we win – since we must win, or over time perish to the power of illegitimate, but powerful communist coercion? We wake up, as one nation under God, remember who we are, remember what communist oppression looks like, and understand that we live in times not benign but malign.
If we do that, remember the A, B, Cs of beating Chinese communism – stopping it before it wins – we will prevail and, to borrow from Churchill, men and women for a thousand years will call this our finest hour. If we minimize, ignore, forget, or divide on the importance of unity to freedom, we lose. Either way, “we are not in Kansas anymore, Toto” – time to say so.