TRUMP ON CHINA • PUTTING AMERICA FIRST
Chinese, as human beings, to overcome hardship and preserve our communities.
“Big” examples of human ingenuity include harnessing biotechnology and data analytics to develop therapies and vaccines. “Small” examples of ingenuity include family members figuring out how to give each other haircuts when barbershops are closed. My wife, who is speaking on a panel later today, is a highly trained virologist. She is new to her role as the family barber, as you might have guessed by looking at my hair.
This is the second time I’ve had the privilege of addressing an audience at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia. Nearly a decade ago I was invited to speak about what I’d learned from service in the Marine Corps and about the relationship between our military and the civilians it defends. Since that day, I’ve never forgotten the warmth and wisdom of the Miller Center’s director, Governor Jerry Baliles, who passed away last October after a life of public service to the Commonwealth of Virginia and to our nation. We give thanks for people like Jerry.
Today, I’ve been invited by Professors Harry Harding and Shirley Lin to share some thoughts about U.S.-China relations. When Professor Lin told me this event would land precisely on the 101st anniversary of the start of China’s historic May Fourth Movement, I knew I had a potent topic for discussing the China of then and now.
On May the fourth, 1919, following the end of World War I, thousands of university students from across Beijing converged on Tiananmen Square to protest China’s unfair treatment at the Paris Peace Conference. Western nations chose to appease Imperial Japan by granting it control of Chinese territory that Germany had previously occupied, including the Shandong Peninsula.
The Chinese students who marched to Tiananmen that day shouted “give us back Shandong!” and “don’t sign the Versailles Treaty!” Police forced the students to disperse. But, as frequently happens when governments close down avenues for peaceful expression, some protesters
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