Why the Wuhan Virus Threatens the Chinese Communist Party’s Imperial Dreams

Why the Wuhan Virus Threatens the Chinese Communist Party’s Imperial Dreams
Chinese leader Xi Jinping (L) speaks after reviewing the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy fleet in the South China Sea on April 12, 2018. (Li Gang/Xinhua via AP)
Austin Bay
5/6/2020
Updated:
5/7/2020
Commentary

If it acts, the Free World has the opportunity to condemn another communist dictatorship to Karl Marx’s dustbin of history and avoid a war with a totalitarian superpower circa 2035.

The Chinese Communist Party knows the COVID-19/Wuhan virus pandemic has exposed its imperial war to conquer the world, so it is frantically engaged in psychological and political damage control.

Why? The strategic exposure (a cruel pun) of Beijing’s goal occurs at least 10 years too early. If the CCP and Emperor/President/Dictator Xi Jinping just had another decade of gross domestic product growth; of military modernization; of intellectual property theft; of trade rigging; of bribing crooked EU and American politicians and Ivy League academics; of stroking elite U.S. media; of narrative warfare crafted to undermine democracy and erode free speech—with another 10 to 15 years of unrestricted “all lines of operation” warfare, China could hogtie America and have the military power to dominate Asia and the western Pacific.

If the CCP were to achieve strategic diplomatic, information, military and economic (DIME) power superiority in Asia, the nefarious economic, media, political, academic and cultural lines of operation camouflaging the strategic expansion could be dropped.

Unfortunately, the Wuhan pandemic imperils the CCP’s strategic plan to dominate the globe. Yes, call it the Wuhan pandemic. Damn Obama administration toady Ben Rhodes, who, hair on fire, condemns the moniker as racist. Rhodes is a Beltway clerk with heavy political baggage.

Ebola virus? The Ebola is a river in the Congo. Old Lyme (Lyme disease) is in Connecticut. Rhodes spews CCP narrative warfare tropes. That’s not slander; that’s fact. The disease plaguing us originated in the mainland Chinese city of Wuhan. It’s an origin, not an ethnic slur.

Rhodes gives us as an instructive example of a CCP narrative warfare scheme designed to sow doubt and discord. COVID-19 is an anodyne, antiseptic and distanced name—narrative warfare camouflage, or a distraction to buy time and avoid consequences. Wuhan identifies the perpetrator. The CCP knows anti-Chinese communist sentiment is at its highest level since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

Which exposes another weakness: The CCP faces discord in China, for the Chinese people know who ordered Tiananmen.

The Daily Telegraph in Australia has published an article based on a 15-page analysis documenting the CCP’s Wuhan virus lies. My summary: China’s government covered up the virus “by silencing” or “disappearing doctors ... destroying evidence ... and refusing to provide live samples to international scientists” developing vaccines. Bottom-line evil: The CCP knowingly endangered other countries.

The Telegraph report supports U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s ABC News interview during which he said “enormous evidence” exists the pandemic began in a Wuhan bio lab. He added, “China has a history of infecting the world, and they have a history of running substandard laboratories.”

Pompeo did not call the virus a bio weapon—that is, a manmade virus. Incompetence and stupidity by lab personnel likely spread the pathogen.

However, that charge alone undermines the CCP narrative that its system is superior to all others on planet Earth.

The CCP leadership lied about the virus, denied the outbreak and, failing, let it infect the world. CCP calculation: Every other nation must suffer the medical and economic consequences so China’s imperial plan does not suffer a serious setback.

Miscalculation: The pandemic has wreaked global, war-level havoc, but the CCP’s lie has been exposed.

The world must make the CCP pay. The operational trade advantages and intellectual property theft schemes mainland China has exploited since 1978, and definitely since it joined the World Trade Organization in December 2001, must be closed. Mainland Chinese corporations ultimately serve CCP interests, serving as intelligence and economic assets both domestically and internationally. Beijing changed China’s economic structure to comply with WTO requirements. However, the Wuhan virus crisis makes it clear the CCP didn’t change.

So penalize Beijing. Do it for global peace circa 2035.

Austin Bay is a colonel (ret.) in the U.S. Army Reserve, author, syndicated columnist, and a teacher in strategy and strategic theory at the University of Texas. His latest book is “Cocktails from Hell: Five Wars Shaping the 21st Century.”
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Austin Bay is a colonel (ret.) in the U.S. Army Reserve, author, syndicated columnist, and teacher of strategy and strategic theory at the University of Texas–Austin. His latest book is “Cocktails from Hell: Five Wars Shaping the 21st Century.”
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