British statesman Sir Winston Churchill once declared that “the inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” 

I agree with that capitalism, unlike any other economic system in the world, has lifted billions of people out of poverty and provided much hope to the downtrodden.   

But I’m also familiar with Vladimir Lenin’s quotation that “the capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”

Who’s right and who’s wrong?

They are both right!

Unfettered capitalism in the twenty-first century remains a threat to the nationalist sentiments of all nations – even for those socialist countries that have embraced an out-of-wedlock affair with capitalist forces.

What has changed the status quo for capitalism is the rise of the People’s Republic of China on the world stage. The General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping has not been shy about announcing his goal of world domination. But this has not acted as a deterrent to U.S. businesses that are more concerned with tapping a 1.4 billion consumer market than protecting the well-being of their own country.  It is time that U.S. politicians stop fooling themselves with calling China our competitor in the global market.  China is the enemy and has to be treated as such!

U.S. politicians, presidents, and businessmen attempted to justify their economic engagement with China by arguing that China would thrive by exposing itself to the market economies of the world, which would generate a powerful middle class and a civil society that would bring about democracy.  All of these men and women proved to be wrong by drinking the tranquilizing drug of deluding themselves.

Communist governments throughout history have put in place effective propaganda bureaus to masquerade the atrocities they carry out. They paint a false picture to the world community of having a workers’ paradise where the government takes cares of all its citizens according to their needs. This image is destroyed immediately when you ask the following question: if communist countries were such heaven, why are so many citizens from these countries anxious to emigrate to Western countries? Ah, now they realize the big lie! Moreover, all you have to do to get a grip on the lies is to see what these communist countries call themselves: People’s Republic of China, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (for North Korea), German Democratic Republic (for the former East Germany), and Republic of Cuba. All of these countries are not republics by any stretch of the imagination, and their people are certainly not in charge of their destinies! The Communist Party in these nations reigns supreme over their people!

Under all communist regimes – whether in China, Russia, North Korea, or Cuba – the Communist Party is omnipotent.  It follows that citizens serve as raw material for the survival of the state government, and all religions and their gods are banned.  Therefore, communism aims to eliminate all class distinctions by making almost all of its citizens poor – except the elites who are the members of the communist parties. 

The lack of concern for human life was evident when the Chinese authorities rolled out its tanks in Tiananmen Square in June 1989 and massacred at least 10,000 people – mainly students who were calling for democracy, free speech, and a free press in China. 

And the human rights violations have not subsided in China.  2020 was an appalling year for China that revealed massive crackdowns on dissent in Hong Kong and Tibet, repression of Muslim Uighurs, and attempts to cover up the COVID-19 outbreak.

After all the war crimes that Putin has committed against the Ukrainian people and that the world audiences have watched on TV and social media platforms, the United Nations General Assembly voted on April 7, 2022, to suspend Russia from its membership in the U.N. Human Rights Council. Among the countries who voted against this resolution were China, Cuba, and Iran — all countries with similar human-rights violations.

During the first week of April of 2022, Shanghai – a city with approximately 26 million people – has reported more than 20,000 COVID cases every day.  The immediate and harsh response by members of the Chinese Communist Party has been to impose a strict lockdown of the city, and all residents have been ordered to stay at home.  Considering the lack of supplies, residents of the city have been looting emergency supply centers due to shortages of food and drinks.  There are videos available where Shanghai residents can be heard screaming from their apartments.  Once again, the Chinese officials are more concerned with containment of the virus than supplying the basic necessities to its citizens. Do you think that these Chinese officials treat the citizens from other countries better than its own? I don’t think so!

While China has a socialist market economy, make no mistake about it – the Communist Party rules supreme.  While the Chinese government authorities do allow a handful of billionaires, these “selected few” cannot forget who’s their daddy. This became quite obvious to Jack Ma – a Chinese billionaire and former executive chairman of Alibaba Group, a multinational technology conglomerate.  After he gave a speech in 2020 in Shanghai where he criticized Chinese regulators for stifling innovation, the valuation of his companies declined by nearly 50%, and he was forced to sell South China Morning Post (a Hong Kong-based daily).  As punishment, Chinese regulators issued a $2.8 billion fine on Alibaba for abusing its “dominant market position.” Ma has been seen in public only twice since October 2020 – fueling speculation as to his whereabouts.  Obviously, Ma got too big for his britches, and the Chinese Communist Party members lowered the hammer on him.

After reaping record profits, most U.S. businesses have decided to manufacture almost everything in China because the labor cost is much lower.  This was not the brightest ideas as evinced by the supply-chain breakdowns triggered by the COVID-19 virus. An economic model that relied on multiple suppliers, perhaps more expensive, would have worked better.  It’s time to bring the manufacturing capacity back to the U.S.

Everyone remembers the stress felt by most Americans during the COVID epidemic when 90% of pharmaceutical products — including antibiotics — were made in China.  An article in Xinhua, one of the mouthpieces of the Chinese Communist Party, suggested that China could have imposed pharmaceutical export controls — which would have caused a spike of COVID cases and deaths in the U.S.  If Americans were oblivious to the danger that China represented to the survival of the United States, this should have provided a wake-up call.

Tech giant Microsoft announced the withdrawal of its LinkedIn social media service in 2021 from China — that previously included a social feed and the ability to share posts and articles.  LinkedIn had launched its operation in China in 2014, which at one point reached 54 million users. But the Chinese government started pursuing recently a policy of pushing tech firms out of the news business.  This should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the communist practice of always controlling the message disseminated to its citizens.  In China, there can only be one fake-news media outlet – one controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.

Many of us view what happened to LinkedIn as poetic justice for their past delusions.  To ingratiate itself with Chinese government officials in the past, LinkedIn employees censored posts and accounts that they thought might have offended Beijing.  For example, my LinkedIn account – with over 7,000 followers – was permanently cancelled because I referred to the COVID-19 as the “Chinese” virus.  I would have gladly switched the designation to the “Chinese Communist Party” virus – if I had been given a prior warning.

I want to be clear that when discussing the top enemy of the United States, I’m referring to the members of the Chinese Communist Party, its General Secretary Xi Jinping, and all the Chinese people who support them. I have nothing against those Chinese people who are against the oppression that the Chinese Communist Party subjects them to on a daily basis. They are the victims, and I express my total solidarity with them.

The top leaders of BlackRock – the biggest asset management company in the world – required American businesses to focus not just on the bottom line, but also on environmental and social concerns.  But when it came to China, Larry Fink (BlackRock’s CEO) did not want to alienate the Chinese officials.  In a recent interview, Fink said the following: “I would qualify the Chinese leadership as one of the best leadership teams in the world.” Obviously, Fink was sending a hidden message to Chinese officials not to expect any criticism on human rights or social issues from him.  Profits came ahead of repression.

All Americans must recognize and treat China as an adversary.  China has launched a campaign of economic espionage and infiltration of American institutions. It has undertaken a rapid buildup of nuclear and conventional forces that pose a threat to Taiwan.  And it maintains a disinformation machine that seeks aims to undermine the U.S. all over the world – like its willingness to shift the blame for the spread of the COVID-19 virus to a U.S. military laboratory.  This flies in the face of Chinese officials not allowing American scientists to visit the central Chinese city of Wuhan to investigate the origins of the virus. If there was nothing to hide, why did the Chinese government officials behave in this way?!!!

So, what’s America to do?

U.S. consumers must purchase “made in the U.S.” products rather than those with the “made in China” label – even when the U.S. products have a higher price tag.  It is not only the patriotic duty for Americans, but we all know the challenges faced when purchasing products with the lowest price tags.

The U.S. Government must bolster alliances in Asia – as this is a fertile region for countries that fear China’s encroachment on their sovereignty – especially countries like the Philippines and Vietnam that have sparred in the past with China over contested claims in the South China Sea. 

Rather than taking a reactive posture, the U.S. Government should approve massive arms sales to Taiwan.  And these arm sales must be carried NOW — not when China has launched an invasion of this island. China has not hidden its plans to bring Taiwan to its fold.  A lot more lives could have been saved if the U.S. had sold more military hardware to Ukraine before “war criminal” Putin launched his invasion.

The U.S. Government should hit China with sanctions for its human rights abuses and trade practices. 

The U.S. Government must continue to demand the World Trade Organization to switch the “developing country” designation of China with a “developed country” one.  China is a “developed country,” and it should not receive the special and differential treatment on trade that are reserved for “developing countries.”

Most importantly, the U.S. Government must demand reparations from China for the COVID-19 outbreak.  As of March 31, 2022, there were 80,019,128 confirmed cases of COVID in the U.S., and 978,648 deaths.  Keep mind that we have lost more Americans due to COVID than the approximately 58,220 military casualties in the Vietnam War.

The U.S. Government must complete building of The Wall and require Chinese President Xi Jinping from exporting fentanyl across the Southern border. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 107,000 Americans died as a result of drug overdose in the 12-month period ending in November 2021, and 66% of overdose deaths involved synthetic opioids like fentanyl. China manufactures fentanyl, while banks and the Mexican drug cartels get rich by selling these synthetic opioids at the expense of Americans. These deaths are meaningless to members of the Chinese Communist Party who consider communist ideology supreme over the sanctity of human life.

U.S. consumers must punish with their pocketbooks those U.S. companies and sport teams and athletes who overlook the unfair trade policies and human rights abuses of the Chinese authorities. 

The U.S. Government must enforce evenly across party lines the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) – which requires Americans acting on behalf of foreign governments or entities to register and describe their work to the U.S. Department of Justice. Over the span of fourteen months, the CEFC China Energy paid $4.8 million to entities controlled by Hunter Biden and his uncle, James Biden. Neither of them had registered with the U.S. Department of Justice as required by FARA. Americans expect U.S. Attorney General Garland to name a special counsel to investigate this matter.

The U.S. Government must ban lobbying on behalf of Chinese military and intelligence-linked companies.  Far too many former U.S. politicians and ambassadors are making a fortune by lobbying the Washington powerbrokers on behalf of Chinese companies.  This must stop!

Similarly, ban Chinese military- and intelligence-linked companies from trading in American stock exchanges.

Put a stop to research by American universities, investors, and corporations with Chinese military and intelligence projects. According to the College Foreign Gift and Contract Report database indicates that China awarded $120 million in contracts to U.S. universities in 2021 – something that most American parents are unaware of.  Make no mistake about it – China enters into these agreements to spread its propaganda and to keep an eye on its dissenters.

Media outlets need to ask questions about links to China when interviewing Wall Street heads and Silicon Valley giants rather than holding adoring interviews with them and ignoring their past anti-American and pro-China statements.

Engagement with China should be replaced with a reciprocity policy.  If the Washington Times newspaper is banned in China, the Chinese Communist Party should be prohibited from owning newspapers in the U.S.  If Amazon is restricted in the Chinese markets, Alibaba should also be restricted in the U.S. If U.S. universities, nonprofits, and religious organizations are closely monitored in China, Confucius Institutes and Chinese Student and Scholars Associations must be closely monitored or banned in the U.S.

Elect U.S. congressmen(women) who would enact or support legislation to stop China from buying U.S. farmlands.

Never allow Communist China Party members to dictate to U.S. politicians whether they can visit Taiwan or not.

In conclusion, bullies consistently demand the unequal application of rules.  Bullies are well aware that others back down in the face of aggression, so they capitalize on these fears to their advantage. The worst mistake that one can make when facing a bully is to reach an unhealthy compromise to prevent a confrontation.  The only way to stop bullies and get their attention is to stand up to them. 

The time is now to remove the wool over our eyes and treat China as the enemy!