Posted on 03/07/2018 4:18:34 PM PST by Mariner
Top Navy and Marine Corps officials on Wednesday expressed concern over China’s expanding global reach and said the superpower was rapidly buying up foreign land to “win without fighting.”
“When it comes to China, the bottom line there is the checkbook,” Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer told lawmakers during a House Appropriations defense subcommittee hearing.
“Not only in the dollars and cents that they are writing to support their military expansion and their technological work, but what they’re doing around the globe ... weaponizing capital.”
Spencer referred to Beijing’s current funding of a Sri Lankan port project, a move not done as aid but rather in order to secure it for themselves.
China has said the project is part of its $1.4 trillion "Belt and Road Initiative," which is meant to bolster trade routes by extending roads outside the country and building up ports.
“Their open checkbook keeps me up at night,” Spencer said.
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller, who also spoke at the hearing, said the Chinese “are playing the long game.”
“Their concern with human rights is not there, they’ve got big bags of cash. They’re buying airfields and ports to extend their reach ... they want to win without fighting,” Neller said.
Neller also pointed to a Russian threat in all domains, including underseas, in the air and on the ground.
“The Russians, I think, are a little more in your face,” Neller said.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
They understand how to use national wealth to further a national agenda.
Our leaders and society think that's "wrong". Especially the Free Traders.
It makes we wonder if they are aware of where and how China obtained these massive sums of capital.
VERY good post.
and let’s not ignore the moose limbs breeding to win without fighting.
Communist Chinese people have bought up half or more of most SillyCon Valley communities and much of Los Angeles (and Seattle, Portland, and VancouverBC).
This has so tremenously distorted the markets that normal American citizens, even those with medium to high level professional incomes cannot afford shelter anymore.
A perfectly undistinguished little SIllyCon Valley cottage (a half century old, on a normal postage stamp lot, only 2 bedrooms and 848 sq ft) just sold for $2,000,000.00 cash. That town, Sunnyvale, is now majority Chinese and the immigrants are still flooding in....same for a number of Bay Area communities
the point is that this highly irregular mass-scale buying-up of American real estate... in obviously very, very selected locations (with the greatest military, defense sensitivity)......is hurting American citizens, immensely.
Hmmm. Not exactly a winning strategy.
Remember when Japan was at the top of her economic game,
and Sony, I think it was, was bidding to buy Rockefeller Plaza and the shrieking that ensued? Some wag with a little more level of a head said, “What are they going to do? Take it back to Japan?”
They’ve got big bags of cash.
Where did they get big bags of cash? Oppression? Slave labor? Walmart? Trade deficit? Trade war? Past three administrations?
To quote the late Tom Moorer when I downloaded and gave him a copy of “Unrestricted Warfare” and he read it. He growled in is inimitable way: “It’s not as if they didn’t tell us what they intended to do.”
The Japanese eventually sold their majority interest in Rockefeller Plaza at a huge loss; it didn’t work out too well for them.
I do remember people freaking out at the time (when the Japanese first announced their investment).
Anyone feel another boxer rebellion coming (55 Days in Peking)?
I have heard this in a few places recently. People hyperventilate about the Chinese moving into Africa, etc.
The complaint being that “the Chinese build ports, roads, hospital and dams, to gain entry to that nation” and make the locals side with them. The teller is usually angry and thinks some SEALs and airstrikes should make the nation in question be more loyal to the USA.
Now our military leaders are whining about it. Claiming that unlike us, the Chinese don’t really have human rights in mind. This is a nice example of how our alliances with psycho dirtbags hurt us a lot in the long run.
As I recall, Nakatomi plaza in L.A depreciated in value very quickly one Christmas night so real estate is not always a sure thing.
“The teller is usually angry and thinks some SEALs and airstrikes should make the nation in question be more loyal to the USA.”
Of course that is ridiculous, in most cases.
The salient point is that China is bleeding capital from the US through Mercantilist trade policy. And the US is willingly participating.
A buck at a time. Through Walmart and others.
Once they have that capital, there is little we can do about how they spend it.
Simple, Xi just happened upon a big bag of cash while taking a morning stroll.
It was a really big bag.
This is how you build an empire, without firing a shot.
Everything that they’re buying up has strategic value.
....”They understand how to use national wealth to further a national agenda”....
They’re doing this with other countries now as well with their “ Beijing’s charm offensive” though merely a temporary, tactical calibration in service of its goal to remake the wold into China’s order.
....”this highly irregular mass-scale buying-up of American real estate... in obviously very, very selected locations is hurting American citizens, immensely”.....
Well that is the plan. Weaken our country and it’s people. It’s China sending in all the drugs as well.....gladly using mexican drug lords to do it.
(ps. China remembers well the Opium wars and how Opium devastated their people)
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