Europeans are in for a cold winter.
Far from defeated, Russian forces are nevertheless retreating in many areas of Ukraine. Vladimir Putin desperately needs to stem the Western support that is enabling Ukraine’s battlefield effectiveness. So, he’s turning to a familiar tool: one gifted to him by the arrogance of a European Union that assumed America would always bear the harder burdens of Europe’s defense.
That tool being energy used as a weapon.
Thanks to two successive German chancellors — Gerhard Schroder (who became a Russian energy lobbyist as soon as he left office) and Angela Merkel (now a historian of the whitewash school) — much of Europe is highly dependent on Russian natural gas for its energy needs. It’s near impossible to articulate the folly that was involved in vesting such power with a former KGB lieutenant colonel. Putin’s formative training literally centered on blackmail. But what’s done is done. And now, pied piper Putin is cashing Europe’s stupidity check.
The United States must support Europe in resisting Putin’s blackmail. Ukraine is winning the war for its people’s freedom and its existence as a nation. After decades of appeasement and selfish arrogance, Europe must step up to face down the Kremlin’s threat to its democratic stability. Still, there’s a separate lesson for the U.S. here. The U.S. must look at what’s happening in Europe and take action to ensure a similar Chinese Communist weapon can never be applied against us. That necessity is informed by two key factors.
First off, Beijing’s unambiguous ambition.
Contrary to its fatuous claim to seek only “win-win cooperation” with the rest of the world, Communist China actually seeks an unparalleled global hegemony. Xi Jinping wants to ensure that the economic and foreign policies of other nations are subordinated to Beijing. He wants a future in which the only routes to our prosperity and peace run through his office — a future in which technology transfers and political fealty are the price tags for scraps of economic growth. This future would entail the sacrifice of American freedom, prosperity, and values at the Chinese Communist altar. It would end the post-1945 international democratic order in favor of a feudal mercantile system ruled from Beijing. Considering how China treats its own citizens in places like Xinjiang province, Hong Kong, and its cities under COVID-19 lockdown, we can safely assess that this would not be a good future for Americans or our friends.
Then, there are China’s specific efforts toward imposing dependency on America.
The most urgent threat comes in the supply chain, semiconductor, and high technology fields. Yes, the Biden administration deserves credit for building on Trump administration restrictions on Chinese access to these technologies and its pressure on allies to do the same. It is welcome news, for example, that the British government has finally killed off a Chinese effort to purchase its largest semiconductor plant.
That said, U.S. enforcement of these restrictions continues to be far too lax. China continues to skirt existing regulations and laws by relying on front companies and by taking advantage of the Commerce Department’s bureaucratic inertia. Republicans must take a far tougher stance on American corporations that revel in woke orthodoxy at home and callously ignore it in China. We must call out American business powerhouses, such as Intel, Mars, Coca-Cola, Dell, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, and Honeywell, which excuse Xi’s genocide in return for his Communist lucre. If necessary, we must legislate to restrict their activity in this regard.
We must do these things because it’s not theoretical what China’s future response to disagreements on issues such as Taiwan, human rights, or Beijing’s voracious intellectual property theft will be if we do not do so. Just look at what Xi’s regime has responded to Australia.
Infuriated by Australia’s protesting of Chinese espionage, militarism, and human rights violations, Beijing has suspended imports of a vast variety of Australian goods ranging from energy supplies to wine. Chinese Communist officials don’t even bother to hide why they are doing this. It’s because Australia won’t agree to four demands. The arrogance in play here is quite extraordinary. Consider, for example, that these demands include Australia’s engaging in pro-Chinese propaganda to brainwash Australian citizens. As China puts it, “stick to building positive and pragmatic social foundations and public support.” China wants Australia to remake itself in the image of New Zealand’s false liberal heroine Jacinda Ardern. Which is to say, make itself into a happy puppet state.
That brings us back to Europe and Russia. Europe is suffering great pain as it attempts to redress decades of easy, if delusional, dependence on Moscow. But at least Europe now has America at its back. If America makes the same mistake with China, no one is likely to have our back when we finally realize the scale of our mistake. After all, China will already have turned the rest of the free world into serfs.
