Throughout the Cold War until the present, China has been an economic and military threat to free people everywhere. Its Communist government has sentenced its people to death, starvation, and indeterminate captivity. China has never been trustworthy. The country armed the North Koreans against us. It armed the North Vietnamese against us. It has stolen our technology. It created the COVID virus, which killed so many Americans.

Today, China has become an even greater threat to the United States. Recently, Iranian leaders issued a fatwa (death sentence) against President Donald Trump. It has been claimed by a group known as the Blood Covenant that $40 million has been crowdfunded for a bounty on the president’s life.

China has been a leading customer for Iranian oil and thus a party to this nefarious plot. China continuously threatens the economic and physical security of the United States in other ways.

For example, China is responsible for billions of dollars’ worth of intellectual property theft. A Tesla engineer stole the company’s self-driving technology. According to a 2019 CNBC study, one in five corporations believed that their intellectual property was stolen by Chinese entities.

China is also a perpetrator of cyber-espionage. One expert told the Washington Post, “we are in China’s golden age of hacking.” Newly discovered documents show contracts for specific pieces of information such as immigration records and $25,000 to access an iPhone.

In recent years, China has been beefing up its military presence in the Pacific. As recently as June, two Chinese aircraft carriers were spotted in the Pacific practicing as many as ninety take-offs and landings a day. These exercises passed the Japanese island of Okinawa, and moved toward Guam, a U.S. territory and military center.

China has imposed tariffs on U.S. oil and gas products, including crude oil. These tariffs make U.S. exports less attractive to Chinese customers and have the potential to result in decreased sales and lower prices. 

China halted purchases of U.S. crude in March due to trade tensions, a significant drop from previous import levels. 

The tariffs China has put on oil is making a hard dent in the economy. When President Trump took office in January, U.S. trade with China accounted for 17.7 percent. Today, it is less than six percent.  

The war currently raging in the Middle East is already adversely affecting China. Last year, China was the second highest consumer of oil (behind the United States). Technically, China has not imported any Iranian oil in the last year. China has imported oil from smaller countries that do business with Iran, and anyone doing business with them, is in fact selling them the rope with which to hang them.

Craig Shirley is Chairman of Citizens for the Republic

Image: AI