‘Committee on the Present Danger: China’ Counters the ‘China Lobby,’ Urges POTUS to Stand Firm on Trade Deal

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For Immediate Release

June 17, 2019

CONTACT:

Hamilton Strategies, [email protected], Patrick Benner, 610.584.1096, ext. 104, or Deborah Hamilton, ext. 102

‘Committee on the Present Danger: China’ Counters the ‘China Lobby,’ Urges POTUS to Stand Firm on Trade Deal

Time for a Holistic Approach to Chinese‘Unrestricted Warfare’

WASHINGTON — On June 14, six hundred American companies – including huge corporations like Target, Walmart and Costco – wrote an open letter to President Trump opposing his application of tariffs to Chinese imports. What might be described as the vanguard of today’s “China Lobby” claims to support his efforts to address what even its members acknowledge are Beijing’s “unfair trade practices, including intellectual property violations, forced technology transfer and more.” Yet, the signers urge him to “get back to the negotiating table” with the PRC and to achieve “a positive resolution that removes the current tariffs.”  They claim that doing so will result in an outcome that “fosters American competitiveness, grows our economy and protects our workers and customers.”

Three months ago, the Committee on the Present Danger: China (CPDC) – a group of that includes scores of subject matter experts, national security practitioners, business leaders and other champions of human rights and religious freedom – issued its own, and very different, public encouragement to President Trump about his trade negotiations with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).  The CPDC joint statement, originally issued at the Committee’s launch event on March 25, read in part:

…Given China’s continuing, unrestricted economic and financial warfare against this country we must – with or without a new U.S.-PRC trade agreement – bring to bear the great force of American capitalism unleashed by President Trump’s domestic economic and regulatory policies.  However the trade deal winds up, these U.S. initiatives must continue and expand, inspiring American businessmen to invest, innovate, and create the prosperity here at home that has made the United States the envy of the world, as well as the most important obstacle to the Chinese Communist Party’s ambition to dominate it.

Everything possible should be done to ensure that American businesses have the opportunity to compete fairly and freely in commerce around the world, including China. As a practical matter, however, that can only be assured if the United States demonstrates the capacity and the will to safeguard not only free enterprise, but human freedom and the Free World in which both capitalism and liberty uniquely thrive.  We strongly support President Trump’s commitment to these priorities.

The Committee on the Present Danger: China believes that the wealth gained by better trade deals, however desirable, is not decisive. Addressing the full array of economic, asymmetric and military threats the PRC poses under the Chinese Communist Party (which are documented extensively at www.PresentDangerChina.org), on the other hand, most certainly is.

The CPDC’s mission statement:

The mission of the “Committee on the Present Danger: China” is to help defend America through public education and advocacy against the full array of conventional and non-conventional dangers posed by the People’s Republic of China. As with the Soviet Union in the past, Communist China represents an existential and ideological threat to the United States and to the idea of freedom—one that requires a new American consensus regarding the policies and priorities required to defeat this threat. And for this purpose, it is necessary to bring to bear the collective skills, expertise and energies of a diverse group of experts on China, national security practitioners, human rights and religious freedom activists and others who have joined forces under the umbrella of the “Committee on Present Danger: China.”

Members of the Committee on the Present Danger: China include: Hon. R. James Woolsey; Brian Kennedy; Kyle Bass; Dr. William Bennett; Steve Bannon; William Walton; Mark Helprin; Pastor Bob Fu; Kevin Freeman; Dr. Peter Pry; LTG William Boykin; Hon. Ed Timperlake; Dr. Mark Schneider; Richard Fisher; Amb. Hank Cooper; Capt. James Fanell, USN (Ret.); Dr. Stephen Mosher; and Hon. Richard Schifter.

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To interview a ‘Committee on the Present Danger: China’ representative, contact [email protected], Patrick Benner, 610.584.1096, ext. 104, or Deborah Hamilton, ext. 102.