Beijing’s well-documented abusive trade practices, human rights abuses, and territorial aggression have been hard to curb partly because of a lack of alignment between the political and military leadership of democratic nations, on the one hand, and Western business elites engaging in trade with China, on the other, said panelists at a hearing held by the American Enterprise Institute think tank on June 14.
American and European executives tend to allow Beijing’s leaders to lull them into a sense that China’s government is their friend, and changing this false sense is of paramount importance for taking effective action against the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) aggression and protecting the national security and economic and political interests of Western powers, the experts said.
Entitled “Defending Western Economies Against Chinese Unfair Practices,” the hearing featured lengthy testimony from Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Il.), who issued a stark warning about what he sees as the danger China poses to the world.
“China, from my perspective, is an existential threat in many ways—from a national security standpoint, from an economic standpoint, from a trade standpoint, from a cyber standpoint. I say this often: China has a plan to replace us, economically, militarily, you can go down the list there,” LaHood said.
But even as Beijing’s rulers harbor ambitions inimical to the interests of the United States, the close economic ties between the powers often prevent some people from seeing the issue clearly, LaHood argued. In the 18th Congressional district in central Illinois that he represents, LaHood said, the livelihoods of his constituents are heavily dependent on trade with China.
“I have the eighth largest agricultural district in the country. About a third of the corn and soybeans that my farmers grow go to China every day. I have the largest concentration of Caterpillar workers anywhere in the world. In my district, we make a lot of engines, tractors, and excavators,” LaHood said.
Caterpillar has 29 manufacturing plants as well as four R&D facilities in China, he pointed out. Given these realities, there is an obvious disconnect between much of the rhetoric heard in Congress, where lawmakers are calling for a Cold War mindset to counter the CCP threat, and the day-to-day reality of a close economic partnership between American laborers and Chinese businesses.
If the arguments made at the time that China gained entry to the World Trade Organization (WTO) back in 2001 had proven true, and admittance to the body had ushered in a more rules-based, Western-style trading system for China, then the disconnect between the political and economic stances would not be so severe, LaHood contended. But the promises made at the time that Beijing sought entry to the WTO have proven hollow, he said.
“Overall, they have not adapted to the rules-based system. They continue to steal our intellectual property, they continue to not abide by the same rules and standards that every industrialized country in the world does,” LaHood commented.
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