MESSAGE
| DATE | 2020-12-29 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Continuation of the Chinese political problem and
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wsj.com
Opinion | Beijing’s Bigger Honey Trap
William McGurn
5-7 minutes
Both are highly connected, Mr. Swalwell as a member of the House
Intelligence Committee and Mr. Biden as the son of the incoming
president. Both have made news for their dealings with China, Mr.
Swalwell for his relationship with a Chinese spy named Christine Fang,
and Mr. Biden for business deals made with enterprises connected to the
Chinese Communist Party. Both also benefit from a U.S. press corps
uninterested in getting to the bottom of their stories.
When the New York Post published emails in October raising doubts about
Joe Biden’s claims he’d never discussed his son’s business dealings,
many dismissed the story as “Russian disinformation”—and some suppressed
it. As for Mr. Swalwell’s China connection, the New York Times still
refuses even to mention it.
But it isn’t just the Biden and Swalwell stories the press is missing.
Their cases are only a microcosm of what Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
complains is an all-out Chinese Communist Party effort “to make
Americans receptive to Beijing’s form of authoritarianism.” China does
this on multiple fronts, often masquerading under the banner of
“friendship” associations. But the agenda is always the same: to use
whatever tools it has to mute opposition to China.
For the business sector, the pitch is simple: Come, there’s money to be
made—so long as no one brings up human rights.
Consider Disney. In 1997, the company angered China by releasing
“Kundun,” a positive film about the Dalai Lama. CEO Michael Eisner
called the film a “stupid mistake” and vowed that Disney would “prevent
this sort of thing” going forward. When Robert Iger took over, he made a
priority of getting back in China’s good graces, and his achievements
include Disney’s theme park in Shanghai in partnership with the
government, through the state-owned Shendi Group. In addition, the
studio filmed parts of this year’s live-action “Mulan” in Xinjiang
province, home to Chinese concentration camps holding more than a
million Muslim Uighurs.
Now Mr. Iger’s name is being floated as Joe Biden’s ambassador to Beijing.
In a September speech to state legislators, Mr. Pompeo cited Roger Roth,
president of the Wisconsin Senate, as another Chinese target. Mr. Roth
received an email from Wu Ting, wife of the Chinese consul general in
Chicago, that asked him to “consider adopting a resolution expressing
solidarity with the Chinese people in fighting the coronavirus.” She
helpfully included a draft. He sent back a one-word response: “Nuts.”
Such actions help explain why Mr. Pompeo recently shut down five
“cultural exchange” programs that allowed congressional staffers to
travel to China on trips paid for by Beijing. Because in reality China
isn’t interested in genuine exchange; it wants opportunities to develop
relationships with these staffers and use them for China’s purposes.
Or take China’s theft of data and intellectual property, including
research on Covid-19. This columnist, who worked in the George W. Bush
White House, had his personal information stolen by China in a 2015 hack
of the Office of Personnel Management. In July, FBI Director Christopher
Wray said China has “pioneered an expansive approach to stealing
innovation through a wide range of actors—including not just Chinese
intelligence services but state-owned enterprises, ostensibly private
companies, certain kinds of graduate students and researchers, and a
whole variety of other actors working on their behalf.”
American campuses are a particularly soft target. In 2019 Columbia
President Lee Bollinger presented himself as a champion of free speech
in a Washington Post op-ed in which he declared, “No, I won’t start
spying on my foreign-born students.” But he said nothing about
Columbia’s Confucius Institute, an institution Mr. Pompeo calls “part of
the Chinese Communist Party’s global influence and propaganda
apparatus,” or reports that Columbia’s Global Center in Beijing has
canceled talks that might upset Chinese officials. Or the likelihood
that China is spying on Columbia’s Chinese students.
The is the missing backdrop to the Hunter Biden and Eric Swalwell cases.
Mr. Swalwell isn’t accused of any wrongdoing, but does anyone believe he
is the only U.S. politician (or staffer) compromised by a Chinese honey
trap? As for Mr. Biden, even without criminal charges, shouldn’t a press
corps so eager to report the false but salacious charges about Donald
Trump at least consider the possibility that China may have
incriminating evidence on the new president’s son?
Next July marks the 50th anniversary of Henry Kissinger’s secret trip to
China. China has changed much since then, and so has its approach to
America. Joe Biden might be tempted to think his son’s case and that of
Mr. Swalwell will pass. But they won’t, because they are part of a much
larger and more sinister China story to which Americans are only now
waking up.
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
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