Hunter: Communist China is Cheating on Trade

Addressing the Republican Leadership Conference at the Mackinac Island Grand Hotel, United States Congressman Duncan Hunter has made trade a major issue in his candidacy for President. Hunter contends that China is illegally devaluing their currency by 40 per cent. This devaluation, according to Hunter, undercuts American production in markets around the world. According to Hunter's figures, America has lost approximately 1.8 million jobs nationwide, the Michigan state losses exceed 54,000 jobs.

Hunter appears to be the only Republican candidate who is not a "free trader." He has called the loss of American manufacturing jobs a national security concern. "Our ability to field effective weapons systems is largely dependent on our American manufacturing base," said Hunter. "We cannot rely on foreign sources for critical elements of our systems."

As Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Hunter sent his team into the country-side to find a company that could still make high grade armor plate steel to protect troops against roadside bombs in Iraq. "My team only found one such company left in America that could handle the challenge."

Hunter calls this situation a sad come-down for a nation that produced a bomber every hour at the Ford Factory in Michigan during World War II.

Hunter said his Presidency will see a stop of China from cheating on trade and will reverse this one-way street inequity with a new fair trade policy. He pledges to level the playing field between U.S. companies and their trade competitors. In addition he further pledges to restore high paying manufacturing jobs to the American workers.

Hunter is not just talking the talk, but he has been a long-time opponent to unfair free trade policies. He voted against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), and the most-favored-nation (MFN) trade status for Communist China. As Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, he fought to insure that all military equipment be manufactured in America by Americans.

The Hunter-Ryan Bill, (HR 2942) would provide sanctions against China for currency manipulations. The Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act was co-authored by Hunter and Representative Tim Ryan (D) (OH-17) and received 178 co-sponsors in 2006.

Hunter comes from a military oriented family. His father was a Major in the US Marine Corps, and Hunter himself was an Airborne Ranger in Viet Nam. The Congressman's son, Capt. Duncan D. Hunter, is currently serving his third tour of duty with the U.S. Marine Corps. Hunter has been a strong advocate for military personnel and has been called the "serviceman's Congressman". Hunter concluded, "One of the best things I can do for our returning warriors is to make sure we have high paying jobs available when they return. The true destiny of the Republican Party has always been with the working people of this county. If we restore opportunity for the American worker, we will re-gain the majority position in U.S. politics."

(((For additional information or comments, contact Roy Tyler, National Communications Director)))

He is very Serious about the Chicoms. He hates the communists.

Dragon Hunter

‘Those dirty communist bastards’. This phrase and similarly worded curses are being uttered by more Americans each day as the headlines in normally apologist media outlets are documenting case after case of Chinese malfeasance this summer of 2007.

Headlines such as “More Tainted Chinese Toothpaste found”, “Mattel: 9M More Chinese-made Toys Recalled”, “Melamine in Pet Food may not be Accidental”, and more ominously “China Warns America It May Sell US Treasury Bonds” are perking up American ears. Nothing rattles the average American consumer like stories of beloved family pets dropping like flies, or Polly Pockets and Little People posing a danger to our real little people. All those bloody knuckles caused by poorly made socket wrenches are nothing compared to liver failure and lead poisoning. US consumers are rattled…and angry.

The investor class is also worried. As our political leaders gingerly attempt to address China’s currency devaluation and trade surplus with our country, powerful communist apparatchiks (yes, I know –it’s a Russian term) are hinting at a US treasury bill dump, a dump that could have severe financial consequences. China has pegged the value of the yuan to the dollar. Instead of floating in a natural balance against the dollar like other major currencies, this peg allows the Chinese imports to our shores to maintain their relative ‘cheapness’, not only here, but on the world market. It is China’s stated goal to leapfrog the US as the #1 economic powerhouse in the world, and undercutting US manufacturing is a very comfortable part of that plan. It has given them a staggering $233 billion trade surplus with the USA in 2006, a total that will easily be surpassed in 2007. But more likely than not, US negotiators will be reigned in and the status quo will continue, for now.

But how did we get here? Why have politicians and business leaders in the US allowed us to arrive at a place where a communist enemy holds such leverage over our economy? A place where a few words uttered by a ‘respected’ Chinese academic can rattle our markets? A place where we have allowed substandard food and materials onto our shores for years? And for that matter, a place where we pretend there is really only one China – Taiwan being a renegade province and such? The full answers are well beyond the scope of this article, but the short version is this: greed and a lack of strategic thinking.

The free-trade lobby will tell us that opening China up to free trade will bring about the desired political reforms and lead to a ‘partnership’. The problem with this argument is that it has been made for the last 25 years and relations have not improved, rather, they have deteriorated. But the siren song of the Chinese ‘comfort women’ is too much for big business to resist. “Come, build your new plant in China. We have cheap labor and negligible regulations…Oh, and by the way, we will be co-owners with you and you will need to share your manufacturing secrets…but hey, you will still make more money.”

Unfortunately, President Bush has his hands full in Iraq and Afghanistan, and is hesitant to tackle the problem. His legacy is tied to success in the muslim world now and a financial showdown with China is not in the making. The majority democrat party is certainly yapping about China (dead pets, you know), but their leading candidate was bought and paid for with communist dollars.

Scanning the political horizon for 2008, there is only one man standing that vows to put an end to this entire charade, Duncan Hunter. Duncan Hunter is, and has been, a Dragon Hunter.

Just as his mentor, Ronald Wilson Reagan, decided to change the rules for how the USA dealt with the Soviet Union - from détente to “we win, they lose”- Hunter is demanding a new set of unmarked playing cards for this high stakes poker match with China. The underlying philosophy shared by Reagan and Hunter is unabashed anti-communism. Whether it is the Lenin/Stalin model or that of Mao Tse-Tung, a communist deserves nothing short of defeat in Hunter’s view. Having entered office in 1980 with the Gipper, Hunter was instrumental in the House of Representatives for strong-arming through Reagan’s tough, anti-communist agenda. And being a Vietnam combat veteran who fought Chinese backed stooges, Congressman Hunter has several lifetimes’ worth of disdain for such an ideology. That disdain was only reinforced in the aftermath of our withdrawal from Vietnam, in the skull-filled killing fields and the rat infested ‘re-ducation’ camps. A brief China-Vietnam war in the late 1970s did not change his view of either side.

Duncan Hunter’s record of opposition to China has been as consistent as his opposition to abortion. He was nearly successful in stopping Permanent Most Favored Nation status from being gifted to China by Bill Clinton and the US congress in 2000. As Hunter mentioned in an August 13 interview on the Free Republic website:

“All of the Senators presently running for president, including Mr. Thompson, Brownback and McCain voted for Permanent Most Favored Nation status for Communist China, which I strongly oppose. I voted against PMFN with Red China because the Chinese are clearly using US trade dollars to buy ships, warplanes and missiles, some of which are clearly targeted on American forces and interests”.

Based on that statement, it is obvious Hunter does not use the bleeding heart, liberal argument to oppose China. He uses clear eyed realism centered around the defense of our nation. And his opposition did not start in 2000, and it has only intensified since. In 1998, Hunter sponsored a bill to strip away all satellite and satellite technology sales to China. President Clinton even signed it, due in part to pressure from the scandal investigations looking at laundered Chinese money in democrat coffers.

In June 2000, Hunter introduced the Nuclear Secrets Safety Act in response to continued Chinese espionage and weak procedures for securing classified information in our research labs and facilities. His consistent anti-China voting record shows that he opposed the sale of US ‘dual-use’ technology equipment to China (including supercomputers) and fought to give the Pentagon veto power over such sales. He voted to deny US participation in cooperative research and development, and to prohibit Red China from ‘ownership and control’ of any businesses involved in defense related systems or services. For decades, Hunter has supported robust arms sales to Taiwan, including missile defenses. Through the late 1990s, it was Duncan Hunter who led the fight against allowing China owned Cosco to lease the port at Long Beach, CA. He simply did not and does not trust them.

In a 1996 article Hunter penned for Knight Ridder, he wrote:

“Advocates of continued Most-Favored-Nation trade status for China claim that this is a ‘’normal’’ part of U.S. international relations and that China hasn’t done anything odd enough to be an exception.

“China’s friends seem to have adopted a rather jaded view of normality.

“Are thinly veiled threats to attack Los Angeles, like those made by China during the recent Taiwan crisis, ‘’normal’’ diplomatic discourse?

“Was Beijing’s attempt to influence elections on Taiwan by military demonstrations and missile firings ‘’normal?’’

“Was the movement of two U.S. carrier battlegroups to positions of potential confrontation with China a ‘’normal’’ gesture of friendly relations?

“Or, do these actions indicate a strategic relationship with China more on a par with Cuba or North Korea, countries with which we do not extend MFN?

“We didn’t grant MFN to the Soviet Union either, when it was aiming missiles at U.S. cities……Renewing China’s MFN status without a strategic quid pro quo would be another sign of relative American weakness.”

Alas, Hunter failed in his bid to stop his own party from supporting the misnamed ‘free trade’ nonsense in 2000. Why is it nonsense, you ask? From Hunter’s point of view, there are three main reasons.

First, you can never trust a communist! They are not honest partners in trade, international relations, or in any other endeavor. Hunter has been prophetic in this regard. The blatant dishonesty from the Chicoms is on par with the best fraudulence the Soviets regularly coughed up. China consistently uses bribes, much like a third world nation: Bribes for getting our business and requiring bribes for getting theirs. They demand ‘offsets’. If you want to sell airplanes, for example, you must allow them to manufacture parts (offsets), or in Airbus’ case, whole planes, giving up valuable industrial secrets to help China close the technology gap. Hunter calls offsets “a strategic threat to the U.S. defense industrial base.”

They cheat. As evidenced by the recent products discovered to contain worthless toxic fillers. They lie, as demonstrated by numerous cases where they purchased our high-tech goods for ‘civilian’ use, only to have such equipment disappear into some PLA black hole. They steal, as clearly shown by hundreds of cases of corporate and governmental espionage in recent years; everything from biomedical research to our nuclear secrets. They also pirate roughly 95% of our software and other intellectual property, depriving US businesses of billions in sales annually.

Second, China has a strategy to become a superpower, to surpass the US in industrial, military and economic might. The world can ill afford to have the US lose influence around the globe to a communist power. All of the underhanded activities mentioned above are designed to give them the upper hand. They recently showed off ‘their’ technological prowess to the world by blowing a satellite out of orbit. As Mr. Hunter notes, they have purchased “with our trade dollars” the most sophisticated weapons from Russia. They are using every method imaginable to obtain technical and manufacturing expertise.

While China does not adhere to an USSR-like vision of empire, they nonetheless have sought to dominate Asia and blunt US influence in the region. They have every intention of “re-uniting” with Taiwan, by force, if necessary. They are using Soviet style practices to marginalize Tibetans. And they have sold nuclear technology to rouge regimes across the globe. China has consistently used its position on the UN Security Council to block US and Western initiatives.

Third, China sides with our enemies. They have courted everyone from the Sudanese genocidal rulers to Fidel Castro to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran. They prop up North Korea’s freakish leader, not because they like or respect the little dictator, but because he is a thorn in the side of the United States (and he makes a hole-in-one each golf outing). They have feted and made deals with the megalomaniac in Venezuela. And, as an added finger in America’s eye, they have been selling armaments that make their way to the terrorists in Iraq.

They are playing a game of bluff with the US, confident of our cowardice. They brazenly held some of our airmen in 2001, demanding an apology from us, for their own pilot’s foolishness. While President Bush muddled through it reasonably well, the Chicoms would certainly not have tested a man like Duncan Hunter, who immediately demanded a cutoff of all trade with the communist regime. As Hunter succinctly stated back then, “the fact is, while we trade with China, they prepare for war”.

So what is Hunter’s solution to the China dilemma?

First, he proposes to treat them as the communist adversary that they are. That means no more generous, unbalanced trade deals. All trade deals will be reciprocal. No more Chinese tariffs on US products, if they expect the same. Second, put a halt to high technology sales of dual use equipment. If it is a potential breech of security, it stays on our shores. And from our side, Hunter wants to eliminate taxes on our manufacturing exporters. As he stated on Free Republic, “I would reduce taxes on domestic manufacturing to zero or as close thereto as possible and immediately stop China’s cheating on trade that is moving high-paying jobs offshore.” Hunter will also demand that China float its currency. He currently has a bill in Congress that would require the President to force China to do just that. Pirated software, espionage, and other nefarious activity will be treated with harsh sanctions. Hunter understands something the Wall Street Journal crowd does not; that China needs us as much or more than we need them. After all, many other low wage countries exist that can produce TVs, microwaves, and GI Joes, but there is no one to replace the USA as China’s main market for their crap….er..goods. Hunter fully intends to use this leverage, leverage that others are afraid to even contemplate.

On the military equation, Hunter promises to increase spending on our defense budget to near Reagan levels. With two major battlefronts in Afghanistan and Iraq, our current defense budget is still roughly only 3.5% of GDP. Hunter is calling for an immediate increase to about “4.5% to 5% of GDP”, paid for by a freeze in discretionary, non-military spending and cutting billions in domestic bureaucracy and programs. Hunter has been on the leading edge in his support for military technology, on everything from bunker busting bombs, to stealth aircraft to airborne laser weapons. Duncan Hunter will insist that America lead the way in space based weaponry, to stay far ahead of the Chinese (and the Russians). From his days as Reagan’s point man to the present, Hunter has been and continues to be the most stalwart supporter of missile defenses (space, land, sea, and air based) and offensive firepower.

Hunter has no misty eyed sentiment that one day soon the US and China will sing Kumbaya together and advance world peace. That can only happen after the communist party collapses.

Indeed, Hunter intends to grab Red China by the throat.

Hunter wrote the following in a 2001 San Diego Union Tribune article:

“In March of 1941, Rep. Carl Anderson from Minnesota warned America about the danger of arming potential adversaries. He said then that the chances of war with Japan were 50-50, and that if our Navy were to meet the Japanese, we would encounter a fleet which was built with American steel and fueled with American petroleum. A few months later at Pearl Harbor, 21 American ships were sunk, 300 planes were destroyed, and 5,000 Americans were killed and wounded by a Japanese fleet that was indeed built with American steel and fueled with American petroleum.

“Why is it that we still have not learned from this valuable lesson? Today, China is using its $80 billion trade surplus with the United States to build a formidable military. Tragically, the weapons China procures are targeted toward the very Americans who supplied them through their trade dollars.”

In a 2004 Armed Services Committee hearing, Hunter said:

“First, the balance of power is changing across the Taiwan strait. China continues modernizing its military with the most advanced technology available from Russia. Taiwan, on the other hand, continues cutting its defense budget. These diverging military trends highlight a political problem, in which China constantly seeks to strangle more assertive demonstrations of Taiwanese democracy, lest the people of Taiwan decide that they don’t want to surrender their rights in order to become part of greater China. Those trends are accelerating, undermining the fragile standoff that has secured peace across the strait for most of the last fifty years.

While we seek diplomatic means of solving these problems, there should be no doubt that the military stands on the front lines in ensuring that they don’t get out of hand. We absolutely must be ready, willing, and able to defeat aggression in the region in order to deter it. Everyone must know that force is not an acceptable way of resolving Taiwan’s status”.

And finally, in the July 2007 GOP candidates’ debate, Hunter was asked by Fox’s Wendell Goler if the billions in American debt held by the Chinese constitutes a security threat. He replied:

“If we don’t do anything about it, Wendell, it will be a security threat. And the other thing that will be a security threat is the fact that China is buying ships, planes and military equipment with hundreds of billions of American trade dollars coming there way. They bought the Sovremmeny class missile destroyers from the Russians that were designed to do one thing: Kill American Aircraft carriers. So there IS a security threat as we allow China to cheat on trade, they are arming with American trade dollars and they are lending our money back to us. Some people say they will treat us right if get into a crunch. And I say ‘yeah, just like they treated that guy in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square’. It is time for us to enforce trade rules with China, to create a two way street, not a one way street and that will give us much less exposure on the economic side that you’re talking about, and the security side”.

Indeed, Duncan Hunter is the Dragon Hunter. The only one left.

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