In recent years, China's assertive actions and growing influence on the global stage have raised serious concerns about its hostility towards the United States. As China's geopolitical influence begins to expand, so do our circumstances.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said, "The greatest long-term threat to our nation's information and intellectual property, and our economic vitality, is the counterintelligence and economic espionage threat from China." He’s right, yet the FBI, the DOJ, the Department of Defense, and even the President of the United States have sat back and allowed China to run the show– behavior that would have never been tolerated under President Trump.
In recent months and years, very alarming and aggressive actions have occurred on China's behalf. China has sent a spy balloon over our airspace– conveniently over one of the largest nuclear arsenals in the U.S. and was able to gather intelligence from several sensitive American military sites. Thankfully, the U.S. military could shoot down the balloon after it was done spying. Despite us not having an extradition policy with China, they also have established police stations on American soil to "monitor Chinese citizens living in the United States." Just last month, the CCP sent a Chinese warship to harass a U.S. Destroyer in the Taiwan Strait, and they have even threatened the use of nuclear weapons against the United States if we do not stay away from Taiwan. National security adviser Jake Sullivan said that over the last two years, at various points in the Ukraine crisis, when we have witnessed nuclear threats from the Russian side, we have known how to address them because we have decades of atomic risk reduction, strategic arms control and essential signaling experience with the Russians. We do not have this with China, which is unsettling and destabilizing.
Additionally, China has bought up 384,000 acres of farmland– including land in North Dakota that is just a stone's throw away from some of our high-capability military bases; they have begun negotiations with Cuba to establish a new joint military training facility on the island– which is only eighty miles from Florida; they've been colonizing and continue to occupy parts of Africa and have established military bases there. China has also escalated the U.S. Tech War by banning Micron over "security and privacy concerns;" they have raided U.S. businesses in China and arrested workers; expanded their spy network in Mexico; and over the years, they have tenaciously increased their presence in Central America and the Caribbean through what is part of their Belt and Road Initiative (B.R.I.). The B.R.I. is a global infrastructure development strategy that seeks to connect China with the rest of the world– but in reality, it's just a calculated expansion of their influence and an attempt by China to isolate Taiwan. Cuba is the most recent country to join China's B.R.I., Jamaica and six other island nations in the Caribbean joined in 2019, and Costa Rica in 2018.
The list goes on and continues to grow exponentially. The CCP blatantly disregards and disrespects the United States and continues to mock us by violating American rules and privacy through their belligerent and aggressive behavior.
China's aggression is the direct consequence of electing a President whose son has done shady business dealings with them. The Hunter Biden laptop story is already criminal enough, but whatever blackmail the Chinese government has on the Biden crime family indicates that it blows the laptop story out of the water. In efforts to do damage control to prevent something that is most likely illegal and horrifying from surfacing, the Biden Administration has allowed China to do whatever it is they want.
While some members of the Biden Administration have called for talks with China to establish peace and de-escalation, China is past the talking stage. With the amount of power and influence China has obtained in such a short time, we are at their mercy, not the other way around.
Isabella DeLuca is a Media Associate at the Gold Institute for International Strategy.
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