Free Beacon, Washington DC, on March 26, 2019 reported the creation of a new version of the Cold War Committee on the Present Danger. This time the committee is focused on China. Excerpts below:
China under Communist Party rule poses an existential threat and must be countered with stronger defense, economic, and political measures, according to a new committee of experts.
Former government, military, and intelligence leaders joined by business leaders and human rights advocates warned during an inaugural press briefing that Communist China poses the most dangerous threat to the United States and the world.
Creation of the Committee on the Present Danger-China follows three earlier iterations of the storied organization that played influential roles in American national security policy beginning in the 1950s and throughout the Cold War and after.
The panel includes a blue-ribbon roster of 43 experts including former CIA Director R. James Woolsey, former Education Secretary William Bennett, former Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence ret. Lt. Gen. Gerald Boykin, and former Rep. Frank Wolf (R., Va.).
Other notable figures include University of Pennsylvania China specialist Arthur Waldron, strategic missile defense expert Henry Cooper, Chinese Christian activist Bob Fu, former Voice of America China broadcaster Sasha Gong, and retired Navy Capt. James Fanell, former intelligence director for the Pacific Fleet.
One of the first actions by the committee was to issue a warning on the anticipated U.S.-China trade deal that is said to be close to being completed.
“The trade deal the Trump administration is now negotiating with China is expected to address its Communist Party’s longstanding practice of stealing American intellectual property—the life-blood of our information-based economy and a key component of our national security,” the statement said.
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Frank Gaffney, vice chairman of the Committee, said even if a trade deal is reached and China honors its commitments, “we are still facing a world of hurt at their hands.”
“We must address these other dimensions of the problem that ultimately emanate from the character of the communist regime, mainly that it is ruled, brutally, in a totalitarian fashion, by the Chinese Communist Party,” Gaffney said.
Committee chairman Brian Kennedy said the independent, non-partisan group will seek to educate and inform the American public and government policymakers regarding the threat from China ruled by the Communist Party of China.
The threat includes a large-scale military buildup, active information and political warfare that targets the American people, business, political, and media elites, and Beijing’s aggressive cyber and economic warfare.
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Boykin, undersecretary of defense for intelligence in the George W. Bush administration, said the Chinese intelligence threat has increased rapidly and through cyber attacks stolen or reverse-engineered large amounts of advanced American technology.
The Chinese strategy against the United States was outlined in a 1999 book by two People’s Liberation Army colonels called “Unrestricted Warfare”. The book called for using all forms of warfare—military, diplomatic, economic, financial, and even terrorism—to win wars.
The book “laid out the absolute road-map for how they intended to take over America, and they are in the process of doing everything they said they wanted to do in that treatise,” Boykin said.
Boykin said a counterintelligence briefing he received at the Pentagon revealed Chinese intelligence agencies had planted spies throughout the United States.
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Former Pentagon nuclear policymaker Mark Schneider said China’s nuclear arsenal is rapidly modernizing with new missiles, bombers, and submarines.
China’s nuclear arms are built and stored in a massive 3,000-mile-long tunnel complex dubbed the Great Underground Wall and the actual numbers of Chinese warheads in the arsenal is unknown.
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Lianchao Han, a former Senate staff member and pro-democracy advocate, said China poses the most serious threat facing the United States yet many Americans are unaware of the danger.
“Engagement and appeasement advocates continue to push for the failed China policies,” Han said. “So it is our duty to inform and educate the American public and decision makers to what the [Chinese Communist Party] really is, what they intend to do, and why they are so dangerous.”
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In the 1970s, a… Committee on the Present Danger was set up with 141 board members to address national security threats to the United States.
The Committee called for hardline policies toward the Soviet Union and its positions formed the basis for President Ronald Reagan’s peace-through-strength posture. A total of 33 members of the Committee were key players in national security positions within the Reagan administration. Reagan was a member in 1979.
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Chet Nagle, a former Navy pilot during the Cold War and a member of the 1970s version of the Committee, said earlier panels were formidable groups initially focused on the Soviet Union and then in the early 2000s the group emphasized countering international terrorism.
“Now another existential threat to America has arisen,” Nagle said of China. “That threat is Communist China’s plan to dominate the United States and ultimately the entire world.
Comment: Then, as now, the United States faced an existential threat from an aggressive totalitarian foe. Now, as then, the nation needs to be awakened to the danger posed by the Chinese Communist Party and the country it misrules—and equipped with recommendations for mitigating that multifaceted and growing threat.
The new committee is a welcome addition to the growing number of experts who are warning of the growing serious Chinese challenge to the West. As usual when communist empires challenge freedom and democracy the threats are both military and ideological. The West has for decades neglected the China challenge listening to those who incorrectly believe that a communist regime will soften its stand as living standard is improved. This attitude almost saved the Soviet Union during the Cold War when the experts of the liberal left recommended that the Soviet tyranny should be accepted. The same type of policy has now dominated regarding China since the 1990s.
China and the Chinese people are not the enemies of the West. The United States supported the national revolution of China in 1911 and for a long time before 1949 the China received aid to defeat Japanse occupation and communist insurgency. Should the democratic constitution of China of the Three Principles of the People be restored along with democracy on the Chinese mainland the country would be welcome in the family of democracies. First, however, the brutal communist party dictatorship must end. Communism combined with aggressive nationalism in China is presently the main cause of global conflict.
Below the CPDC’s mission statement is provided for further study:
The mission of the “Committee on the Present Danger: China” is to help defend America through public education and advocacy against the full array of conventional and non-conventional dangers posed by the People’s Republic of China. As with the Soviet Union in the past, Communist China represents an existential and ideological threat to the United States and to the idea of freedom—one that requires a new American consensus regarding the policies and priorities required to defeat this threat. And for this purpose, it is necessary to bring to bear the collective skills, expertise and energies of a diverse group of experts on China, national security practitioners, human rights and religious freedom activists and others who have joined forces under the umbrella of the “Committee on Present Danger: China.”
Founding members of the “Committee on the Present Danger: China” include: Brian Kennedy, chairman; Frank Gaffney, vice chairman; Hon. R. James Woolsey; Dr. William Bennett; Kyle Bass; Steve Bannon; Mark Helprin; Pastor Bob Fu; Kevin Freeman; Dr. Peter Pry; Dr. Sasha Gong; LTG William Boykin; Hon. Ed Timperlake; Dr. Mark Schneider; Richard Fisher; Amb. Hank Cooper; Lianchao Han; Dr. Michael Waller; Capt. James Fanell, USN (Ret.); Col./Dr. Lawrence Sellin, USA (Ret.); Dr. Dan Blumenthal; Dr. Stephen Mosher; and Dr. Bradley Thayer.