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By Rep. Thaddeus McCotter Posted in Congress | Congressional Contributors — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

When last we chatted, I noted how the Republican Party neglected to send me the memo renouncing anti-communism; and how someone neglected to send the communists a memo informing them they were no longer evil. I imagine the latter memo read thus:

Dear Friends (nee “Comrades”),
Since you lack a free press, let us be the first to inform you the West has won the Cold War against the Soviet Union. Sure, we did not directly defeat your tyrannical regime, but the big bear is tamed and so are you.
Thus, it is time for you to be sporting about this:
(1) Abandon your evil ideology;
(2) Free your enslaved peoples; and
(3) Play nice.
To hasten you transition, we have taken the liberty (no offense meant) to attach an article on “The End of History” and a copy of the 1970s’ seminal foreign policy treatise, “I’m O.K., You’re O.K.” If this insufficiently helpful, we will wage a campaign of schlock and awe against your tyrannical regimes which will culminate in a group hug on Oprah or an unwelcome visit from James Earl Carter. (Name your poison!) If still you persist, we will achieve your utter destruction by unleashing upon you a rain of riches unseen in human history.
Humbly Submitted,
The West

Read on . . .

This latter proved no idle threat. In the years since President Clinton (who, as candidate Clinton – remember him? – promised to get “tough” with the butchers of Tiananmen Square) signed the Permanent Normalization of Trade Relations with communist China (H.R. 4444) on May 24, 2000, the West has adopted a dubious “Make Loot Not War” strategy of pacifying communist regimes through trade and vainly hoping it undermines their ideology. To us recalcitrant Reaganite fossils still wedded to the antiquated concept of America’s moral duty to help all human beings breathe free, the early returns alarm.

Teetering on the edge of the ash can of history when it killed kids in Tiananmen Square for quoting Thomas Jefferson, Beijing’s communist regime has made a comeback worthy of Dick Nixon. Thanks to the West’s “Make Loot Not War” strategy, communist China rules the world’s fastest growing economy – an estimated 2006 GDP of $10 trillion dollars with a 10.5% growth rate. (This is reminiscent of the 1950’s Soviet Union – remember them? Didn’t their brief surge of prosperity transform Lenin’s spawn into liberal snuggle bunnies?) As of January 2007, communist China held $353.6 billion in U.S. Treasury Bonds and, including non-treasury securities, as of 2005 they held over $527.3 billion in total U.S. debt. (Overall, from 2004-2005, communist China’s holdings of U.S. debt increased by 54.6%). Further, as of December 31, 2006, these entrepreneurial Maoists had a trade surplus with the United States of $232,548,600 (up 17% over the prior year). Who’d have ever thought trading with a slave labor regime would be so expensive?

Given Western elites’ odes to this vanguard of the proletariat’s new penchant for riches, one is tempted to assume these kinder, gentler Chinese communists are conscientiously using their new-found wealth to advance worthy causes, such as promoting dolphin-free tuna and refurbishing the Clinton library’s “jungle room.” But these running dogs of communism evidently believe charity begins at home. This year, communist China’s defense spending will be $45 billion (up 17.8%), the largest increase in the past half-decade. This is not to say Beijing’s priorities are exclusively parochial. Communist China is spending billions around the globe to acquire resources from and cement its relations with pro-American nations, like Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and, yes, Comrade Putin’s Russia (through such benevolent associations as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization – remember them?). In sum, communist China is spending the literally boatloads of money we ship them in some very curious places. At this “end of history,” it’s a good thing there’s no such thing as a “world-wide communist menace.”

At the risk of sounding ungrateful, in addition to our burgeoning foreign debt and trade deficit, the destruction of our domestic manufacturing base, and their defense build up and investment in America’s enemies – oops, “adversaries” – what other boons have we bought with our “peaceful co-existence” with communist China?

Well, there have been some attempts at “reforms,” though Chinese communists have reverted to form on key human rights issues by committing numerous and heinous abuses of their subjugated people’s human rights. Still, if one ignores the fact the communist party, not the government, is the supreme ruler, one could claim progress in the realm of legislative elections. One must also ignore how, in 2004, communist China’s highest “legislature” blocked Hong Kong’s efforts toward a direct democracy on the grounds changes needed to be gradual, lest they endanger the people’s “stability” and “prosperity.” To be fair, one should not ignore the fact elections in communist China do occur in selected rural communities for village leader and for local “People’s Congresses,” which then conduct an election for the next higher level of “People's Congresses” and, ultimately, for the national “legislature.” But to be heartened by this development, one must ignore the fact the “voters” choose only amongst eight small, officially registered parties controlled by the Chinese Communist Party; one must ignore the fact no subversive political opposition groups legally exist; and one must ignore the fact the regime has identified the Falungong spiritual movement and the China Democracy Party as subversive groups. Come to think of it, at this rate of “reform” in communist China, the West will have to ignore the fact we will go broke before we buy them off.

This fact the communist Chinese do not ignore, as they execute their strategy of “Make Loot Then War.”

[To be continued…]