{"id":73085,"date":"2021-04-22T19:52:32","date_gmt":"2021-04-22T23:52:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/?p=73085"},"modified":"2021-04-22T19:52:34","modified_gmt":"2021-04-22T23:52:34","slug":"chas-freeman-strong-warning-on-deteriorating-u-s-china-relations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/it\/blog\/2021\/04\/22\/chas-freeman-strong-warning-on-deteriorating-u-s-china-relations\/","title":{"rendered":"Chas Freeman: Strong Warning on Deteriorating U.S.-China Relations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Chas Freeman Issues Strong Warning on Deteriorating\u00a0U.S.-China Relations<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

April 21 (EIRNS)\u2014Chas Freeman, a former Defense official and diplomat with extensive knowledge of China-U.S. relations, issued a strong warning to the U.S. on the deterioration of relations between the two superpowers in an April 15 speech to the University of Idaho. He noted: \u201cChina is now in some ways more connected internationally than the United States. It is the largest foreign trade partner of most of the world\u2019s economies, including the world\u2019s largest\u2014the European Union (EU). Its preeminence in global trade and investment flows is growing. The 700,000 Chinese students now enrolled in degree programs abroad dwarf the less than 60,000 students from the United States doing the same. American universities still attract over one million foreign students annually but nearly half a million international students now opt to study in China. China\u2019s role in global science and technological innovation is growing, while America\u2019s is slipping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On militarily matters, he says the U.S. \u201ccontainment\u201d of China in the past, especially regarding Taiwan, was based on an overwhelming advantage on the U.S. side. This containment prevented China from \u201ceffectively asserting ancient claims to islands in its near seas, while opening the way for other claimants to occupy them.\u201d Now, however, \u201cthe Chinese military can now defend their country against any conceivable foreign attack. They also appear to be capable of taking Taiwan over American opposition\u2014even if only at tremendous cost to themselves, Taiwan, and the United States.\u201d The U.S. military presence in the region today, Freeman said, \u201chas the effect of backing and bolstering Taiwan\u2019s refusal to talk about\u2014still less negotiate\u2014a relationship with the rest of China that might meet\u00a0the minimal requirements of Chinese nationalism and thereby perpetuate peace.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As to the U.S. rallying its \u201cfriends and allies\u201d to join in opposing China, \u201cit will discover that few of them share the all-out animus against China to which so many Americans have become committed\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the BRI, Freeman makes the interesting point: \u201cThe Greeks invented the concept of a \u2018Europe\u2019 distinct from what they called \u2018Asia.\u2019 Chinese connectivity programs (the \u2018Belt and Road\u2019) are recreating a single \u2018Eurasia.\u2019 Many countries in that vast expanse see an increasingly wealthy and powerful China as an ineluctable part of their own future and prosperity. Some seem more worried about collateral damage from aggressive actions by the United States than about great Han chauvinism. Few find the injustices of contemporary Chinese authoritarianism attractive, but fewer still are inclined to bandwagon with the United States against China\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He notes China\u2019s major advances in science and education, compared to the U.S., which is in \u201cchronic fiscal deficit, immobilized by political gridlock, and mired in never-ending wars that divert funds needed for domestic rejuvenation to preeminence in global science, technology, and education.\u201d The foolish U.S. move of “excluding Beijing from international cooperation in space (has) led to an increasingly robust set of indigenous Chinese space-based capabilities, many of which are of military relevance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On U.S. sanctions, he adds: \u201cIt is generating an active threat to the U.S. dollar\u2019s seven-decade-long command of international trade settlement. Increased use of other currencies menaces both the efficacy of U.S. sanctions and the continued exemption of the American economy from balance of trade and payments constraints that affect other countries\u2026. The domestic and foreign purchasers of U.S. government debt could conclude that it is backed by little more than \u2018modern monetary theory\u2019 and cease to buy it. This alone would end the \u2018exorbitant privilege\u2019 of the United States, deprive Washington of the ability to enforce unilateral sanctions, and make the American dominance of the Indo-Pacific economically unsustainable.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is much more; a full transcript of Freeman\u2019s speech is here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chas Freeman Issues Strong Warning on Deteriorating\u00a0U.S.-China Relations April 21 (EIRNS)\u2014Chas Freeman, a former Defense official and diplomat with extensive knowledge of China-U.S. relations, issued a strong warning to the U.S. on the deterioration of relations between the two superpowers in an April 15 speech to the University of Idaho. He noted: \u201cChina is now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":73086,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[640,520,505,508,521,446,641,33],"tags":[842],"class_list":["post-73085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-china","category-updates-development","category-updates","category-updates-geopolitics","category-updates-finance","category-updates-bri","category-united-states","category-updates-war","tag-lang-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73085"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73096,"href":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73085\/revisions\/73096"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}