America's China gamble

In 1972, President Richard Nixon took one of the greatest gambles in geopolitical history. He bet America's future on successfully driving a wedge between the world's two greatest Communist powers, the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China.

Nixon launched this wager with a visit "opening" direct U.S. relations with China. He met Chairman Mao Zedong, the dictator responsible for killing at least 65 million Chinese, and offered to make Red China a partner in the capitalist World Trade Organization.

Nixon gambled that he could transform China into a successful capitalist state that embraced the freedom needed to achieve prosperity. Nixon bet that China would thereby become our ally, and not use its fast-growing wealth to replace us as the world's richest, most militarily powerful country.

On Oct. 1, 2019, as China celebrates its 70th birthday with a huge military parade, we will get a sense of whether Nixon and the free world lost or won this existential gamble.

For a time it seemed Nixon's wager might be winning. Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping preached that "to be rich is glorious" and showed signs of becoming an ideological convert to capitalist economics. His successor Jiang Zemin spoke positively of China becoming a "socialist market economy."

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Harvard historian Niall Ferguson was cheered by the symbiotic co-prosperity linking Communist China and capitalist America. Ferguson named this merger: "Chimerica." Christianity was growing fast in the once-atheist Marxist state, he noted, predicting that China was in some ways becoming more Western than the jaded West.

That moment of optimism is now fading, leaving many wondering if it was always a mirage. Jiang Zemin's successor Hu Jintao began restoring government control over parts of the economy freed up by Deng and Jiang.

Hu Jintao was replaced in 2012 by current ruler Xi Jinping, who was born in 1953, which according to Chinese astrology was a "Year of the Black Water Snake." Such "snake people," China's fortunetellers believe, can be proud, materialistic, vain, vicious, venomous, scheming and cunning. Like snakes, these people can speak with forked tongues.

Xi has put a million Urghurs, Chinese Muslims, in concentration camps. He has replaced Christian figures with Confucius and other Chinese philosophers and discouraged Christian worship. Since Mao's imperialist annexation of Tibet in 1951, at least 1.2 million Tibetans have been killed and more than 6,000 Buddhist monasteries destroyed.

This year also marks the 30th anniversary of China's massacre of 3,000 students at Tiananmen Square, protesting for freedom around a copy of America's Statue of Liberty. The Chinese gerontocracy, fearful that regular People's Liberation Army troops might join the students, brought elite troops from 45 miles north of Beijing selected for their willingness to kill fellow Chinese. China, which wants above all to appear strong, has warned freedom protestors in Hong Kong that "the end is coming."

Xi has seized coral islands belonging to other nations in the South China Sea and converted them into military installations. He has developed laser cannon capable of destroying GPS satellites used to guide our cruise missiles, and has developed hypersonic missiles able to sink U.S. warships. He recently perfected craft able to rapidly land an army in Taiwan.

China's constitution prohibits leaders from creating a "cult of personality." Deng limited presidents to two five-year terms, but Xi has had himself proclaimed ruler for life. He has recently had others use titles for him such as "the People's Leader" formerly used only by Chairman Mao.

Xi is building a totalitarian surveillance state denying "social credit" spending to the Politically Incorrect. This power comes in part from Google, whose leftist programmers refuse to help our Pentagon but eagerly arm Communist China with artificial intelligence technology.

Xi's "Belt and Road" global policy has lured poor Third World nations into borrowing huge sums from China for Chinese-built projects such as railroads and airports. When these fail to produce promised economic benefits, China has demanded repayment in the form of ports and airfields. By such neo-colonialist debt, Xi has already extended China's military reach into Kenya, Zambia, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

Negotiations with President Trump to end China's theft of intellectual property, currency manipulation and other issues with are likely to resume after October.

Xi has already called on the world to choose between China and America. China's megalomaniacal new emperor may plan on ruling the world by Communist China's 100th birthday in 2049.

Many Americans are already teaching their children Spanish and their grandchildren Chinese, because they fear that Nixon's gamble will be lost.

Lowell Ponte is a former Reader's Digest Roving Editor. His articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and other major publications. His latest paper co-authored with Craig R. Smith, "Protecting Your Wealth in Today's America: How You Invest Your Savings Requires New Thinking," shows how to rethink several areas of investment to protect and grow your savings in our new schizophrenic politics. For a free, postpaid copy, call toll-free 800-630-1492.