Bob Ehrlich: Lessons Learned from Coronavirus
Three questions to contemplate while you are taking a break from your daily telecommute:
1. Where have all the open border zealots gone now that our country is in virtual lockdown due to a worldwide contagion?
2. Why a sudden case of media amnesia regarding Joe Biden’s claim that the president’s early travel restrictions on China constituted “hysterical xenophobia”?
3. I wonder what Golden State Warriors Coach Steve Kerr (“Mr. Moral Equivalence” on China) and superstar LeBron James (“Mr. Misinformed” about human rights in Hong Kong) now think of the Chinese government’s lies and distortions regarding the depth, siz, and origin of the COVID-19 virus?
Rhetorical questions, yes, but nevertheless timely queries — and lessons — for an America that just may graduate from this pandemic with important, realpolitik lessons learned in dealing with challenges presented by America’s most formidable foe.
First, a background reminder for those who have been transfixed by the media’s relentless focus on Russia (and Ukraine) for the past three years: Donald Trump won the presidency in large part due to deep heartland angst over questionable trade deals and the demise of America’s industrial base.
An important but generally ignored subtext was Mr. Trump’s telling inquiry as to why the most powerful nation on earth insisted on treating its fastest-growing competitor (China) as a third-world power? In the process, Chamber of Commerce Republicans and indulgent one-world progressives were exposed — to their great frustration.
You may take that last sentence as an understatement.
On the right, free-trade establishment types saw Mr. Trump’s unabashed nationalism and (feelings-be-damned) tariff threats as proof of an uncomprehending mind, more interested in scoring cheap political points than understanding the complexities of free trade.
On the left, the celebrity casino owner was similarly dismissed as an intellectual lightweight and further condemned as a xenophobe and nativist to boot. Both sides remained rather unimpressed, even dismissive of the pleas of flyover country laborers who still work with their hands.
Further to the point, the mainstream media and Russia-obsessed lefties never understood that Mr. Trump was primarily focused on our most serious opponent/economic competitor/situational ally — China — from the jump.
Recall the new president’s first major policy pronouncement: He would reappraise America’s “One China Policy.”
Both party establishments blanched, and the left immediately assumed “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” A familiar refrain began: We told you he was crazy — he is going to start a war with the Chinese. But buried beneath the short-lived, shot-across-the-bow initiative was a new president’s desire to secure China’s immediate attention. The president needed Chinese President Xi Jinping to intervene with North Korea’s saber-rattling Kim Jong Un.
Shortly thereafter came a sustained Trump administration attack on America’s ever-spiraling, out-of-control trade deficit with China — a fact of life even conservative economists had minimized for years.
Not so Mr. Trump.
China’s willingness to engage in currency manipulation and the wholesale theft of American intellectual property became battering rams in a protracted trade negotiation that achieved phase-one success in January but reserved more difficult issues for a forthcoming phase-two negotiation later this year.
All of which brings us back to a dangerous flu strain that has its genesis in the Chinese city of Wuhan — an influenza outbreak that was negligently covered up and foisted on the world by an autocratic government that simply could not get ahead of its own lies. A worldwide health crisis and many thousands of deaths is the unfortunate result.
At some point, of course, this too shall pass. Once it is mostly over, here’s hoping the president will take the opportunity to again utilize his bully pulpit — similar to the way he postured China into engaging with North Korea and entering into a trade summit.
Specifically, there are two important takeaways from this brutal go-around with the Chinese politburo:
1. A timely reminder for a suddenly socialism-accepting America that no socialist or communist state can replicate the cleansing transparency of Western democracies — real looks behind the dictator’s curtain will always reveal the negligence, heavy-handedness and brutality (How many critics of the Chinese government’s response have recently vanished?) of autocratic rule.
2. Perhaps it’s not so xenophobic or nationalistic to question why America’s essential medical supply chains remain captive to a hostile power that in recent days has openly threatened to leverage its pharmacological manufacturing advantage against the U.S.
That the wannabe diplomats from the NBA may also learn a lesson here is without doubt. I wonder if Messrs. Kerr and James now know there are over one million ethnic Turkic Muslims (primarily Uyghurs) imprisoned against their will in the Chinese gulag?
On second thought, I think I know the answer to that one.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.
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