Part 5: How China Undermines Democracy
The bigger danger was Western politicians stabbing him in the back …
To understand the deep corruption of the failed Western “elite” and its political class, we must first understand how the West built the People’s Republic — a country that had proven in blood its commitment to maintaining authoritarian rule.
In 1989, the Communist Party of China murdered more than 10 thousand people asking for democracy in Tienanmen Square. Some died on June 4 when the People’s Liberation Army attacked its own people — many were hunted down later.
The Communist Party of China was no different in 1990’s than it was in 1989. The Butchers of Beijing who murdered those pro-democrats still ran the show. And corrupt Western politicians normalized them.
Clinton put a cigar in the American worker, too …
Because China had tacitly joined with the West against the Soviets in an “the enemy of my enemy is temporarily my friend pact,” China had Most Favored Nation (MFN) trading status in the U.S. Something candidate Bill Clinton campaigned very hard against renewing when he was running for President in 1992 against Sinophile George Bush. He accused Bush of “coddling tyrrants.”
Upon his election, Clinton honored his campaign pledge and tied renewal of MFN to Beijing making improvement in 7 areas on human rights including stopping the manufacture and export of prisoner-made goods, the treatment of prisoners, and protecting Tibet. He reversed himself a year later. No surprise. We know today Bill Clinton and his wife are two of the most venal politicians to ever hold public office. (They sold sleepovers in the White House’s Lincoln bedroom to donors for a total of $5.5 million).
Once the Clintons saw the cash that could be made in China, moralism was gone. It’s worth reprinting this entire passage from the Washington Post, May 27, 1994 so you can see the brazenness of the greed and hypocrisy:
“President Clinton Thursday reversed course on China and renewed its trade privileges despite what he said was Beijing’s lack of significant progress on human rights.
Echoing the case made by George Bush when he was president, Clinton said he was convinced the Chinese would take more steps to improve human rights if the issue were separated from the threat of trade sanctions.
“This decision offers us the best opportunity to lay the basis for long-term sustainable progress on human rights and for the advancement of our other interests with China,” he said at a news conference announcing his decision to extend China’s most-favored-nation (MFN) trade status. … Clinton had been the subject of heavy lobbying by American business interests and his economic advisers to continue China’s trade privileges. With China now the world’s fastest growing economy, the United States exports $8 billion a year there, which sustains up to 150,000 American jobs. Many major American businesses see even greater potential in Chinese markets, expecting China to become a massive purchaser over the next decade of the phones, electronic gadgets and thousands of other products made in America.
“I think we have to see our relations with China within a broader context” than simply human rights, Clinton said, adding that the link between rights and trade was no longer tenable. “We have reached the end of the usefulness of that policy,” he said.”
Even if Clinton’s reversal was good faith (which it was not), it’s clear every assumption about China policy for the last 30 years is very wrong. (Read this article from the Chicago Tribune in 1998, which says everything Donald Trump does about China.) Yet, the Washington political class has no reverse gear.
The reality: this failed China policy not only built up an authoritarian power which sees democracy anywhere as a threat, it devastated America’s manufacturing base and cost 3.7 million American manufacturing jobs. Manufacturing employed about 23 million Americans in 2000. Ten years later, it employed just over 11 million.
Ironically, most of the people affected voted for Bill Clinton and his “Bridge to the 21st Century.” In future elections they would vote for George W. Bush’s “Compassionate Conservatism” and Barack Hussein Obama’s “Hope and Change.” No matter who they voted for, they got their jobs shipped to Shenzhen, and told those jobs were never coming back, and they were losers who needed to “learn to code.”
I want to stress this again: while all this was going on in Washington, the Communist Party of China was no different. They were the same people who gunned down those democracy protestors in Tienanmen Square. It’s a disgrace that every public office holder should account for.
If there was to be any outsourcing, it should have gone to nascent democracies in Latin American like Mexico and Brazil, the Philippines, India, or even Indonesia.
Why did corporate America want the Butchers of Beijing so badly?
One reason: China is a market of 1.4 billion people.
The bigger reason? What most appeals to Western companies is the very lack of democracy in China.
Need a road built? The CCP will bulldoze a village to get it done. Same thing if a dam is needed to generate cheaper power.
Workplace rules? They don’t exist if you bribe the right officials. Conditions at Apple’s plants in China were so bad, the workers threatened mass suicide. Six years later, working conditions are barely better.
Fortunes were made. Apple, Nike, Amazon … they’re all run by virtue signaling CEO’s who cut checks to Black Lives Matter and all sorts of radical leftist organizations at home. Which they do hoping these will ignore how they make their money exploiting people abroad. But frankly, their money is as tainted as the people who sold gas to Nazi Germany. They also need to be held accountable.
Of course, this was all made possible by bought and paid for Western politicians who shared in the money grab. The best example? Joe Biden … the man who would be President. Whatever you think of Donald Trump, he knows what the Butchers of Beijing are.
Donald Trump also thinks it’s the job of the American government to look after Americans. That’s why the American “elite” really hates him. They’ve been lining their pockets in China for 30 years at the expense of their “fellow Americans.”
Taught him very well …
In May, Biden mocked President Donald Trump’s trade war with China by downplaying the threat. “China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man… they’re not bad folks, folks. They’re not competition for us.”
As we pointed out above, that despite the fact Chinese competition directly cost 3.7 million Americans their jobs. Why does Biden not see China as a threat? Because he sees them as his business partners.
In 2013, then-Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden flew aboard Air Force Two to China. Less than two weeks later, Hunter Biden’s firm inked a $1 billion private equity deal with a subsidiary of the Chinese government’s Bank of China. The deal was later expanded to $1.5 billion.
We said in our overview that China’s biggest threat to democracy is that unlike the Soviet Union, China can make venal local elites billionaires. Joe Biden and his family are prime examples of corrupt elites China has made billionaires.
Hunter Biden and his partners created a series of businesses involved in multibillion-dollar private equity deals with companies owned by the Chinese government. This all started in 2009, the very year Joe Biden become Vice-President.
To show the intertwined corruption of the political class — among Biden’s partners is Chris Heinz, stepson of former presidential candidate and Obama Secretary of State John Kerry.
That Hunter Biden and is partners had no experience in China, and little in private equity, didn’t dissuade the Chinese government from giving his company a business opportunities in place of established global financial brands like Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs.
Among Hunter Biden’s deals:
In December 2014, his company became an “anchor investor” in the IPO of China General Nuclear Power Corp. (CGN), a state-owned energy company involved in the construction of nuclear reactors. In April 2016, the US Justice Department would charge CGN with stealing nuclear secrets from the United States — actions prosecutors said could cause “significant damage to our national security.”
in 2015, he joined forces with a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned military aviation contractor Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) to buy American precision-parts manufacturer Henniges. Because Henniges manufactured technology with possible military applications, the transaction required approval by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. CFIUS reviews are required for business transactions that have potential national security implications. The approval was granted, thanks to Vice-President Joe Biden
In 2015, a state-backed real estate conglomerate acquired a controlling stake in one of his businesses. As part of the deal, the Chinese promised $3 billion for commercial office property acquisitions in the US — a major windfall for Biden.
In 2017, the illustrious vice-presidential son was granted what Chinese commentators described as a Xianchai, a sinecure reserved for offspring of important officials, at BHR Partners. BHR is a $20 billion fund with shareholders that include China Life, China Development Bank and other state-owned entities. China’s State Council calls on BHR to find deals abroad by hiring foreigners with political connections
If it sounds shocking that a vice president would shape US-China policy as his son — who has scant experience in private equity — clinched a coveted billion-dollar deal with an arm of the Chinese government, that’s because it is.
No one even knew the deal took place. Nor frankly, cared. We’ll come in a later chapter to why America’s fetid media doesn’t care. But remember as you read these details: these are the same people who laughably tell you over and over, “the Obama Administration didn’t have a major scandal in eight years.”
The CCP chose option two …
Biden’s billion dollar deals with Beijing were eventually revealed in the book, “Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends“ by one of the few respected journalists still working in America — Peter Schweizker. It took Schwieker, and a team of seasoned investigators nearly two years to find the facts.
What did China get for its money with Biden?
Despite violating every important provision of the WTO on intellectual property protection, labor and environmental standards, the Obama-Biden administration did nothing on China for 8 years.
It also did nothing as Chinese pharmaceuticals made billions importing fentanyl to the US. Fentanyl is a cheap, relatively easy-to-synthesize opioid painkiller 50 times more potent than heroin that has played a major role in a devastating U.S. opioid crisis. Much of it is simply mailed to the U.S. from China.
Biden is certainly the poster boy, but he’s not unique. The Clintons are utterly grotesque.
Here’s where they gunned down those protestors, so we could fly on a private jet
When Bill Clinton left office, he got paid for all the favors he did in office. The sleazy Clinton Foundation is how he and his wife got their money.
Among the more lucrative Clinton scams is being paid vast sums for speeches. You see how this gives a legal veneer to the corruption. It also proves to those still in office doing Beijing’s bidding that they will get paid without having to worry about jail.
Between 2001-2006, Bill Clinton was paid $700,000 for four speeches by Chinese brokerage firm CLSA Asian Markets. The price per speech went up a lot when Hillary was Secretary of State, and influencing decisions. In 2011, Bill Clinton received $550,000 for a speech to the Huatuo CEO Forum.
Let me be clear: while those who’ve headed the Democrat party are the most odious scammers in American politics, the “Chamber of Commerce” wing of the Republican Party is little better. No one did more than the first President Bush to normalize China after Tienanmen; he and his family made a fortune doing it. The failed administration of his son cozied up to China and its former officials make mints in China. Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital is a bought and paid for subsidiary of China, Inc.
Beijing understands American political parties work like the mafia. The Dons (big bosses) get the big checks. They spread the wealth down the line.
That means average representatives may get some business with Beijing. But, big corporate American companies who benefit from these policies are directed by the Dons to donate to supporters. That’s why you need to watch who Starbucks, Amazon, Apple and Nike give money to. And just don’t look at what the companies themselves do. Examine who their executives — even mid-level ones — give their personal money to.
It’s a brilliant system. Because the complicated nature of it gives the curiously uncurious American media every reason to not follow the cash and votes (though, the American media has fabricated stories like Trump supposedly owing the Bank of China millions of dollars. We’ll come in a later chapter to how much of the mainstream media is also bought and paid for by Beijing.)
I use America as the example here because in the U.S. political corruption is legalized.
For example, did you know that retiring politicians get to keep all the money they raise for themselves? Yes, that’s right. The only have to funnel it to a charity they create (like the Clinton Foundation) where they can pay themselves and their family members whatever they want to run it.
Note that of the 435 races every two years for district in Congress, gerrymandering, manipulating political boundaries to include more of the people who vote for you, has made only about 50 of them genuinely competitive. Ninety percent of Congressmen waltz to re-election. Yet, these Congressmen will raise millions of dollars for their “re-election battles” because they ultimately get to keep it.
Again, give China its due. It’s figured out that the best way to undermine democracy is to help it undermine itself. As we’ll see in our next chapter, in other countries, the politicians are just a little less brazen.