Amidst the wailing of economists, Democrats, and farmers concerning the incompetent, amateur maneuverings of President “Trade wars are easy to win!” Trump, it’s worth taking a step back and considering that, despite the indisputable evidence that Trump is flailing and possibly in the grip of dementia, he may be on the right side of history. Here’s David Von Drehle in WaPo:
I’m talking about soft power — the use of international organizations, moral suasion, foreign aid, trade, compromise, alliances and salesmanship to achieve a nation’s aims. Brutally adept with hard power — from tanks and machine guns to concentration camps and starvation — the Chinese Communist Party has little experience with soft power. Xi is getting a crash course, with one test after another.
Hong Kong is the most immediate. More than 20 years after the former British colony was returned to Chinese sovereignty, the proud and wealthy city refuses to submit to Communist control. A law that would allow Beijing authorities to extradite dissidents from Hong Kong provoked a backlash of protest that grows larger with each effort to quell it. Close to 2 million people, according to organizers, participated in a peaceful demonstration on Sunday — arguably the biggest challenge to party authority since the 1989 student protest in Beijing, which ended in a massacre.
China is by no stretch of the imagination a democracy. The Communist Party has power and, constitutionally, will not peacefully relinquish it. The Army has been and could easily once again be used to coerce citizens into doing Communist Party bidding, and minorities such as the Uighurs face cultural and ethnic extinction.
So limiting trade with China is not necessarily a bad thing, no matter what free trade advocates and libertarians may think. Of course, there are arguments on the other side, that making China dependent on trade may limit their aggression. It’s a fine and valid argument to have.
I have little use for Trump’s methods, his claims of authority to order companies out of China, for his entire China debacle dating right back to before he was inaugurated. But with concerns about Chinese power combined with Chinese lack of scruples, and credible reports of illicit technology transfers from the West to China, it’s worth contemplating that Trump has the right idea.
He’s just a flaming idiot about how he implements it. He may end up getting pitchforked by American farmers. Which would not be a bad thing.
