More than 190,000 Americans are dead today.
Our economy has been ravaged, forcing the federal government to commit to a multitrillion stimulus infusion that will burden our younger generations for decades.
While recovery is underway, the broader cultural ramifications of the Chinese Communist Party virus are still far beyond comprehension.
The single silver lining of this tragic chapter in history? America, by and large, has finally awakened to the existential threat China represents, and not just for its role in unleashing the pandemic on the world.
Americans now realize that China has played us like fools for decades—gutting our industrial base, seizing our supply chains, and stealing our intellectual property. The CCP has enjoyed unfettered access to our capital markets, suffering no consequences for consistently violating national and international laws and regulations.
Our complicit political ruling class and their Wall Street benefactors conveniently have turned a blind eye and blatantly enabled China’s rise, all to our detriment.
Now, with the Senate majority and presidency at stake, it’s all hands on deck. Republican lawmakers should be making vigorous moves against our greatest adversary.
Last week, Senator Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), locked in one of the tightest races in the country, introduced a resolution that would hold the CCP accountable for upwards of $1.6 trillion in sovereign debt it has owed to American bondholders for decades.
Cosponsored by Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, home to the American Bondholders Foundation, which represents more than 20,000 U.S. taxpayers who helped build up China with these still-unpaid bonds, McSally’s resolution sends a strong message to Beijing: the CCP must suffer consequences for its transgressions and begin playing by the same rules as everyone else.
More importantly, the resolution sends a strong message to voters in Arizona and beyond. This legislation is exactly the sort of tough, decisive action swing-state voters want to see ahead of Election Day.
A recent Pew Research report found 73 percent of Americans view China unfavorably. More than half of those surveyed believe the United States must take actions to hold China accountable for its role in spreading the pandemic, the extent of which is just beginning to come to light.
Similarly, 71 percent of people across six swing states view China as a threat, according to a Redfield & Wilton study published earlier this month. The poll targeted voters in McSally’s Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin—home to many of the most competitive Senate races in the country. A majority say they also want to see China held accountable for its role in the pandemic, with a strong majority (70 percent) believing that China hid or covered up information that exacerbated the global outbreak and caused Americans to die in droves.
These numbers speak for themselves. As Steve Bannon has said, President Trump’s path to victory in 2020 cuts squarely through Beijing. By the same token, holding China accountable is the best way for the Senate GOP caucus to hold its majority this cycle.
In 2016, with just weeks to go before the election, two-thirds of Americans believed our nation was on the wrong track, largely because of elites in this country, who gutted our manufacturing base and sold out our workers to China. The ruling class, embodied by none other than Joe “Beijing Biden,” had profited by putting China first and America last.
The genius behind Trump’s 2016 campaign message was that it linked his decades-long tough-on-China stance with the promise to Make America Great Again. This was to be done by disentangling the United States from unjust trade “deals” and repatriating wealth stolen by China. The president represented an agent of change; a catalyst of action against the CCP.
The Chinese virus has now galvanized America’s resolve to confront Beijing. Hardworking citizens want to see their elected officials holding China accountable through concrete initiatives.
The McSally-Blackburn resolution is a politically-savvy move toward that end. U.S. tax dollars currently fund a $72 million daily interest payment to China for our debt. Americans pay their bills, and China must do the same. We must collect on the nearly $2 trillion owed to us since 1911—especially in light of the incalculable economic carnage wrought by the Chinese coronavirus. President Trump and administration officials should compel China to repay us.
This measure is a solid first step toward the ultimate end: putting America First while putting the CCP on its heels. It would behoove other Republican Senators in tough races to follow McSally’s lead, not only by supporting the legislation, but also by introducing resolutions of their own to begin chipping away at Beijing’s attempted hegemony.
With mail-in voting beginning and just a handful of weeks left before November 3, all Republican lawmakers and candidates should be promoting policies that prioritize the wellbeing of our own citizenry over a communist dictatorship across the globe that is bent on dominating us. In doing so, politics will take care of itself, and the majority will not just hold, but grow for years to come.