Month: September 2020

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Chinese Influence Operations

September 17 marks the day each year when the United States of America celebrates Constitution Day. During this week, a program on the US Constitution is required teaching in our public schools. Instead what many parents are discovering in over 500 of our K-12 schools is that their children are learning in “Confucius classrooms” financially supported by a partnership with “Hanban,” whose parent agency is the Chinese Ministry of Education in Beijing. The communist giant employs a multi-pronged approach to exporting its ideology to the US. The inroads China is making in the American educational system is beyond acceptable.

China provides our children the teachers, approved textbooks, and operating funds. For the last 16 years it has been expanding and funding these “soft power” influence operations with the end goal of broadly promoting a communist state agenda across America. When the FBI, US State Department, and some Members of Congress investigated recently, China simply adapted and renamed its Confucius Institute program the “Ministry of Education Center for Language Exchange and Cooperation” to enable it to skirt American law. Now the “Chinese International Education Foundation” funds and oversees the remaining Confucius Centers. In August, the US State Department announced it was designating the Confucius Institute US Center a foreign mission with the goal of forcing greater transparency in its recruiting operations, funding, and PRC personnel. It may have slowed, but it hasn’t stopped Beijing.

China is running what is commonly referred to as a “united front” operation in the US. The CCP is creating outposts to infiltrate college and university campuses. Over 67 of these college centers are active with five more scheduled to open by the end of September. They disseminate propaganda, conduct espionage in our top university research labs, monitor Chinese students studying in US schools and, according to CCP policy documents, serve to “make the foreign serve China.” Beijing also runs standalone organizations in American cities that show propaganda films, conduct “training,” and attempt to influence local and state politicians.

On Capitol Hill American lobbyists and public relations firms paid by communist China help push through legislation favorable to Beijing and the CCP. The Jamestown Foundation recently identified and named several of the lobbying and public relations firms hired by China. They include well-known, heavy hitters with close ties to Congress who are impactful at influence peddling. “Over the past decade, CUSEF [China-US Exchange Foundation] has been one of the most prominent Chinese entities funding lobbying efforts in the United States: from 2010 to the present, at least seven US firms have maintained contracts with CUSEF for lobbying and public relations services,” according to John Dotson of the Jamestown Foundation. CUSEF Chairman Tung Chee-Hwa is Vice-Chairman of the Chinese People’s Consultative Conference, which is under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.

BLJ Worldwide, a public relations firm in Washington, DC, performs “a broad range of public services in the U.S., including but not limited to defending and promoting China and the key strategic areas in the China-U.S. relationship in the media,” according to Dotson. In the first six months of this year CUSEF paid BLJ $313,000 and another client, the PRC Embassy, paid $144,000. Some of the funds went to the development of a social media campaign and the China-US Focus website. According to Jamestown Foundation, the establishment of such “synthetic think tank publications” backed by the Chinese Ministry of State Security follows a pattern used in other countries to promote PRC propaganda and to criticize policy China does not agree with. 

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The DC lobbying firm, Fontheim International, has been working for China since 2009 earning up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in a single reporting quarter. Covington & Burling also provided China “services.” Capital Counsel promised China “policy and political intelligence gathering an analysis” along with “coalition building,” “arranging meeting and programs on Capitol Hill,” and help with “dissemination with Congress of material generated or sponsored by CUSEF [Chinese government].” Before it closed its doors, the Podesta Group, a well-known lobbying firm in Washington with close ties to the Obama Administration earned hundreds of thousands from the Chinese government. It shuttered its operations after their principals discovered they were under federal investigation. Unfortunately, they simply regrouped and were rehired under a new name. Others include Wilson Global Communications and BGR Government Affairs, which receives $400,000 annually for its efforts on behalf of China.  

The American people need to wake up and realize that this nation is under attack from China on a number of fronts. The longer the tentacles of communism are allowed to attach themselves to our children and the republic the harder it will be to extract them.

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government.  Each Friday, she presents key updates on China.

Illustration: Pixabay

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Attack on the First Amendment

In a media environment largely dominated by progressives, the airing of other views is a true necessity for the maintenance of the First Amendment.  It is expected that those views would produce disagreement from the predominantly leftist media majority; that’s the nature of public debate. 

What is truly worrisome and devastating to constitutional liberties and public safety itself, however, is the impulse by several not just to disagree with non-Democrat views, but to attempt to censor them out of existence altogether.  This is a nationwide trend that began on college campuses, expanded to social media sites, and now has metastasized to the general public square.

Unfortunately, even key elected officials have signed on to this revolt against the Bill of Rights.  Several years ago, Senator Charles Schumer called for the weakening of free speech rights, alleging that paid political speech is not covered by the First Amendment. He stated that “The First Amendment is sacred, but it is not absolute.” Frighteningly, the Senate Minority Leader received the support of the Democrat delegation. Happily, that was not enough to secure passage of the measure.

On college campuses, students and professors not kowtowing to left-wing orthodoxy are ostracized, attacked, and banned. Social media giants censor out voices they disagree with, and cut deals with overseas Communist regimes. The mayor of one city discourages his police from protecting the property of a federal agency leftists dislike, a growing tendency in Progressive-run metropolises. Hollywood moguls harass entertainers who contradict leftist positions. Major news media outlets ignore facts that don’t fit in with their left-wing views.

In addition to the academic, political, and financial acts against those disagreeing with the left, violence has been employed.  Antifa actually uses the classic tactics of fascists and totalitarians to physically assault any that dare disagree with it. It serves as the shock troops of the anti-free speech movement. While serving as vice-chair of the Democrat National Committee,  Keith Ellison signaled support for Antifa.

These Gestapo-like tactics are being supported and encouraged by some Democratic leaders.  Rep. Maxine Waters of California has urged supporters to assault Trump Cabinet members at gas stations and anywhere else they’re seen. “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere,” she said.

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A key tactic of those opposing the presence of contrary views and the practice of free speech rights is to make broad and untrue statements about those with more centrist or conservative views, then not allow the offended to respond. 

Recently, the legal abuses by the Obama Administration have been noted in this column and other forums. The use of the IRS to harass the Tea Party, and the use of the Justice Department to attack those disagreeing with the former president on climate issues are two salient examples.  These are not allegations, they are facts.  Indeed, the IRS was forced to publicly apologize for its actions. Nevertheless, those courageous civil libertarians pointing out these violations are publicly denounced for detailing the lawbreaking by Democrat partisans. Even worse, they are frequently ignored and not given the chance to address the public.

The dominance of mass media by the left has acted as a shield for the misdeeds of those it favors. It was recently pointed out that the Obama Administration tilted towards Iran, the world’s leading sponsor of terror.  That reality is downplayed by the biased media. A former Obama official, John Kerry, has met with Iranian officials since leaving office.  That is not an opinion, it is a fact. Yet mentioning those facts brings down a torrent of objections from leftist who seek to rewrite history for their own benefit, a tactic common to totalitarian regimes.

Dissent and disagreement in a free nation are healthy.  The growing leftist and progressive tendency to censor and employ violence against those it disagrees with are worrisome signs that that health is deteriorating.

Illustration: Pixabay

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Dividing America for Partisan Gain

Americans like to believe that they are unlike the people of Russia who succumbed to the oppression of Communism, Germans who surrendered to Nazi rule, or Venezuelans who gave in to Marxism.

They believe that the legacy of fighting for freedom in the Revolution, for the liberty of all in the Civil War, and victories over tyranny throughout the 20th century provided the knowledge, courage and tradition to avoid the fate of others throughout the world who fell to oppression.

Current events are dispelling that comfortable illusion.

Equality under the law is a central aspect of freedom for Americans, and the rejection of that concept is characteristic of authoritarian governments, where leaders are held to be immune from common justice. But that concept has been successfully challenged by many significant politicians who have violated laws with impunity.  Providing what amounts to immunity from prosecution is a hallmark of totalitarian regimes, and has now become a key characteristic of progressive American politicians and leftist activists.

An educational system dominated by Progressives and Leftists eliminated the memory of the American legacy of judicial equality from their young. That problem is exacerbated by Hollywood, social media giants and corporate leadership who in general are dominated by those with the dream of making a treasure in the Chinese market. They have sold their souls to appease Beijing, and do so by betraying distinctly American ideals such as free speech.

This altered paradigm rose to exceptional prominence during the Obama Administration, when whole portions of the federal government were unlawfully engaged for partisan politics. That practice also extended to individuals who held significant positions. Hillary profited from the sale of the basic ingredient of nuclear weapons to the Russians. John Kerry continues to advise Iran on how to evade U.S. policy.

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A crucial step in replacing a freedom-centric paradigm with a socialist, authoritarian model is destroying the institutions that safeguard personal liberty. Freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, the limitations on federal authority, all of these crucial provisions within the Bill of Rights are under constant and substantial attack by the Left.

The first step is trying to convince the citizenry that they are not free, and require an overwhelming change,  an absurd notion in the United States, but one which the left increasingly propagates.  Ryan Cooper, writing in The Week, provides a clear example of this socialist thinking: “Americans are in fact an extraordinarily unfree people, oppressed and downtrodden on all sides, and have generally just sat and taken it. This is in part because our typical notion of freedom, based entirely around the ability of the individual to do what he or she wants free of government interference, is a preposterous fiction.”

New York City has proven to be a prime testing ground. Mayor Bill de Blasio, (who cheered on the Soviet Union when it placed combat weapons in Nicaragua and honeymooned in Cuba) has moved expeditiously, supported by a hard-left dominated City Council. He has unlawfully used city property to advocate Progressive causes. Astoundingly, he has decreed that gatherings be banned, except for those he politically approves of. He has attacked and demoralized nonpolitical centers of influence, including the Police Department and religious institutions.

Delegitimizing duly elected government is another example. The Chaz district in Seattle, which invaded and occupied an entire community (including a local police precinct) was a direct challenge, similar to the firing on Fort Sumter. The refusal by state and local government to move against the Seattle Secessionists speaks volumes about the mindset of Leftists elected officials.

Crucial to the Left’s success is eliminating any center of influence or power not subservient to them. That explains the ongoing vicious diatribes against any politician, pundit, or community leader, Democrat or Republican, who differ in their views. It also explains the unprecedented assault against religion. The wave of arson against churches and the rampant anti-Semitism are due to this.

Pitting one segment of the citizenry against the other is a crucial step in the Left’s drive. Progressives have succeeded most spectacularly in diverting attention from their assault on freedom by distracting the citizenry through resurrecting racial disputes that had been lagely abolished a half century ago. Ben Shapiro writes:

“The philosophy of division is a philosophy that derides any notion of American unity as a lie, and bathes that which links us — Abraham Lincoln’s ‘bonds of affection’ and ‘mystic chords of memory’— in acid, disintegrating our ties and casting us all adrift. I call this strain of thought ‘Disintegrationism.’ In order to argue that America’s philosophy is wrongheaded, her culture diseased, and her history evil, Disintegrationists …home in, in excruciating detail, on America’s sins, …but rob that history of all context or subsequent history. Exploitation is a feature of every human society, and repeated mistreatment by some groups of other groups is a similarly common feature…It is simply undeniable that capitalism, founded on protection of property rights — the ideology of the Founding Fathers — has been uniquely successful in spreading peace and prosperity both domestically and around the globe.”

Progressives, in their bid to gain power, have threatened individual rights as nothing before in this nation has.

Illustration: Ft. Sumter (Smithsonian)

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International Cyber Threats to Election

Just as airplanes and tanks transformed war in the 20th Century, the employment of Cyberspace for military and espionage missions is changing the nature of international battles in the 21st.  Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea invest in military capabilities that reduce America’s competitive advantages and compromise national security. Some of these states have demonstrated the resolve, technical capability, and persistence to undertake strategic cyberspace campaigns, including theft of intellectual property and personally identifiable information that are vital to our defenses. Disruptive technologies will eventually accelerate our adversaries’ ability to impose costs.

As the November general election approaches, the U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency are concerned about foreign manipulation. 

“We’re looking at the spectrum of all of our adversaries, Russia, China, Iran, and ransomware actors,” said Dave Imbordino, the election security lead with the National Security Agency.

“There’s more people [than just Russia] in the game,” Imbordino said. “They’re learning from each other. Influence is a cheap game to get into now with social media. It doesn’t cost a lot of money. You can try to launder your narratives online through different media outlets…”

Army Brig. Gen. Joe Hartman is the commander of the Cyber National Mission Force at U.S. Cyber Command and also the election security lead for Cybercom. He revealed that in the 2018 midterm election, Cybercom and NSA had set up the “Russia Small Group” to deal with potential Russian interface during that election.

General Hartman outlined the challenges, noting that Influence operations are a primary threat. That involves the creation of information online by adversarial nations, often through proxy groups, to create discord and influence opinion in the U.S.

Imbordino said the Russian-operated Internet Research Agency, for instance, has set up operations overseas to generate misleading and divisive information to influence voter opinion.

“They have set up something in Africa, Ghana, in terms of … having people there trying to put stuff online, posting things about, you know, socially divisive issues, using covert influence websites to be able to get their narrative out,” he said. “That’s kind of a shift in tactic we’ve seen from Russia side.”

China, he said, has proven effective in doing the same in their own part of the world, in Taiwan and Hong Kong, for instance.

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“Them becoming potentially more aggressive in the U.S. space is something that we need to monitor and be prepared for,” Imbordino said. “For the Chinese cyber threat … they’re a little bit different in terms of the scale and breadth of the targets they go after. Every U.S. citizen is a target of China, just because of the big data, the PII [personally identifiable information] that they’re interested in collecting … I think that sets them uniquely apart.”

China has a whole section of its military, headquartered in Shanghai, that spends all of its time in infiltrating American governmental, military and civilian internet networks.

The Defense Department points out that Iran is also getting into the influence game, and is learning from what other adversaries are doing.

General Hartman said Cybercom has capabilities now on the home front to defend against threats to national elections, including on-call defensive cyber elements in “war rooms” that are ready to respond if called upon by agencies like DHS or FBI, for instance. But that’s not all, he said.

“We have elements that are sitting over in other op centers, and they are prepared. If we see an adversary that’s attempting to do something to interfere with that election … we have the ability to play the away game,” he said. “We have the ability to go out in foreign space and look at what you’re doing. And we have the ability to make you stop doing that.”

Photo: U.S. Cyber Command

 

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Step-by-Step Tyranny

A crucial step in replacing America’s freedom-centric paradigm with a socialist, authoritarian model is destroying the institutions that safeguard personal liberty. Freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, the limitations on federal authority, all of these crucial provisions within the Bill of Rights are under constant and substantial attack by the Left.

Politically, an overt attack on these key Constitutional protections would face little chance of success. The apparent strategy adopted has been to first convince Americans that the nation is so evil, both currently and in its past, that massive remedial measures must be taken.

Those individuals and institutions who question this obviously false narrative are subjected to horrific retribution, both in terms of slander and libel, and violence and threats of violence. Doxing, commonly defined as the Internet-based practice of researching and publicly broadcasting private or identifying information about an individual or organization, is one such type of harassment.  The methods employed to acquire this information include searching publicly available databases and social media websites, hacking, and social engineering. The goal is to encourage threatening incursions at or near the homes or offices of those who dare to question the Left’s false charges.

Crucial to the Left’s success is eliminating any center of influence or power not subservient to their power.  That explains the ongoing vicious diatribes against any politician, Democrat or Republican, who differ in their views.It also explains the unprecedented assault against religion. The wave of arson against churches and the rampant anti-Antisemitism are due to this.

A vital component in the Left’s strategy is trying to convince the citizenry that they are not free and require an overwhelming change. It is an absurd notion in the United States, but one which Progressives increasingly propagate. Ryan Cooper, writing in The Week, dubiously alleges that “Americans are, in fact, an extraordinarily unfree people, oppressed and downtrodden on all sides…This is in part because our typical notion of freedom, based entirely around the ability of the individual to do what he or she wants free of government interference, is a preposterous fiction. Americans have been brainwashed into thinking that freedom from government is the highest ideal…” 

New York City has proven to be a prime testing ground for how far Constitutional safeguards can be ignored.  Mayor Bill de Blasio, (who cheered on the Soviet Union when it placed combat weapons in Nicaragua and honeymooned in Cuba) has moved expeditiously, supported by a hard-left dominated City Council. He has unlawfully used city property to advocate hard-left causes. Astoundingly, he has decreed that gatherings be banned, except for those he politically approves of. He has attacked and demoralized nonpolitical centers of influence, including the Police Department and religious institutions.

De-legitimizing duly elected government is another approach. The revolt against the results of the 2016 election is the most salient example, but not the only one. The Chaz district in Seattle, where leftists invaded and occupied an entire community (including a local police precinct) was a direct challenge, similar to the firing on Fort Sumter.

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The refusal by state and local government to move against the Seattle Secessionists speaks volumes about the mindset of Progressive elected officials.

Pitting one segment of the citizenry against the other is a crucial process in the Left’s drive. Progressives have succeeded most spectacularly in diverting attention from their assault on freedom by distracting the citizenry through resurrecting racial inequities that had been largely abolished a half century ago. The central thesis of those attempting to initiate a race war in America is that, even if there is not one law, rule, procedure or practice that is racist, America is a racist nation so long as any individual commits a racist act. That, of course, establishes a criteria that every single citizen must be totally pure of heart, thought and deed, a criteria no human society can attain.

It is a sobering reality that, so far, the Progressive war on freedom has made extraordinary advances.

Photo: Karl Marx (Pixabay)

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Foreign Policy Update

NATO

The US is holding European countries accountable for contributing their share of the NATO budget, according to Secretary of State Michel Pompeo. He added that in a second Trump Administration the US will be an active member of the organization.  “I think General Secretary Stoltenberg, the leader of NATO, said there is now $400 billion more that will be invested into NATO.  It’s a direct result of President Trump’s leadership.  NATO is stronger under President Trump than it has been in previous administrations,” said Pompeo.

CHINA

According to the Department of Defense China now has the world’s largest Navy. There are some discrepancies when it comes to ship-to-ship equivalence, but China is developing a world-class blue water Navy. In a recent interview, Pompeo said that this is something that has been ongoing for a long time but that is accelerating. “The good news…,” he added, “…is President Trump has made sure that we have the capabilities that we need, whether it’s the designation of the Space Force so that we have the capacity to compete there, the work that we’re doing to make it more difficult for China to use Huawei and its technology to pose threats to us as well, they’re connected in their civil and military efforts, or simply the fact that we have now spent more than $700 billion two years running to make sure that our military has the capability that it needs.

Pompeo does worry about the Chinese Communist Party increasing military capacity, he said. But he also is confident that President Trump will put the US in a position to make sure that America is safe.

EQUADOR

The Galapagos Islands are being threatened by overfishing from Chinese commercial fleets that have encroached on Equador’s exclusive economic zone which is a fragile environmental area. Currently, there are 274 Chinese fishing vessels inside Equadoran waters. Pompeo called this predatory economic activity and added that “This is another exemplar, whether it’s in Africa and the predatory activities taking place in Africa, they – the Chinese Communist Party model today is to do what has been part of Chinese history for a long time: to create vassal states, tributary states that have to pay tribute to Beijing as the Middle Kingdom.” Pompeo said that the us has been working on a diplomatic solution for months to avoid an open conflict.

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VENEZUELA

In a statement released from Secretary Pompeo he said that “The Maduro regime’s announcement of conditional dismissal of criminal charges against roughly one-third of the political prisoners it holds does not solve, nor even address, Venezuela’s underlying political crisis.  Hundreds of political prisoners remain, and like those now offered house arrest or an end (for the moment) to their criminal cases, none of these Venezuelans should ever have been imprisoned for a single day.”

He pointed out that the condition of democracy in Venezuela remains “dire.” The dismissal of charges are conditional, according to Pompeo, meaning that Venezuelan officials have threatened to rescind the benefit if any individuals “return to any act of terrorism, violence, or coup-mongering,” as arbitrarily determined by the regime.

Conditions for free and fair elections do not exist in Venezuela and the release of a number of political prisoners does not change that, according to the State Department. “None of the political parties whose leadership was removed and their names, symbols, and assets stolen by the regime have been restored, including parties from the left that challenge the regime’s control of Chavez’s political legacy,” noted Pompeo. Many politicians who oppose the Maduro regime still are not allowed to run for public office nor have they had their political rights restored. There is no freedom of the press or expression, or assembly in the country.

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government.  Each Saturday, she presents key updates on U.S. foreign policy from the State Department.

Illustration: Pixabay

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China Military’s Enormous Threat

Nineteen years ago this week the US suffered a defining event in its modern history. Known since that day simply as “9-11,” the American people have managed skillfully to balance the country’s emerging critical need for national security with the systemic requirement for individual freedom. China and the CCP leadership do not understand the key importance of this relationship nor do they seek it at home or abroad. Advances in computer technology during the last few years have enabled the Communist Party leadership to move further toward complete tyranny over the country’s domestic population and increased military aggression overseas. Using the latest developments in big data analytics and nascent editions of AI technology, Beijing is pushing the modernization of its military in ways that today threaten the entire world.

President Xi Jinping announced that there is a modernization plan for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to enhance its capabilities to put China on par with the most advanced Western nations. At issue for the West and China’s neighbors, is Beijing’s end goal of hegemonic power and the methods it intends to employ to achieve it. Using publicly available data RAND Corporation wove together a picture of China’s broadly outlined national defense big data (国防大数据) plan. What it reveals should give China’s Asian neighbors and the world cause for immediate alarm. The Chinese definition of “national defense” big data collection by its military is all-encompassing. Its two defining characteristics are supersecrecy and supercomplexity.

The recently released RAND study reports that other key characteristics of China’s informationized military plan “go beyond those of general big data” that normally include high velocity, high variety, high volume, and high value computing. The country also is incorporating the 6S characteristics of supercomplexity, supersecrecy, speedy deployment, safety, a strong degree of confrontation, and strong timeliness. What that means to the world in common vernacular is that China intends to own the warfighting domain and possess the capacity to win both a localized war and one against a superpower. If the CCP leadership decide to forcibly conquer Taiwan or take control of the South and East China Seas, having an information advantage could be the deciding factor in a modern, fast-changing battlespace that incorporates information warfare. If it faces off with the United States it will need to control the information domain to achieve parity or potentially win.

First reported three years ago in the People’s Liberation Army Daily, Li Daguang, of China’s National Defense University’s Military Logistics and Military Science and Technology Equipment Teaching and Research Department, said that for China big data is the single most significant point of focus in great power struggles and that “data sovereignty” is being treated as equally critical to land, sea, air and space sovereignty. The goal of offensive data includes the destruction of the information infrastructure of an adversary. 

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The PLA Academy of Military Science’s Information Resources Center considers national defense big data to be a critical resource that will play a decisive role in joint operations. This is an area where American military analysts in past years considered China to be behind the West. PLA scholars claim that a futuristic “digitized officer” won’t fully replace humans, but will be more capable and faster at accomplishing many critical tasks. C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance), cybersecurity, modeling and logistics are only a few of the research areas the PLA is concentrating its resources on in the next decade. Other programs are centered around an effort to train and recruit the personnel to handle the R&D effort.  

One question Western military strategists are asking in 2020 is what are China’s operational plans for their advanced big data capabilities in the future? And, is this intermediate step enough to create the needed linkage necessary for effective future artificial intelligence efforts. The RAND report suggests that there is a wide range of possibilities that all dramatically enhance the country’s technical warfighting capabilities.
The PLAN aims to use pictures from remote sensors to “create an image database on which to train deep learning algorithms to differentiate between different types of warships, then use those algorithms to build a multi-sensor warship detection platform.” This would provide the PLAN a capability to identify medium-sized warships with 95 percent accuracy. Another project aims to identify soil, water, rock, or synthetic objects with only a 5% error rate. Yet another seeks to ID and target communications sources on land and underseas to employ limited acoustical imaging to identify underwater targets. A 2017 Political Work Studies journal suggests that China also intends to use these advanced computer technologies in the ideological education of its military personnel and to track a soldier’s actions and thoughts. These represent an annotated list of a large data set of possible technology advances. It may be 2020 but it sounds a lot more like George Orwell’s 1984!

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government.  Each Friday, she presents key updates on China.

Illustration: Pixabay

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Strategic Rivalry With China

Slowly but surely, America’s relationship with China is becoming a major flashpoint within relations not only between Washington and Beijing, but within the U.S. and between the U.S. and its European allies.

A Brookings Report issued in June notes that “that while both the United States and Europe are both moving toward a tougher and more critical view of China, European governments aren’t anywhere near as tough. Instead, they are trying to advance their distinct interests, which means emphasizing cooperation and partnership with China along with vigorous competition and criticism… the official EU statement issued after the summit is headlined: ‘EU-China Summit: Defending EU interests and values in a complex and vital partnership.’The word “partnership” has basically disappeared in U.S. policy and most policy debates about China, replaced by “competition,” “rivalry,” even “confrontation.”

Donald Trump made a tougher stance towards Beijing a key part of his 2016 campaign, and has continued that theme throughout his presidency. Fury over the role of China’s malfeasance in the COVID-19 has solidified his stance.

Recently, The White House released a comprehensive examination of the strategic relationship with China. In essence, it describes past efforts at cooperation and urging that nation to become a part of the peaceful and cooperative world community, with a political system that defends basic human rights, as a failure. According to the study,

“Over the past two decades, reforms have slowed, stalled, or reversed. The PRC’s rapid economic development and increased engagement with the world did not lead to convergence with the citizen-centric, free and open order as the United States had hoped. The CCP has chosen instead to exploit the free and open rules based order and attempt to reshape the international system in its favor. Beijing openly acknowledges that it seeks to transform the international order to align with CCP interests and ideology. The CCP’s expanding use of economic, political, and military power to compel acquiescence from nation states harms vital American interests and undermines the sovereignty and dignity of countries and individuals around the world.”

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In the last few months of his administration, President Bill Clinton sign legislation which gave China essentially the same access to American markets as most nations.  What followed was, in essence, an economic disaster for the U.S.  Using a variety of illicit economic practices, Beijing devasted American companies and, in particular, devasted American manufacturing, blue-collar employment, and the pharmaceutical industry, a challenge that become particularly evident in the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.  While many are calling for tough sanctions in retaliation for Beijing’s actions, U.S. dependency on China for most of its medicines has restrained the nation’s ability to strike back.

Unfair trade and predatory financial practices are only part of the problem.  Using its already massive and still growing economic clout, China has openly threatened retaliation against any who speak against it.  An NBA player who criticized the Chinese Communist Party’s human rights record was silenced by his sports leadership following Beijing’s threats to cut off that league from its market.

In addition, Beijing has engaged in a level of espionage that made even the old Soviet Union’s spying look amateurish in contrast. Some of that effort is traditional cloak-and-dagger, stealing major secrets from the military and the companies it contracts with.  But it doesn’t stop there.  Even non-military related research is targeted to an unprecedented degree.

The Chinese Communist Party is not shy about its efforts.  It has used it money muscles to meddle in U.S. education and cultural institutions, including altering Hollywood movie scripts and developing “Confucius Institutes” on college campuses to persuade students to see that nation as a benevolent presence.

Photo: Beijing evening (Pixabay)

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The War on Reason

There are times in the course of history when sanity gives way to madness, and evil prevails. The Spanish Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, the aftermath of the French Revolution, the rise of Nazi Germany, Stalin’s reign in the Soviet Union, Mao Tse Tung’s Cultural Revolution, the murder of Cambodians by their Khmer Rouge communist government are prime examples.

We are in the midst of such a period within the United States.  The national debate that was once framed by Democrats against Republicans, liberals vs. conservatives, has been reduced to contention between reason and madness.

Irrational forces, when confronted with truths that contradict their warped worldview, respond with hatred and violence, seen on the streets of many cities and catered to by politicians greedy for votes and corporations who have the misguided belief that the majority of Americans condone or agree with the vandals.

Even questioning the beliefs of the rioters has become dangerous in what is rapidly becoming a post-free speech era.

In great centers of learning, professors and students that oppose progressive dogma are silenced.

 This problem has historical antecedents. During the Inquisition, debating the motives of the clerics branded one as a heretic. Arguing against claims of sorcery in Salem meant you had to be a witch. The Nazis burned books, and the Soviet government sent you to the Gulag, if they didn’t just kill you.

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We are starting to see that today.  If one asks how America suffers from systemic racism when there is not a single existing law, regulation, or government procedure that tolerates discrimination means you are a racist, according to the left. Objecting to Antifa’s annoying habit of beating innocent bystanders, attacking the police, and destroying neighborhoods means you are a fascist. Bring up the fact that attacks on statues of the Massachusetts 54th, an all-black regiment that fought to end slavery, or of Benjamin Franklin, a staunch Abolitionist,  or General U.S. Grant, who led Union forces to victory in the war to set men free, and you will, of course, be branded a bigot.    

Attacks on the innocent characterize such dark periods.  We are seeing this in Atlanta, where a police officer who sought to justifiably arrest a convicted child abuser who was stopped for driving drunk, a repeat offense, was assaulted by the perpetrator who stole the officer’s Taser and fired at him.  The Policeman did precisely what he was supposed to do, and fired back. In the aftermath, in the madness and hatred perpetuated by the current climate, the officer is being prosecuted for murder, and the child abuser criminal is eulogized as a martyr. 

The destroyers are now moving on to demands that depictions of Jesus be burned. In universities, all progress from the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and so forth are obscured or condemned. That reality is a true indication of what the left is all about.  It’s a revolt not against a particular government of governing system. It’s a revolt against logic and honesty.

Socialism goes hand-in-hand with all this. For over a century, in just about every inhabited continent, this concept has been tried. Consistently, it has failed miserably, leaving financial devastation and shattered lands in its wake. Innocents are killed, imprisoned, or shattered for life. Yet a growing movement within the nation seeks to impose it. But facts, empirical studies, and reality itself are frowned upon in the current climate.  Simply making a statement backed up by hysterical emotion wins the day.

There is a profound difference between past periods of madness, and that which has currently afflicted America.  The United States is this planet’s true engine of human rights, prosperity, and safety from the massive military might of evil nations.  Should America fall, a new dark ages lasting hundreds of years will be upon us. 

Illustration: Pixabay

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Quick Analysis

Dishonest Influencers

Far too many of America’s influencers, those who shape public opinion through broadcasting, publishing, teaching or even entertaining, have proven to be incapable or unwilling to honestly portray the numerous serious issues facing the nation.

There is a key reason for this. Some, especially those who graduated in the past two decades, have been poorly educated in history and even worse in the arts of reason and research. As universities, high schools and even lower education concentrated, reasonably commendably, on science and math, they did so at the expense of history and civics. Ignorant of the hard-learned lessons of past crises and taught in an environment where emotion is considered as vital as accuracy, they simply lack the bedrock tools necessary.

Absent a widespread historical memory or a comprehension of how American government works, it became easy for extremists to push concepts that have already repeatedly failed or that simply fail to reflect reality.

Take the current popularity of socialism, which polls indicate is significantly popular among the young.  A Gallup survey found that at least half of young adults prefer it over capitalism. They do so in large part because biased hard-left professors refused to reveal how socialism has consistently led to tyranny, mass murder, and destroyed economies. They gloss over the fact that it has provided “equality” by reducing the middle class to poverty, not by raising the poor to increased prosperity. Students and professors who question Leftist orthodoxy are penalized, harassed and ostracized, an authoritative response quite typical of socialist regimes.

By falsely portraying America’s political and economic system as biased and inequitable, they have spawned a movement of misguided militants.

One would assume that more informed journalists, pundits, or professors would strive to provide enlightenment and correct the factual inaccuracies. A (very) small number have, but have done so at great peril.

As the hard-left gained ascendancy in education and journalism, it moved forcefully and expeditiously to remove those with differing views from their institutions. Look at the ratio of Democrats to Republicans in education. Look at how print, broadcast and internet news organizations delete those with conservative views from their staffs. Note how the entertainment industry vigorously and viciously blackballs those who dissent from “progressive” views.

A recent, and perhaps one of the most illustrative examples comes from the rapidly deteriorating New York Times. The publication acted shamefully (again!) In saying there’s no need for a presidential debate. They rightfully fear that Biden’s mental decay will show, and have become so partisan they would rather support an incompetent than honestly report the news. Eliminating debates means eliminating the role of the public to make up their own mind as to the better of the two candidates. The New York Times and the elitists who detest popular opinion believe their role is tell the public what to think.

Like that once-venerable newspaper, many in education seek to divorce the public from the information needed to truly exercise their sovereignty as citizens. As Townhall and many others have reported, the essential tool to do that, a knowledge of civics and history, is under attack. “During a meeting in Evanston…political, education, and other Chicago leaders demanded the Illinois State Board of Education stop teaching history until a suitable alternative is developed…The mayor refused to take a stand for U.S. history because it’s not his ‘area…’”

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It has been, for the Progressives, a half- century long and quite victorious “march through the institutions” that has virtually created a leftist monopoly, with a few exceptions, on the airwaves, the internet, education, and Hollywood. The goal was not just to push their perspective, but also to censor all other views.

Photo: Pixabay