China and the CCP, well mostly the CCP

In the world right now, we have protests over the war in Gaza and we have a debate in the US over funding the war in Ukraine. In the House of Representatives, we have legislation about what constitutes antisemitism. It’s enough to make your head spin; the thing is, amid all this political drama and theater, there is a danger lurking in the background, preying on our apathy. This looming danger only gets a passing mention on the nightly news but might be the most significant danger this country faces. I’m talking about China, a nation that steals what it cannot invent. It buys what it cannot have and demands that we ignore its myriad human rights abuses. The last part, human rights abuses, grinds my gears. I could go on for hours about what China has either done or is currently doing to its people. Have you ever heard of the Foxconn factory? My dislike for China isn’t for the Chinese people; my dislike is for The Chinese Communist Party or CCP. Let me explain why I’m not too fond of the CCP.  

First, they steal intellectual property, and any idea that isn’t “nailed down” is up for grabs. They would steal your grandma’s muffin recipe if it would further their agenda. The list of what they’ve stolen reads like a wish list for your average Bond villain, from stealth fighter schematics to drone specs to freaking nuclear secrets! That’s discounting the theft of intellectual property in the private sector. The town I live in is home to one of the largest semiconductor manufacturers in the entire world. I’m related to one of the IT security team members (name omitted for security), and his stories about their steps to keep the CCP from stealing from them. Whoa, buddy, walking out of Fort Knox with a backpack full of gold bars might be easier. The steps they take are that extreme because if they weren’t, the CCP would find a way in (not that it stops all theft). These steps alone cost the company millions each year; this is a drop in the bucket compared to how much a cheap Chinese knockoff would cost them in market share.   

According to FBI Director Christopher Wray, “The greatest long-term threat to our nation’s information and intellectual property, and to our economic vitality, is the counterintelligence and economic espionage threat from China.” 

The other thing to consider on this point is that if you want to open a factory in China, the CCP has to have access to the factory. “In 2017, Party Committees existed in around 70 percent of 1.86 million private owned companies in China, with a presence that is destined to grow”(Politics in the Boardroom: The Role of Chinese Communist Party Committees). This facilitates intellectual property theft. Because physical access is total access. 

Second, they buy what they cannot have, such as oil, rare earth minerals, and the bulk of their food from other places. Now, why would you care about what the CCP buys? The answer requires some explanation: The United States guarantees the safety of all ships that travel the world’s oceans and has done so since the end of WW2 (by safety, I mean they won’t be attacked by another nation’s military). This safety guarantee allows cargo to be insured against other types of loss that could happen. Without this protection, the insurance companies wouldn’t insure the various shipments crisscrossing the world daily, which would necessarily drive up the cost of goods being shipped, etc. The worst part of this point is that our position and that of the CCP rarely, if ever, align; effectively, the CCP uses our protection to undercut our interests in the world and gets the US taxpayer to pay for it!   

Lastly, I could go on about how the CCP treats people in China, specifically the native Chinese people, whether it be the one-child policy- now not the law of the land as official CCP policy (though it very much still is), the draconian ways the CCP allows for foreign corporations to victimize the labor force there. I’ll settle for one example. The Foxconn factory where the final assembly of iPhones takes place had a rash of suicides. 17, to be exact. If any factory in the United States had this level of suicide, the federal government would have shut them down. There would be protests, and the nightly news would cover this nonstop. Social media would cancel the owners, and short of being tarred and feathered, the folks who ran the company would run out. What does the CCP do? They wave it away like it’s nothing and demand the workers continue like nothing happened. It wasn’t until Tim Cook, the then COO of Apple (Steve Jobs was still alive), had to personally travel to China to get suicide nets attached to the building to stop further suicide attempts. Let me zero in on that for a second. I do not doubt that the top brass at Apple knew the working conditions at the Foxconn factory. In fact, I have no doubt that they looked the other way. And it wasn’t until Western media got ahold of the story that tangible change was made. This is only one example of how the CCP abuses its people.   

So, what can be done to stop this? Well, first, it starts with policy. The United States needs to stop protecting Chinese trade. This is the single most effective way to curtail the rise of Chinese power. China is a net importer of food and fuel, and if we stop protecting their trade, we cut them off from the growth they desperately want. How does policy change? Well, it starts with educating the general public about the danger the CCP is to the safety and stability of not only us but worldwide; on that front, I’m encouraged. About 4 in 10 Americans now see China as our most significant potential adversary (About 4 in 10 Americans see China as an enemy, a Pew report shows), a massive uptick from previous polls. We also need to cut off the propaganda arm of the CCP that has infected the US. TikTok is a cancer growing in this country, allowing the CCP to shape Americans’ opinions with their algorithm.