TRUMP ON CHINA • PUTTING AMERICA FIRST
turned a blind eye to China’s widespread technology theft that eviscerated entire sectors of the American economy.[1]
As China grew richer and stronger, we believed, the Chinese Communist Party would liberalize to meet the rising democratic aspirations of its people.[2] This was a bold, quintessentially American idea, born of our innate optimism and by the experience of our triumph over Soviet Communism. Unfortunately, it turned out to be very naïve.
We could not have been more wrong—and this miscalculation is the greatest failure of American foreign policy since the 1930s. How did we make such a mistake? How did we fail to understand the nature of the Chinese Communist Party?
The answer is simple: because we did not pay heed to the Chinese Communist Party’s ideology. Instead of listening to what Chinese Communist Party leaders were saying, and reading what they wrote in their key documents, we closed our ears and our eyes. We believed what we wanted to believe—that the Party members were communist in name only.[3]
Let us be clear, the Chinese Communist Party is a Marxist-Leninist organization.[4] The Party General Secretary Xi Jinping sees himself as Josef
- ↑ The Guardian, “China Theft of Technology is Biggest Law Enforcement Threat to US, FBI Says,” February 6, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/06/china-technology-theft-fbi-biggest-threat
- ↑ See, for example, Samuel Berger, “Building a New Consensus on China,” June 6, 1997, https://astro.temple.edu/~rimmerma/building_a_new_consensus_on_chin.htm. Also see New York Times, “In Bush’s Words: ‘Join Together in Making China a Normal Trading Partner,’” May 18, 2000, https://www.nytimes.com/2000/05/18/world/in-bush-s-words-join-together-in-making-china-a-normal-trading-partner.html?referringSource=articleShare. Also see Robert Zoellick, “Whither China? From Membership to Responsibility,” September 21, 2005, https://www.ncuscr.org/sites/default/files/migration/Zoellick_remarks_notes06_winter_spring.pdf. Also see “Bush Lauds Taiwan’s Democracy Ahead of China Visit,” November 16, 2005, https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5015189.
- ↑ Richard McGregor, “Five Myths About the Chinese Communist Party,” Foreign Policy, January 3, 2011, https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/01/03/5-myths-about-the-chinese-communist-party/
- ↑ See, for example, Tanner Greer, “Xi Jinping in Translation: China’s Guiding Ideology,” May 31, 2019, https://palladiummag.com/2019/05/31/xi-jinping-in-translation-chinas-guiding-ideology/, and “Full text of Xi Jinping’s report at the 19th CPC National Congress,” November 4, 2017, https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/19thcpcnationalcongress/2017-11/04/content_34115212.htm
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