deadly serious stuff

the work of strategy

The focus on China in the U.S. Congress is currently relatively bipartisan, illustrated by the hearing Representative Mike Gallagher chaired last night. The Wisconsin Republican invited Trump National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and his deputy Matt Pottinger along with a harsh critic of PRC human rights policies, Tong Yi, and Chris Paul, the president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing.

The event started with stark descriptions of the threats the CCP poses to the United States. Gallagher, McMaster and Pottinger all served in our nation in uniform, thus are keenly aware of the profound destruction a war between two nuclear armed states could have. Indeed, the Congressman repeatedly portrayed the nature of the challenge in some of the most evocative terms used in foreign policy for the past thirty-plus years, harkening to the worst years of the Cold War. He sought to separate the current government in Beijing from the Chinese people who suffer under the regime’s yoke. Tong Yi carried the theme further in reminding listeners of the horrors the CCP carries out regularly against those opposing it, individuals known and unknown across the world and certainly in some quarters of the country itself. Pottinger, in particular, cast PRC actions as diabolical and fundamentally unlike the relatively panda-like vision intoxicating the nation fifty years back.

In short, the initial hearing by the Select Committee on China was powerful in calling everyone’s attention to the odious Communist Party of Xi Jinping.

Most of the world knows perfectly well how bad this government is and has been since its inception in 1949. Mao Zedong’s pretense of leading a party committed to the needs of the people was clear within the first years, if not months, of the PRC. As I