In his inaugural address to launch his Administration, President Barack Obama had this to say to the tyrants of the world: “To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history.”
Clearly, the Chinese Communist Party didn’t get the memo. Their actions over the last few days made it abundantly clear that they intend to keep the President’s version of “history” at arms length.
In fact, they made sure their fellow countrymen wouldn’t even see Obama’s statement—a reference to the defeat of Soviet Communism was also left on the cutting-room floor. Before that, the cadres had the gall to declare March 28 “Serfs Emancipation Day”—a reference to the beginning of their bloody occupation of Tibet. The regime continues to clamp down on any and all dissent, be it based on faith or human rights.
Meanwhile, the regime is continuing to project its ever growing naval power, the espionage network is alive and well, and the Korean colony announced just before the inauguration that it had weaponized plutonium—a move sure to make it the focus of Obama’s East Asian team while the Beijing crew returns to their usual duplicitous role as public facilitator and private instigator.
Having squeezed almost everything they could out of the last Administration, Beijing and Pyongyang are well positioned to start holding the new one up for ransom.
That said (and I do hope the new president is paying attention), all of this aggressive behavior is being done for a reason—to hide the serious damage from the economic slowdown.
The Chinese Communist Party is facing its worst economic crises since the Cultural Revolution. Economic growth fell below population growth in the last quarter, and given the cadres’ penchant for inflating their statistics, the population may have outgrown the economy for the entire year of 2008. One of the cadres’ own professors is talking about job losses of 50 million this year.
To make matters worse, the consumer benefits that have come to other economies from the fall in oil prices have not appeared, due to Communist-imposed directives to keep oil prices high.
As one would expect, there is talk once more about reversing the slow upward valuation of the Communist currency and returning to the 1990s devalued peg—a move sure to enrage a heavily Democratic Congress already willing to consider putting up barriers to foreign trade. Given the unique nature of the CCP (and yes, that’s a euphemism), a currency-corrective tariff has a far better chance of reaching the President’s desk over the next two years than over the last fifteen.
What the President will do with it—should it reach him—is another story. With the wife of the friendliest American president Communist China ever had as his Secretary of State, Obama is sure to hear the “engagement” tripe. One can only hope House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will remember her anti-Communism of old and apply pressure in the other direction.
That is most likely why the cadres played the Tibet-propaganda and Korea cards so soon: they’re looking to influence Obama right out of the gate—no waiting on Hope and Change for them.
I don’t want to be too hard on President Obama yet. After all, he has been in the Oval Office less than a week. Still, if his first two days are any indication, East Asia will end up on the back burner—the last place it needs to be.
It took almost a year before the CCP managed to get President Bush where they wanted him, and Clinton took a little longer. It would be a shame if the CCP were able to get President Obama where they want him, especially if its driven by the latter’s indifference.
Dan Twining in a very good summary of the latest white paper from the Communist military says in one sentence what I have (in part) been trying to say for almost nine years: “This white paper is a useful reminder that China’s is the only military in the world explicitly training and equipping to fight the United States.”
How long before our leaders face what this means?
D.J. McGuire is co-founder of the China e-Lobby and the author of Dragon in the Dark: How and Why Communist China Helps Our Enemies in the War on Terror.
