The following material is from a forthcoming book.
In 1972, Richard Nixon went to China to inaugurate a new
China Policy. His goal was to create an economic bridge between China and the
world, and turn the communist country into a more peaceful player. This was
certainly a laudable goal, but Nixon missed one important detail: A violent
dictatorship cannot change overnight without rethinking its policies. Nixon was a pragmatist
(by admission) who thought he could develop an open-door policy with China
through inducements that influenced China to become more like the USA.
Under Nixon’s initiative, no longer would America try to
cajole the communist party to be kinder and more respectful toward its people,
at least not at first. A new day had dawned, thought Nixon, when the U.S.A.
offered to help China come into the 20th century by opening up U.S. markets to
Chinese companies and facilitating lucrative trade deals with China on behalf
American companies that wanted to move production facilities there (to counter
union high wages in the USA). Nixon hoped that these new policies would
influence the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) (that had been fascistically
controlling the winners and losers in China) to desist from its violent
revolutionary and anti-capitalist policies. (What Nixon had accomplished,
however, was opening the door for China to exploit American economic freedoms
and intellectual property for its own sake while remaining a brutal
dictatorship bent on dominating the world)
The strategy of Nixon’s outreach in 1972 was to make China
so rich and dependent upon trade with the world that they would modernize
Chinese society and eventually treat its people better. The communists would
eventually understand, thought Nixon, the actual value of capitalism and
realize that protecting individual rights was the better policy when compared
to concentration camps and communist purges of Chinese citizens.
Such a change, thought Nixon, would create a better and more
peaceful world. We know that did not happen and the Chinese saw these trade
policies as a way to undermine America and continue its goal of Chinese
pre-eminence in the world.
Nixon’s mistake was his pragmatism. His desire to appease
the Chinese and to assume that they could be “turned” toward capitalism through
massive “bribes” and “favorable policies” meant he was willing to deal only
with a short-term benefit (for him and his administration) while he ignored (or
thought he could later deal with) the long-term consequences (that included the
possibility that China would eventually turn the tables on us).
Do not believe that American Republicans were against this
change in policy toward China. In the past, America’s anti-communists would have
caused them to beware of any deal with a dictatorship like China. Certainly,
many of the more vocal defenders of Taiwanese and Hong Kong capitalism looked
aghast when they saw these trade policies become reality; and, indeed, many of
them thought of Nixon as a traitor to capitalism. Indeed, many previously
pro-capitalist politicians among the right were also pragmatists who believed
that selling out America to China was not traitorous at all. Eventually, they
were wrong about that too.
Now, after forty-five years of China policy, our entire
society is based upon trade with China, while China has not changed its desire
to overcome the U.S.A. They still have concentration camps, and they still jail
and/or kill dissidents. Even worse, China has embedded itself in our
universities, turned American college professors into spies and dupes,
infiltrated American corporations bought American journalists who present the
party line, and turn politicians into spies. Using bribery, and political
scandal, they have corrupted our capitalist system and turned it into a fascist
dictatorship. If only Trump had been a more eloquent thinker and speaker, he
could truly have exposed this cabal that includes virtually every prominent
Democrat and many prominent Republicans.
The worst aspect of American China policy is that major
pragmatists (CEOs) in the corporate world want to be part of the China deals. In
many cases, they preferred to close down their American factories in return for
production facilities in China. In other cases, praised China policies and
implied that the Chinese nation treated its people well. This was because the
philosophy of pragmatism (that came out of Ivy League colleges) had been
teaching CEOs to swim with the current, even if the “current” meant dealing
with murderous dictatorships, racist radicals, and especially, even if it meant
less popularity for these corporations in America.
Even today, many of America’s most important CEOs have no
problem instituting “woke” philosophy in order to establish the surveillance
state that will eventually keep Americans in line. Their tactic is to favor the
progressive left as a way of continuing their drive to expand markets at the
expense of political freedom. They think they can retain their near monopoly
status in the USA by playing ball with the government’s desire to accommodate
the Chinese state. They have no problem with the business/government alliance
(fascism) as long as people do not get wise to what the left is doing on behalf
of Communist China.
If we want to fight the tyranny of the Chinese communists
and the threat they pose to our system of government, we must fight tyranny on
principle – the principle that tyranny is force and it is evil. But, more
importantly, we fight tyranny by defending and establishing a proper society
based on the principles of freedom and individual rights that do not compromise
with evil.
Today’s Republicans have traveled so far on the road toward
liberalism that only a compromise with evil can keep them relevant. They can
thank John Dewey (the pragmatist philosopher) and Richard Nixon for this
current state of affairs. Despite Trump’s attitude toward China’s exploitation
of America, during his Presidency, he seemed oblivious to what fighting for
principles meant, and to the extent that he does not verbalize what it means to
oppose China on principle, we are going to lose to China. The battle against China
should be for individual rights – that are fast becoming irrelevant in America
today.
We must ask the question, “What should Trump have done about
the position of favoritism that past trade agreements gave to the Chinese?” The
answer would have been simple. He should have negotiated fair deals with the
Chinese without tariffs and he should have forced Chinese companies to compete
with the world on a fair playing field. We should have been willing to cancel
trade agreements that were unfavorable toward America.
This may have been difficult because the Chinese are brutal
dictators who expect to win over Americans. Our inability to get fair trading
terms from the Chinese would, therefore, have resulted in less trade between
the two countries which would have led to new American competitors against the
Chinese. This is because our country would have been able to resume
manufacturing here as well as make good trade deals with other countries.
Overall, Trump’s policies were ineffective because he
mimicked liberal policies and did not know he was doing it. His tariffs, in
particular, did not work because his pragmatist anti-Chinese policies distorted
his conservatism and gave the Chinese a reason to interfere in our elections,
media and educational systems. They forced the Chinese to call in their deals
with the many American politicians they had bribed over the years. Trump’s
policies had the correct goal, but with incorrect means. His efforts to lower
the regulatory impact of the left’s policies was effective in thwarting the negative
economic impact of the Obama administration; but Trump’s policy of liberating
the economy was thwarted by his very own covid policies. Eventually, he
realized his goals were being destroyed by the left, especially Fauci and Birx.
It was not until he was out of office that he questioned the shutdowns but by
then it was too late.
To learn more about Mr. Villegas' written materials go to Robert Villegas on Amazon
