America’s Allies Are Being Suborned By China
China is stifling America's closest allies. Indifference is a terrible mistake.
Over the past year, the West has been forced to consider the purpose of history. Why, exactly, should we celebrate, or even preserve, the statues of flawed men; slavers, statesmen and sociopaths who have been immortalized in bronze? The answer to this question is that it’s useful to understand our patronage: at the risk of repeating a cliché, those nations who forget their past will automatically forfeit their future.
By accepting this we are forced to consider an even more salient point. If racism and exploitation were the great sins of our ancestors, what then will make our own generation blush? Ask a conservative this question and they will say something entirely frivolous about the culture wars. A lefty, on the other hand, will be equally dull; inevitably pointing to inequality or, worse still, President Trump’s libido.
While we were distracted by this squabbling, the greatest test of our generation was ignored. As college-educated activists declared America to be a systematically racist country, a Chinese regime was constructed whose odiousness was matched only by its ambition; a communist dictatorship who has suffered almost no repercussions from the ethnic cleansing of over a million Muslims; who observe and grade their citizens on their behavior; who view our democracy and our culture with spiteful contempt.
As the presidential election grinds to a finish, Americans would do well to survey how Beijing’s apparatchiks have bullied your allies. Australia—either through geographical proximity or institutional tiredness—has borne the brunt of this. So frustrated was Prime Minister Scott Morrison with China’s repeated infractions that he declared that war between the United States and China was “no longer inconceivable.” Reading between the diplomatic jargon, Morrison was practically calling his allies to arms.
Australia’s leaders, at the very least, understand the significance of China’s ambition. In my adopted country of Canada, Justin Trudeau’s government has been comatose; prancing around the issue while his citizens were imprisoned and the rule of law undermined. Despite all this, Canada’s feeble foreign minister—standing at a commanding 5’6 in heels—still turns pale when he is asked to mention Taiwan. Perhaps this makes a bit more sense when you discover that the minister’s top advisor on Asian matters is considered an asset by the Chinese state-owned Huawei. Nothing to see here, folks!
Whether it be through cowardice or coercion, Canada’s rolling-over for China is never more overt than through Trudeau’s Health Minister. When American intelligence suggested that China had been forging their coronavirus data, the Health Minister dismissed this, saying, “there’s no indication the data that came out of China was falsified in any way.” After this, she doubled-down; accusing a journalist of spreading “conspiracy theories” for asking a similar question.
A seven-hour flight across the Atlantic will show that the United Kingdom has suffered similar infiltration. As you Americans may be aware, the British are rather romantic about their “special relationship” with your presidents. This, however, is all an attempt to disguise the fact that being an ally to the United States is quite like being in an Ottoman’s harem: you may think you are special, but the great emperor always seems more attracted to the German blonde or the sullen, French brunette.
All this has led Britain to actively court Chinese investment like no other European country. The old Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osbourne—who is almost a caricature of what Brexit-voting Britain hates most about their elites—told the country in a fawning op-ed that “we should embrace China.” Perhaps Osborne’s brown nose was evidence of the warm “embrace” he had in mind, as the UK went on to accept billions of pounds in investment towards sensitive infrastructure. Five years later, this investment is used as leverage against any hawkish foreign policy.
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