China is a growing adversary for the United States and the free world, yet the Biden White House is unprepared to respond. In no particular order, here’s a cheat sheet on China’s top 10 offenses:
- Slavery, genocide and religious repression. The Trump administration, followed by Biden’s, designated the Chinese Communist Party’s vile treatment of the Uyghur Muslims as genocide. Uyghurs are rounded up and placed in concentration camps, where they suffer severe beatings, extreme surveillance and forced IUDs, abortion and sterilization. For decades, China has suppressed Falun Gong practitioners, and The Wall Street Journal reports “Beijing claims authority to appoint priests and pastors and dictate sermons. It has arrested mainland Catholic clergy and Protestant pastors, razed churches and confiscated religious texts.”
- Taiwan aggression. China has refused to recognize Taiwanese independence. It has closely watched the West’s failures in Afghanistan and Ukraine, and sees this as a sign of potential weakness. Since President Joe Biden took office, China has violated Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) over 1,400 times.
- Hong Kong crackdown. By imposing onerous “national security” laws, jailing dissidents and cracking down on free speech and media, the U.K. government said China’s in a “state of ongoing non-compliance” with the treaty with Britain guaranteeing Hong Kong freedoms.
- Hoarding farmland, including near U.S. air base. America allowed China to purchase large tracts of U.S. farmland, raising questions about food supply and national security. Some of the land’s proximity both to important farmland and to an important airbase (Grand Forks Air Force Base, which houses sensitive drone technology) make this particularly problematic.
- COVID-19 secrecy. Though China appears to have been the origin point for COVID-19, it paid no repercussions for this potentially manufactured virus that has killed millions of people and inflicted trillions in economic damage. China refused to allow open investigations into COVID-19’s origins and how to prevent future virus spreads.
- TikTok surveillance. With no concept of private property among citizens, Chinese-owned TikTok is an extension of the CPP. TikTok has vast surveillance penetration among Americans and is known to serve endlessly addictive, violent and pornographic content–including to minors.
- Corrupting American universities. U.S. campuses are already bastions of liberal bias, but China is introducing a new level of communism: secretly buying off U.S. professors at prestigious universities and attempting to steal intellectual property.
- Intellectual property theft. In addition to targeting universities, Chinese actors have reportedly stolen trillions of dollars in broader intellectual property theft. CBS News reported in May: “A yearslong malicious cyber operation spearheaded by the notorious Chinese state actor, APT 41, has siphoned off an estimated trillions in intellectual property theft from approximately 30 multinational companies within the manufacturing, energy and pharmaceutical sectors.”
- Enabling Russian President Vladimir Putin. China is leading India and Brazil to counter the G-7’s anti-Russia moves by boosting their trade with Russia. This allows Putin to circumvent energy embargoes and trade sanctions for his unlawful, violent Ukraine invasion.
- South China Sea violations. Numerous altercations with the Chinese military in the South China Sea, including Chinese violations of airspace and waterways, has led the U.S. military to recently begin a formal review of all interactions in the past five years.