Is America is helping to build a new terrorist threat?

By Tom DeWeese
web posted December 10, 2001

The question has been asked many times, "How could the world
have stood by and allowed Adolph Hitler to build his massive
Nazi war machine that would eventually throw the world into
chaos?"

Answer: The same way we are allowing it to happen today in
communist China.

In fact, today's example may even be worse than that of Nazi
Germany because, in the case of Red China, the United States is
taking an active part in helping to build an avowed enemy; one
that openly states its hatred of the United States. We know the
Chinese are preparing for world domination, yet we continue to
build their treasury by importing goods and supplying them with
vital tools needed for weapons and defense systems they intend
to use against us.

Why do we do this? The official government explanation is a
confused strategy aimed at "westernizing" the Communists. The
idea is that, if we feed their economy and create more consumer
demand for goods and services, we will somehow create a new
capitalist nation and ally.

Is it working? China has certainly become a world leader in
exporting goods. Communist-government-owned businesses are
sprouting up in countries all over the world. Communist Chinese
businesses now control both ends of the Panama Canal. Chinese
diplomats and "business" leaders are visiting countries all over
South America, hoping to strengthen their influence in America's
back yard.

They invest, they buy, and they grow richer and stronger by the
day.

Are we "westernizing" the Communists? Are they learning to like
us? The truth is they mock us. Like any con artist who sees his
mark falling into his trap, the Red Chinese feel little more than
contempt for what they consider to be an easy foe. As their
contempt grows, so grows their boldness to act with less
caution. The result leads toward a dangerous world.

Consider the following examples of growing Chinese boldness:

The Chinese make an international incident out of a collision with
an American plane, which THEY caused. They took the plane
and held the crew until they were satisfied that the U.S. had been
sufficiently humbled. Our response? The Congress voted to grant
the Chinese "permanent normal trade relations," a position the
Chinese had to have in order to be awarded membership in the
World Trade Organization (WTO). China won membership in
November. A month earlier, The Washington Post reported that
the US was thinking about waiving the sanctions imposed on
China following the 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square
demonstrators.

For several years, according to Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld, China has pursued a massive buildup of strategic
missile capability that has shown Beijing's "seriousness of
purpose" in becoming a global power. Many of the missiles are
aimed at Taiwan, a free-market nation the Communists call
"terrorists," comparing them to Osama bin Laden.

Needless to say, the Chinese oppose the creation of a U.S.
missile defense system that they say would "upset the
international strategic balance of the past 50 years." Is this
because they are planning to send some of their missiles our
way?

Within twenty-four hours of the terrorist attack on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Communist Chinese
government had begun to produce books, films and video games
glorifying the strikes as a humbling blow against an arrogant
nation. According to The Washington Times, "Video discs filled
with lurid images have flooded markets across (China) in the
wake of the attacks. Disc after disc bears the imprimatur of the
Communist Party-controlled media." Communist Party officials
say President Jiang Zemin has obsessively watched and re-
watched pictures of the aircraft crashing into the World Trade
Center.

On the most popular government tape now selling briskly in
China, rescue workers are shown picking through the rubble of
the twin towers as the commentator proclaims that the city has
reaped the consequences of decades of American bullying of
weaker nations. "This is the America the whole world has
wanted to see," he says, "Blood debts have been paid in blood."
On another film the commentary goes on to say, "Look at the
panic in their faces as they wipe off the dust and crawl out of
their strong buildings, now just a heap of rubble. We will never
fear these people again, they have been shown to be soft-bellied
paper tigers."

The American response? The US has made the Chinese part of
the coalition to fight terrorism, but the Chinese have been closely
allied with every one of the regimes supporting terrorist
organizations, not the least of which was the Taliban the US is in
the process of destroying. On September 11th, the same day the
World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked, China signed
a defense cooperation agreement with Taliban officials. China
has been the largest foreign investor in Afghanistan while, at the
same time, domestically seeking to suppress Islam because it
poses a threat to their authoritarian regime.

To induce further Chinese cooperations, however, the Bush
Administration is considering a waiver on sanctions barring the
sale of military-related equipment. The sanctions deny the sale of
spare parts for Black Hawk helicopters the US sold to China
during the 1980's. According to The Washington Post, we are
told this would make the Chinese "another weapon in the war on
terrorism."

The United States is using a wrong-headed strategy with the
Chinese that can only result in one outcome, a day of reckoning
with China. If the strategy is not changed, if the U.S. government
continues to build the strength of our enemy, then one day it will
be the United States that faces the prospect of being "bombed
back into the stone age."

A world dominated by the Communist Chinese is the most
horrifying scenario one can imagine. Compared to them, Osama
bin Laden is a pussycat.

Tom DeWeese is the publisher/editor of The DeWeese Report
and president of the American Policy Center, a Warrenton,
Virginia grass-roots think tank. The Center maintains an Internet
site at www.americanpolicy.org.

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