Good.
PRC,
Funny how our government tap dances around:
Tibet
Taiwan
Internment camps
Forced abortions a while back
The fact that it’s a single party communist regime
Their oppression of Muslims and Christians
Salve and forced labor
No EPA standards
No OSHA and safety standards
Making political dissidents disappear
Discrimination against LGBTQIA+
And of course: organ harvesting without prior consent or even against ones will.
Pretty much every single conceptual feel good term we pretend to represent and stand for, the PRC violates or opposes: human rights, democracy, sovereignty, transparency, freedom (in religion, speech, movement, etc), privacy and today LGBTQIA+. We talk about these feel good ideas in our schools, press, politicians mention them endlessly, they are the themes of movies and here we are, with our #1 trade partner violating or opposing ALL OF THEM.
Let’s be honest, we trash Russia in our media, our politicians like to talk crap and I’m sure the Hollywood movie will soon be released, but if you had to put PRC and Russia side by side and pick where you had to live (only those two choices), which would you choose? If you had to guess which one executes more people (https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/asia/china-executed-more-people-in-2016-than-all-other-nations-combined-amnesty-international-says-ng-632273c42816a6e404180e541516569b), has more political prisoners (https://www.cecc.gov/sites/chinacommission.house.gov/files/documents/CECC%20Pris%20List%2020191010.pdf - they are pretty much one of the worst), oppresses Christians more (Russia doesn’t oppress Christians at all BTW), which one would you guess is far worse, Russia or PRC?
Yet, how often do you hear American politicians on the national stage demand PRC reform and change their ways regards any of these issues? What did George H Bush vote for and support, in the same year tanks drove over pro-democracy students on Tienanmen Square? PRC most favored trade status and WTO membership. What did Bill Clinton Support even as the one child policy was still in place, PRC was executing pro-democracy dissidents and going back on their promise to keep Hong Kong semi autonomous and free? Most favored trade and WTO. Bush W, Obama... all the same.
Why?
Washington DC is for sale to the highest bidder (the whole uni-party idea is real), and Biden made his career with that, he did it while in Congress, as the VP and even now. PRC simply is worth a lot of money to some very significant US firms (GM, HP, Cisco, Dell, Amazon, Tesla, Apple...) which have political influence. PRC has US based subsidiaries, lobbyists, they have been engaging our media for years, their own media is operating here, their market is substantial and they leverage its access as well as their ex-pat population in the US, their military is a near peer today.
Heck, they have firms that are government pseudo entities and close ties to the PLA doing business in the US: https://media.defense.gov/2022/Oct/05/2003091659/-1/-1/0/1260H%20COMPANIES.PDF A while back the PRC wanted to have one of these firms buy up the US firm L3 which produces crypto equipment for the DoD! They can do a naval blockade of Taiwan de facto, and we will do all we can to downplay it’s significance, even telling them outright that we intend to return to business as usual as fast as possible as the dust settles: https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-08-06/Chart-of-the-Day-Why-PLA-s-six-drills-areas-around-Taiwan-matter-1chdv5ynjMc/img/21dc2e4e70794017866fe13e8cdf5e70/21dc2e4e70794017866fe13e8cdf5e70-1280.png
In America all sort of folks are too important to fail and our values are very fluid.
But I do not blame government entirely. None of this would be an issue if the American consumer were discriminating (i.e. were able to make value judgements) and put their money where their mouth is.
