The China “threat” & what to do about it
Introduction
Before 9/11, the Bush Administration was trying to pick a fight with China. Miraculously, the “China threat” disappeared with the attack on September 11, 2001.
Recent history of China and American policy toward China provides an instructive example of how we might promote the chances for a peaceful, prosperous world. (Contrast the relatively successful policy with respect to China with obvious failures of policy regarding Cuba, North Korea and Iran.)
Is today’s China strong enough to threaten America?
Hardly. America’s GDP is $11 trillion; China’s is $1.5 trillion. Its military is much weaker than ours. Today’s China is the mouse to America’s elephant. (BTW, real elephants are not afraid of mice.)
Further, with 20 years of trade and engagement, freedom is clearly gaining inside China:
· The Chinese people have enjoyed increasing levels of economic freedom. Hundreds of millions in China now have a real stake – their livelihoods, their businesses, etc. – in peace. (Until Clinton’s war on Serbia, no two countries, having McDonald franchises, had ever gone to war with each other.)
· Regional governments have gained power against the federal government, reflecting an emerging Chinese federalism.
· Engagement has limited the absurdity of the claims of the Chinese dictators. (North Korean’s state-run media likes to boast that the “Dear Leader”, Kim Jong Il, makes three or four holes-in-one every time he plays a round of golf.)
The “subversive power of freedom”
Freedom’s gains inside China testify to the “subversive power of freedom”.
Consider: Every year since 1986, one million Chinese, who live on Taiwan, visit their Chinese relatives on the mainland. So, every year, there are at least one million conversations like: “We share Chinese culture and genetics. But we on the island are 30 times richer than you on the mainland. Why?” These conversations doomed the mainland’s command-and-control economy.
The converse of the principle is true, as well. If American policy of engagement has worked in China, its policy of isolation of Cuba has clearly failed. After 47 years, Fidel Castro still remains in power, outlasting every head of state on the planet.
China’s potential threat
Obviously, the Chinese people still live under a totalitarian regime. And, totalitarian regimes tend to threaten weaker neighbors. And, this police state’s military power will grow with the growth of the Chinese economy, which has been increasing at an annual rate of 9%, while the US economy has grown at about 3%. So, we can rationally worry about a potential threat, maybe materializing three or four decades out.
Two races
The reality of this threat will depend on the outcomes of two “races”:
1. Will the Chinese economy continue to grow much faster than the American economy?
2. Will the growth of power of ordinary Chinese, Chinese entrepreneurs and the Chinese regional governments exceed that of the Chinese police state?
What can the U.S. do?
We Americans can directly affect only the first race – by increasing our speed in the race that we’re running. So, recast the question: Why must the US economy continue to languish with these (relatively) slow growth rates? We can radically improve America’s economic performance only with LP reforms. A partial agenda to free America from socialism:
· Slash the American government’s demand for the people’s money. (The government spending-to-GDP ratio in “Communist” China is 23%; in the USA, it’s 35%.)
· Privatize Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, government employees’ pensions, etc.
·
End all US Government barriers to free trade, including tariffs
and farms subsidies. 
· Privatize America’s largest, most damaging socialist industry, its K-12. This industry is crippling the American people with the worst K-12 in the industrial world. So, a growing number of Americans see their jobs “taken by immigrants” and “outsourced to Asians”. So, this socialized industry is building a political constituency against immigration and free trade.
· Establish peaceful, friendly relations with all countries by fully normalizing relations with all nations, especially those with authoritarian regimes, like Cuba, Iran and North Korea, where the “subversive power of freedom” can be unleashed.
Attempting to restrain the power of the Chinese police state by restraining the prosperity of the Chinese people is morally inferior to increasing the prosperity of the American people by restraining the power of the American government.
I believe that isolating China is also counterproductive. It will only reverse freedom’s progress in China, substantially increasing the risk of what we most want to avoid: war.
The bipartisan establishment’s world of mystery
Unfortunately, the bipartisan press, as self-appointed “gatekeeper”, blocks from popular consideration the good news of policy that works, that solves the problem, that is based on freedom – especially in the context of elections. They fail, for example, to connect China’s higher growth rate with their government’s smaller fiscal bite out of their people (China's 23% versus America’s 35%). Unaware of any plausible explanations, the press demands no solutions from their clients, Democratic and Republican politicians. Cynicism reigns.
The bipartisan political establishment is resigned in its depressing conclusion that America is doing its best. They may be consigning the world to war and depression in the coming decades.
What can the LP do?
Reform is urgently needed. Without timely libertarian reform, many low-skill Americans will see the interests in direct collision with interests of the Chinese people, as they see their interests in conflict with interests of low-income Mexican immigrants, today. Without much more freedom, especially within the United States of America, the world is headed for world war and world poverty.
The LP is here to say that the enemy is not the Chinese people. The enemy is the inhuman system of socialism – especially socialism at home. The LP is here to say that, at home and abroad, freedom promotes peace and prosperity. Freedom works.