by Gordon G. Chang, GATESTONE INSTITUTE • June 1, 2020 at 5:00 am
- The truth is that the United States is defending more than just its position in the international system. We are defending the international system itself, the system of treaties, conventions, rules, and norms.
- Unfortunately, Xi Jinping, the Chinese ruler, does not believe in that system. He is trying to impose China’s imperial?era notions of the world.
- In short, Chinese rulers believed that they had the mandate of heaven over tianxia, meaning “all under heaven.” Recently, his pronouncements have become unmistakable.
- In the last few months, Xi Jinping has seen an historic opportunity because the United States has been stricken by the disease that China itself has pushed out… What must we do? First, let us talk about what we must not do. We must not save Chinese communism again. In the past, American presidents, when China has been stressed, had ridden to the rescue of the Chinese state.
- On May 13 of last year, Beijing declared a “people’s war” on the United States. This means the contest with China is existential. There is going to be one survivor. It is either going to be the Peoples’ Republic of China or the United States of America, but not both.
- What should we do? In my call for action, there are eight items. First, we need to cut off trade with China. Now, I know a lot of people think we should not do this, or this would be unfortunate. Yes, this is unfortunate, but the point is that China’s communism cannot be reformed, so the only way we can protect American society and Americans is to reduce our exposure to China and our great exposure, of course, is trade… we should not be enriching a hostile state with the proceeds of commerce with the United States.
- China’s Communist Party does not have sovereign immunity…. We have the Global Magnitsky Act.
- We need to “rip and replace” all the equipment in our telecom backbone that has been supplied by Huawei Technologies… China has been using that company’s equipment to spy on others. We should have no Huawei equipment in our backbone
- Also, we should be turfing out even more Chinese journalists. Those “journalists”… work for China’s intelligence services.
- Unfortunately, China does not believe in comparative advantage, it does not believe in being a responsible member of the international community. Unfortunately, the only thing we can do is what many people think is unthinkable, and that is to cut our ties with China…. We cut our ties until… the Communist Party no longer rules [and] the Chinese people govern themselves…. I believe the Chinese people eventually will get this right.
The truth is that the United States is defending more than just its position in the international system. We are defending the international system itself, the system of treaties, conventions, rules, and norms. Unfortunately, Xi Jinping, the Chinese ruler, does not believe in that system. He is trying to impose China’s imperial?era notions of the world. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)<
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China has attacked America with coronavirus. At this moment, more than 100,000 Americans have been killed. We brace ourselves for the deaths to come.
Today, I’ll do two things. First, I’ll talk about the nature of that attack. The second thing, what we must do to protect ourselves.
First of all, China is not, as many people will tell you, just a competitor. It is an enemy. China is trying to overthrow the international system, and in that process, it is trying to make you subject to modern-day Chinese emperors.
I know this sounds as if it cannot be true, but we must listen to what Chinese leaders say. When we do that, we realize that to defend the American republic and defend our way of life, we are going to have to decouple from China.
On May 6, President Donald J. Trump said that China’s attack was worse than Pearl Harbor, worse than the World Trade Center. “There’s never been an attack like this,” he said, and he is right.
Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China (Random House, August 2001), and Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes On the World, released by Random House in January 2006, and is an expert on China and Chinese-US Relations.
He lived and worked in China and Hong Kong for almost two decades, most recently in Shanghai, as Counsel to the American law firm Paul Weiss and earlier in Hong Kong as Partner in the international law firm Baker & McKenzie.
His writings on China and North Korea have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Far Eastern Economic Review, the International Herald Tribune, The Weekly Standard, and the South China Morning Post.
He has spoken at Columbia, Cornell, Princeton, Yale, and other universities and at The Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, RAND, the American Enterprise Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations, and other institutions. He has given briefings at the National Intelligence Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, the State Department, and the Pentagon. He has also spoken before industry and investor groups including Sanford Bernstein and Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia. Chang has appeared before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission and has delivered to the Commission a report on the future of China’s economy.
He has appeared on CNN, Fox News Channel, CNBC, MSNBC, and Bloomberg Television. Outside the United States he has spoken in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo, The Hague, Vancouver, and Taipei.
He has served two terms as a trustee of Cornell University.
@ Adam Dalgliesh:
Adam, Tut-tut. You say you don’t claim to be able to interpret the Scriptural prophesies, but you straight away go and try to do it. As John McEnroe famously said, “Are YOU SERIOUS”…???
Those prophets have been shown recently by archaeological investigators to have used Marijuana, and I’d say “BIG time”…. I believe “stoned” is the pop word. John Allegro alleged that they routinely used the Amanita Muscaria mushroom, particularly the foaming-at-the-mouth early Christians. “The Mushroom and the Cross” a very interesting -if controversial-read,
In the meantime, I hope that you stay well and healthy; this virus is not ebbing it seems to have gained fresh strength, so be careful. .
As for the preceding posts by the sturdy “Servant of the Lord” they remind me of a mixture of Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” and what I’ve read as a description of an overdose of heroin… :.
The human Race has had the ability to destroy itself for quite a while, and there are NO signs that they will. (regardless of what you’ve been coerced to believe as the “end times” (cant by religious lunatics). One just needs to recall Pepy’s diaries where crazies were going around chanting about the end of the world, as well as flagellating themselves to the bone. CRAZIES believe these things, sane beings DON’T.
Harrison Ainsworth’s “Old St.Pauls” is a chilling, tremendously interesting book detailing the 1666 Plague as only he could. I have a set of Ainsworth which I revisit periodically, I really like his language skills . I first saw the film “The Tower of London” with Vincent Price (looking exactly like Vincent Price dressed in fancy drawers.), Rathbone, Karloff and a huge cast of stars. I then looked for the book(s)… Great stuff…!!
I happen to lean towards Josephine Tey’s description in “Daughter of Time”. De Commines, across the Channel, also mentions “the Princes of the Tower” rumour. Now THAT was an age where people so easily destroyed one another…
And in an extremely hypothetical case, assuming that atomic destruction occurred, it could not destroy every single being, especially mountain dwellers.and in an extra-extremely hypothetical case, if it did, there would remain minute celled creatures which, in a billion years or so would evolve again into human beings, or simulacra.
Humanity will not allow anything to destroy it. Scientists will continue to develop cures for incurable diseases, as they are ALWAYS impelled to do.
@ Adam Dalgliesh:
Hi, Adam. Thoughtful comments, all. In answering, I will bear in mind that I am “Christian” (in that I was certainly raised Catholic, and trust the NT as much as Tanach and trust the Pope as much as Che Guevara), and you appear to be Jewish.
1. “perhaps you can locate the chapter and verse for us), that some things God reveals, and some things he keeps hidden from us. I believe statements to this effect are to be found in both the Hebrew and Greek scriptures. Hence best, perhaps, not to devote too much time to trying to determine exactly what specific events or personalities in our own time, are referred to in the scriptures,”
I think many scriptures talk about God and wise men hiding things. One comes to mind immediately:
Proverbs 29:
[11] A fool uttereth all his mind: but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards.
God is not a fool, and, as you say, He doesn’t utter all his mind. He hides some things to some, and defers other things until the appropriate time. Our minds and egos couldn’t handle any more than that. Concerning “identifying personalities”, etc. nearly all prophecies in the Bible are allegories. As one example, Jonathan Cahn, a Jewish convert to Christianity, has described Donald Trump i some instances as the Israelite king Jehu; because both exhibit deep, unquenchable zeal, both are ardent iconoclasts, and both completely upset the applecart of wicked, deeply-entrenched regimes and practices. So in some ways, it can be said that we are in the “Days of Jehu”.
Once we depart from the immediate, obvious similarities, we can stray from proper interpretation. For instance, if Trump is a “Jehu”, who was his “Elisha”? Was it his boyhood pastor, Norman Vincent Peale? Rev. Franklin Graham? Mike Pence? his Jewish daughter Ivanka? Since God used a jackass to speak to Balaam, perhaps it was a Democrat. In Jehu’s case, the one anointing him was an unnamed disciple of Elisha, who immediately afterward fled the scene. In Donald Trump’s case it was an equally anonymous “person”, namely, the ignored and abused “deplorables” who voted for him.
None of this implies that Trump is some sort of reincarnation of Jehu, nor that his supporters are prophets. It just says that in some ways, the days we are now in resemble those in the final decades of the northern Kingdom of Israel. Cahn also thinks Bill Clinton resembles Ahab, and Hillary Jezebel; but as I said, we are dealing with metaphors.
In another context, Cahn likens both Donald Trump and Harry S. Truman as types of Kurosh/ Cyrus of Persia, in that they gave proclamations leading to the redemption of Jerusalem and Medinat Israel, respectively. He uses parallels like this, to show that the times we are living in are times of “restoration” or (a theological trip-word) “redemption”.
Concerning humanity’s destruction, another scripture comes to mind, this one in the NT:
Matthew 24:
[15] When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)
[16] Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:
[17] Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house:
[18] Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.
[19] And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!
[20] But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:
[21] For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
[22] And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.
and in Tanakh we have:
Psalms 91:
[1] He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
[2] I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.
[3] Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.
[4] He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.
[5] Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;
[6] Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.
[7] A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.
The former example describes the situation during the Zealot Revolt that ended in 73 CE, but it can also be applied to some future event, wherein Israel’s enemies (essentially all the nations of the world) lay siege to it: Our enemy wants to destroy us all, along with all humanity; but it is God’s unassailable determination that this will not happen.
As for a “road map” of the end times, you know that books and websites are chockablock with such “road maps”, ranging from inaccurate to flat-out ludicrous. In addition, there are millions or billions out there, who think they are somehow linked to God’s “GPS” and don’t need a map. Even hardcore atheists have “Armageddon” prophecies, including perhaps Greta Thunberg, who thinks all the children of the world will die if Donald Trump gets re-elected.
Sometimes our guts are more intelligent than our brains; and my gut tells me we are not far from seeing the climax and overthrow of evil. Much of that evil will be wrought by people thinking they are agents of good, as perhaps many Antifa goons believe. I think we’ve already entered into these last days.
May Adonai bless you and keep you;
May He make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;
May He turn his face toward you and give you peace.
toward you and all Israel.
@ Michael S: Michael, I don’t claim to be able to interpret the scriptural prophecies. Somewhere in the scriptures it says, (perhaps you can locate the chapter and verse for us), that some things God reveals, and some things he keeps hidden from us. I believe statements to this effect are to be found in both the Hebrew and Greek scriptures. Hence best, perhaps, not to devote too much time to trying to determine exactly what specific events or personalities in our own time, are referred to in the scriptures, exactly when the end will come, and what precise “tools” humanity will employ to self-destruct.
On the other hand, I agree with you that world governments and the wealthiest businessmen in the world are following paths that seem to be leading the human race to destruction. Some of them may be following paths that will lead to their own overthrow or violent death; but even if they survive their own misguided and unethical actions, their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will probably suffer from them.
In general, I think it is true we are in an “end-time.” For the first time in history, the human race has all of the technology it needs to destroy itself. While the scriptures do not , I believe, provide us with the precise details or a precise roadmap that we can decipher as to when and how this will happen, they certainly do predict that humanity will destroy itself, and that our leaders and rulers will lead the way to our destruction.
It seems clear from the scriptures that God will not impose our destruction on us, but rather that we will do it to ourselves. God does not desire the destruction of his creation. But he will not deprive us of the “free will” to be able to destroy ourselves.
And this deadly “scenario” certainly seems to be rapidly unfolding in our own time, more than in any previous age.
I have for years been waiting expectantly for the End of the Age and the coming of Messiah, complete with end-times plagues and conflicts; but I never expected that people would be working as furiously as people are today, to bring these things about — against themselves! Here are some examples:
1. the COVID virus: obviously a Chinese bioweapon, of which we and other countries also have doubtless produced counterparts. For a disease that would be expected to spread randomly, the Chinese have directed it to target the West — which just happens to correspond with the descendant countries of the Roman Empire. This fulfills the toppling of Daniel’s statue, and the fall of Babylon in Revelation. God foretold it, but the Chinese Communists seem to have willingly brought it about! The really odd thing, is that in attacking the West, Chairman Xi initiated the process of his own undoing.
2. Antifa, etc. The harpies and demons of these groups are literally “hell-bent” on destroying what humanity has spent the past 6000 years building. Never mind, that they have no practical vision for replacing the mess they hope to create. The Bible predicted this, of course, when it said that Satan and his minions, having been cast out of heaven, would set out to plague the earth in the “short time” they have left. It’s one thing to read about these things, but another thing altogether to see it happening — and at that, in my own city and affecting my own family!
3. Zechariah 14 predicts a concerted attack on Israel and Jerusalem by, literally, the “united nations” of the world. The UN is supposedly not an institution dedicated to promoting the Bible; but here they are, spending most of their time and effort in the cause of fulfilling the scriptures! For a kicker, Zech 14 seems to foretell a nuclear exchange; and countries from the greatest (the US) to the least (Pakistan, North Korea and Iran) are hard at work making sure they don’t have to sit out this inning on the sidelines.
Should we cut off trade with China? Sure — they’re practically begging us to do it. Should we go to war against them? They seem to want nothing more! And there’s a stiff competition between the likes of Chairman Xi, George Soros, Bill Gates and other actors, to be the first and fastest lemming in the race over the cliff.
What interesting times we live in! Praise God, who has given us every good thing; Whose hand is ever outstretched, both to judge and to save; Whose purposes cannot be thwarted; but even those who hate Him carry out His will!
It’s amazing, just amazing.
Chang is right about what the U.S. should do about China. Unfortunately he was wrong about ‘the Comming Collapse of China” in 2001.