Op-Ed: In China, Xi Jinping is getting an unprecedented third term. What should the world expect?
I’m a China correspondent for the Washington Free Beacon. The last few months have been both deeply personal and momentous for me.
I love China and I love the United States.
But I feel that America is being taken advantage of.
I’m not here to complain about this fact or to bemoan its existence.
I don’t want to live in a country where we need to be constantly vigilant in order to protect ourselves from a government that has more than once been accused of manipulating media and spreading lies as a means to its ends.
I want to live in a country where if the government is working in its own best interest, the citizens are able to exercise their rights to freedom of speech and expression. I want a government that is strong but at the same time open to all its citizens.
I look at America and I can’t help but be disturbed.
I think about what China is doing the world over and I’m forced to ask the question: what in the world is America doing to China?
I think I can say with very little doubt that it is about China trying to get more access and influence.
What I am saying is that they are using what I call the Chinese playbook as opposed to what they call the American playbook.
The American playbook is a little bit more straightforward. There have been many examples of over the years. For example, if you look at the CIA’s own handbooks for intelligence collection and analysis, we see no examples of the CIA using propaganda to change the results of an election. If the Chinese are trying to do that, they’re running into a brick wall.
Instead of beating up on the government and using force to try and “win an election,” what China does instead is use its own people to engage the American public and try and penetrate the American economy.
This is what we call the Chinese playbook and by using its own people, the Chinese do not even have to use force. In fact, I think the Chinese are more successful at using their own people as opposed to