America would never sell her soul to China. Our liberty could never be bought. Right?
Wrong. America is mired with debt and steeped in political correctness. Both weaknesses are resulting in a dangerously naive embrace of the "new China."
Chinese propaganda is as follows: China is emerging as a fledgling democracy and we need to support them. Brett M. Decker and William C. Triplett II substantially argue this point and tackle the "New China Myth" in their book, "Bowing to Beijing."
Here are their most pressing points: China has no freedom of religion, press, speech, assembly, does not recognize private property rights and does not respect the right to life, nor does it intend to do so. "Dissent is not allowed in the PRC, period," Decker and Triplett write.
Chinese novelist Murong Xuecun - pen name for Hao Qun - upon winning a literary prize wrote an acceptance speech that was not only read by censors before presentation but forbidden to be delivered.
Murong walked on stage to accept the award, made a zipping motion in front of his mouth and spoke not one word. Murong later referenced censorship in China, “Chinese writing exhibits symptoms of a mental disorder. This is castrated writing. I am a proactive eunuch, I castrate myself even before the surgeon raises his scalpel.”
Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, a leader in drafting Charter 08, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 for his courageous demand for constitutional principals.
Liu was unable to attend the Nobel ceremony because he had been arrested in 2008 and was given an 11-year prison sentence for his quest for human dignity. The award was presented to an empty chair.
Still, Americans do business with China and President Obama holds a lavish state dinner honoring President Lu, complete with First Lady Michelle Obama in a sweeping red dress.
America is allowing China to swallow us up, investing in our banks, buying our property and harvesting our resources. Even our universities are vulnerable as Chinese-government regulated "Confucius Institutes" are being established to educate American youth about the virtues of China. Why? Money.
Universities are being paid $270,000 to $4 million to allow these academies on their campuses run by Li Changchun, CCP Propaganda chief and the fifth most powerful man in China. The exchange of money allows only Chinese teachers, permitting no references to human rights violations.
Alexandr Solzhenitizn, a Russian writer who was imprisoned and exiled, commented on the temptation of the West to sacrifice liberty for material goods in his address to Harvard Class Day Afternoon Exercises in 1978:
“The constant desire to have still more things and a still better life and the struggle to obtain them imprints many Western faces…the majority of people have been granted well-being to an extent their fathers and grandfathers could not even dream about.
“It has become possible to raise young people according to these ideals, leading them to physical splendor, happiness, possession of material goods, money and leisure, to an almost unlimited freedom of enjoyment.
“So who should now renounce all this, why and for what should one risk one's precious life in defense of common values, and particularly in such nebulous cases when the security of one's nation must be defended in a distant country?”
America’s vulnerability is predicated on financial gain. At some point, the consumer, corporations, and Washington, D.C. must reckon with this decision, which will come with fiscal sacrifice.
China is engaging in prodigious cyber spying, seeking the ability to shut down the cooling mechanisms of our nuclear power plants. They are aiding and abetting our enemies in such places as Iran.
They are curbing our ingenuity by stealing our patents and threatening our security by proliferating our military secrets. They are ravaging us with unfair trade deals.
At what price will America sell her soul?
Confucius says, "He who will not economize will have to agonize."
Janine Turner, a longtime television and movie actress, is a talk radio host on KLIF Radio in Dallas.
