Is It Time to #CancelChina?

The American Interest:

Amidst the 24/7 breathless media coverage and calls for politicians to "do something," one fundamental question still needs to be addressed forthrightly and in the open: Who did this to us and what to do to prevent it from happening again?

The question about assigning agency and blame is pretty straightforward to answer: The communist Chinese state, which for more than three decades has been draining capital and knowledge from the West, benefiting from our greed and myopia, has just let loose a virus that in the coming months is about to effectively paralyze Europe and the United States and bring severe pain, both human and economic on the world....

As a result of all this, the West is now shutting down, at least for a while. The ultimate cost to the world, in terms of new government debt, failed businesses, and human lives and suffering, is difficult to quantify at this point. But there are indications that the fallout from the Wuhan Virus could be transformative.

We must acknowledge our own complicity in what is now unfolding. The belief that globalization, through the radical centralization of market networks, was the unavoidable path forward has been exposed as a grave, near-delusional miscalculation. The offshoring by corporations of supply chains to China has not only eviscerated communities that were previously reliant on manufacturing jobs, but has also brought with it an unprecedented level of vulnerability and fragility to our economies. The populist revolts that have wracked Western democracies for the past several years are in part rooted in the pain that these dislocations have caused. Worse yet, for the past three decades, this offshoring process has favored an adversary that is determined to replace us as the hub of global economic and military power and place itself at the new normative center of the world.

Bonchie at RedState notes that some former Free Trade Above All Else corporate pseudoconservatives are rethinking the terrible deal we made to ship most of our manufacturing base to a hostile communist power.

Which turns out to be the cradle of apocalyptic plagues, to boot.

We cannot continue to pretend that free trade with China has no consequences, as has been the typical fall back on the right. Perhaps we are reaching an inflection point, though? I’m seeing more and more conservatives who originally scoffed at taking on China economically softening to the idea of getting tough with the Communists.

The truth is, claims that the trade war "only hurts the U.S." have always been completely false. Yes, trade wars have financial costs for both sides, but there’s no doubt China has taken the brunt of the damage so far. The inability to admit that has been a frustrating point of contention in discussions on the matter because it supposes that we simply punt on the leverage we’ve gained.

Things have escalated though, with the questions of how to proceed no longer just centering around China going after the NBA last year, which is where you started to see some breaks in the conventional wisdom form. We face a world-wide pandemic of Wuhan coronavirus due to the lying and incompetence of the Chinese, a country that we’ve wrapped so much of our well being into with little care for the long term consequences.

China-skeptical conservatives, despite being previously berated by many on their own side, were right all along.

Buh buh buh you can get dog food fifty cents cheaper! (Even thought it might contain hazardous chemicals.)

Buh buh buh I can buy a yard umbrella at WalMart for $30 less than I used to pay! (Even though we had to wipe out our domestic furniture production for that savings.)

The people primarily enriched by the China trade turn out to be, surprisingly enough, the corporate interests paying the salaries of the China Lobby.

Time to cancel these Corporate Welfare Dependents, too.

posted by Ace at 07:44 PM

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