and losing!

Macro Perspectives: Wed 21 Oct 2020

The Wall Street Journal's top story of the day is an opinion piece from a retired Navy admiral. It's titled, Biden Will Make America Lead Again.

It’s a subscription article, available on their website. Here are my observations...  

What's interesting in this piece, from a former top U.S. military leader, is the omission - not one mention of China.

Sadly, the media has done its job framing this election as a personality and character contest, with the admiral having also taken the bait. With that, there has been little-to-no discussion about dealing with China on the debate and town hall stages.

Just three months ago, Pompeo made a speech (transcript below) at the Nixon Library that sounded like a war speech. He called for a "new grouping of like-minded nations, a new alliance of democracies" to take action against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He then said, if they don't act, the "CCP will erode our freedoms and subvert the rules-based order that our societies have worked so hard to build. If we bend the knee now, our children's children may be at the mercy of the Chinese Communist Party, whose actions are the primary challenge today in the free world".

Communist China and the Free Worlds Future

Pompeo has since been alliance building in China's neighborhood. Australia, India and Japan are on board, and he has been working on Vietnam and South Korea.

With all of this, nothing about the threat from the Chinese Communist Party in the American election narrative. It's seemingly off the table for traditional and social media industries that rely heavily on Chinese investment, advertising dollars and market opportunities.

So, with days until the election, the media and social media platforms have successfully distracted the American people from the real issues - even an imminent threat to the country.

In context, the CCP is in the late innings of a three-plus decade plan to become the economic superpower of the world - having grown 37-fold since the early 90s, while the U.S. has grown just three-fold. Thanks to nefarious economic policies like currency manipulation, it’s been at the expense of the entire world, not just the U.S.

So, China can see the finish line, overtaking the U.S. as the world's economic leader, and therefore global power. Then came Trump, and he has threatened to blow it all up, through forcing China into compliance with "fair trade."

With that, to what extent would they go to get rid of him? We're probably seeing it.

There have been sophisticated propaganda and subversion tactics used by the CCP (made easy by social media). Twitter shut down more than 170,000 accounts back in June, that were spreading and amplifying misinformation. Who knows how many have been removed since, and who knows how many continue to operate, and how big the network is.

The west has  been in a multi-decade economic war with China (and losing). The U.S. has been in a trade war with China (and losing). There is very likely a disinformation and psychological war with China, with the U.S. losing.

What's next? Pompeo has been trying to take the CCP case to the American people, but has been ignored by the media.In a Biden presidency, who doesn't appear to have any intent on stopping the march, much less reversing the threat.