China Spy
 Updated April 24, April 13, 2020 (changes highlighted) February 16, 2020

If you pay attention to the propaganda politicians, intelligence wonks and military industrial complex shills are pushing, we arPropagandae told America is in grave danger from Chinese spying, stealing its intellectual property, its military buildup and so on. Aggressive and well armed states with opposing views confronting each other is dangerous. Without any effort to come up with better solutions, the inevitable result is war and for citizens to suffer from the miscalculations both sides make.

We are now in the midst of a massive propaganda campaign to sell us something we neither need or want. People who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.  But if China is as dangerous as portrayed, why not simply go to the public and ask for an authorization to declare war on them?

Oh wait, that is not a viable option because so many American companies decided to take their manufacturing to China to profit from lower production costs and a huge skilled workforce.  Covid-19 exposed how vulnerable the nation can be when an essential industry is moved away from America, just to get a better return on capital. The decision to do so was made by American corporations, not China.  Odd is it not that the left hand does not agree with what the right hand is doing.

There is a saying that "bullshit baffles brains," and the US is in the long throws of perpetually refining the technique. I would modify that saying to "bullshit baffles the brains of those who do not read and study things." 

China's human rights record is well known. America's human rights record is not. China does not maintain 800 military bases around the world, US military spending dwarfs China's, and the US has a lengthy history of forcing its will on other nations as part of an expansionist and interventionist policy. Another view here.

To study the issue, here are just a few additional links to start: The Intercept: Post 9/11 Wars, The Philippines Genocide,  William Blum: Killing Hope-U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (to download entire Killing Hope book as PDF select "See Other Formats" on the page.) A recent article in the Intercept looks at US expansionist military policy in Africa.

It's worth spending time to study and think about the issues yourself without spin, to see what you think about it. Three questions are worth considering:
US Defence Spending
With the amount of money America spends militarily, misleadingly called defense in spite of evidence that a huge chunk of it is offensive in nature, it seems someone is lying. How is it possible with all of the money being spent on the military, supporting 800 military bases around the world, with the largest navy and air force in the world, and the second largest nuclear arsenal on earth, that China threatens America militarily?

China is spending a lot of money to prevent the US from being able to blockade China's access to the South China Sea in a conflict, allowing America to position heavily armed warships close to China's shores. With the US constantly beating the drums of war, no one interested in self preservation would allow an exposed flank to go undefended for enemy forces to occupy. Claiming that China taking steps to defend itself in a conflict that America advertises daily is coming is a threat to America, is simply a pretext to undermine a strategy that takes away the aggressor's options.  And it propagandizes support at home for more conflict. 

America also implies Chinese flavored capitalism is threatening America's economic dominance. China, like many others, realizes a market economy has benefits and is using that tool as one more thing to try in the arsenal of ideas to take care of billions of people. The real issue is the fact that a China flavored market economy was not supposed to work at all.

A serious dent in China's financial outlook over the next few years may come from the impact of Coronavirus. If it spreads to the rest of the world as strongly as it has effected China, you will see massive damage to all markets and financial systems, not just China's.

There is speculation that Coronavirus virus may have jumped from a virology lab in Wuhan into the general population. While the source of the virus is unknown, its spread is not helped by the fact that China is dirty and no where close the the level of cleanliness in the US. A relative visited China for an extended time and traveled on overnight trains. She said all night she could hear people clearing their noses, covering one nostril with their finger and blowing discharge from their noses onto the floor out of their compartment. In the morning the curtains of the train compartments and floors were covered in nasal mucus and phlegm which she described as "disgusting."

Want to know how to spread disease quickly? Spit wherever you want and blow your nose wherever you are standing with one finger onto the floor or whatever and never wash your hands or the soles of your shoes. Shop at at wet market like in Wuhan, then go home and walk all over your house and touch everything. Let your kids crawl on the floor. That might explain why Xi Jinping won't go near the place.

What Would You Do?

What if an armed neighbor with powerful friends in local government and the police blocked access to your property until you agree to do sell it to them? And what if the neighbor continually threatens you and your family's future to increase pressure on you, and the local government and police will not help you? What would you do? 

I'll add another element to make it more difficult, but no less clear.  Lets say the neighbor planted crops that were genetically modified, and allowed seed from those crops to mix with yours without your consent, then demanded a percentage of everything you grow claiming it belongs to them even though their genetically modified crops contaminated yours without your consent?  And what if their genetically modified seed contained a terminator gene that kills the productive capacity of your native plantings, decimating your future ability to produce from your land?  Now what?  For more on that subject, see this book on it.

Another issue further potentially complicating the scenario is if you and the neighbor may have reasons to work together on some things that benefit you both in the future. To reach any kind of agreement, both of you are going to have to isolate some of the more contentious points, or compromise on them.  It would not help if family members on both sides are full of testosterone and are angling for a shootout, loudly proclaiming the same while you try to discuss a deal.

 This is a question that may be best answered by people that have a strong sense of their independence and their rights. Texans perhaps. It not a fair question for anyone in the world who does not have the same understanding of individual freedom and rights as the colonists that founded America did when they ran the British off. It also may be well beyond the scope of those that do not believe in their constitutionally enshrined ability to solve these types of problems on their own, by force of arms if necessary.  It is certainly not for Mexican citizens whose lives are being destroyed by cartels and a completely impotent/corrupt government, and who flee because they have few options, although they might wish they had the choice.

If negotiation fails in these circumstances, I suspect a good many independent Americans described above would grab their guns and go to the fence and tell the neighbor to back off or else. If the local government and police lean on you to agree that also does not make it right and at the end of the day reading what the founding fathers had to say about tyranny in government might help to clarify what needs to be done. They simply are part of the overall problem you must confront.

What would you do?

I believe that is how China views the situation they are in. Moreover I doubt China feels inferior about its own history of invention and ingenuity given that it has a long history repleat with inventions that have changed the world. Chinese people have a great sense of pride in their historical accomplishments, which is now being updated across the development spectrum.

As part of beating the propaganda drums of war, some US military personnel are suggesting China is preventing American students from attending Chinese colleges. I could not find evidence that this is the case, but there are discussions about Chinese colleges being behind the US in terms of educational quality at this time.  Separating fact from fiction, if you had to choose would you go to a college or university that offers instruction in the most difficult language in the world to learn and that is of lower quality than the education you can get at home?

A large number of Chinese however are willing to spend the energy, cost and time to attend top colleges outside China to get the best available education they can. Doing so is not cheap, and paying the going rates for top colleges and universities is not shoplifting. These colleges and universities extract as much money for tuition from foreign students as the market will bear.  If there are Chinese that are willing to pay what these colleges and universities ask, they are not stealing from the colleges and universities although some would argue the tuition these places charge everyone is a form of theft on them or at the very least usury.  The cost of a university education here is taking up a lot of election wind at the moment.

Then there is the argument that American forms of democracy are better than the way China operates. Ask yourself how China could possibly manage the enormous challenges it faces with the gridlock governance the world has been witnessing in the US since Trump was elected, including with the nation's bureaucracies, intelligence community, opposition party and media interfering in the operation of government. It does not matter which side of the fence you are on, with positions and feelings as hardened as they are on both sides it would be a gong show on a larger scale in China and nothing would get done. If the example of the last 4 years is to be a shining example of democracy in operation for the rest of the world, I doubt any nation in its right mind would want to copy it.

Why would they? At least with one governing party firmly in control there is no debate about militarizing the South China Sea, trade negotiations, preventing religions from damaging the country like is happening in Europe, building the nation's military capacity to confront external threats, and putting corrupt politicians in their place. To prove just how damaging being democratic can be, instead of being completely tolerant to any idea consider the example of radical religions that believe their religious laws are superior to those of the nation because their laws came from God while the nation's came from man.  That then leads to the idea that women are inferior to men, because numerous religions say so. The net result are people that no longer believe the have to treat the female half of the nation equally, and the nation has no legitimate authority to tell them their behavior is unacceptable.  So they either agree, or use their beliefs to mistreat the female half of the population in secret, undermining womens' place in society.  Then there are groups that would teach there are no biological sexes, or that evolution is a lie. And the politicians that flood their nations with people that support these ideas refuse to admit their mistakes in doing so.  I get why belief in any God is comforting, but there has to be a better way to reconcile beliefs with facts on the ground.  Especially those that can damage half the population.  If beliefs trump facts, why are we still not burning witches and heretics at the stake?

If for no other reason, Xi Jinping maintaining control of China's economy and social discourse in the same way Bloomberg, Bezos and Jack Ma run their companies has the potential to defeat nations without that control. Would you want to open your company up to management by committee, letting the people that want jobs make decisions how to run things? 

Given where China started out and where they are now, if you believe you could manage it, would you want to run the governance gauntlet the two party system has in America, or would you want to just get things done?  Bloomberg, Bezos and Jack Ma are testament to doing the job they way they see it unfolding. There certainly is no pressure on them to democratize their business models. Can you imagine how long they would last if they ran their companies like the two parties in power now are doing? They would be gone fairly quickly.

China has the problem of feeding 1.4 billion people plus delivering lives that have meaning from a Chinese perspective. Anyone that says all China has to do is feed its people and ignore their need for fulfillment is delusional. To do so China has to keep its people focused and maximize all of the options available to them. The worst argument for the American model as it operates today is the way people in America are rising up to reject the parts of their system that do not work for them. Even if Trump and Bernie both lost, the election of a Bloomberg who has demonstrated his own view of "I know better than you do" would not stop the long term unrest.

The election of Trump, the popularity of Bernie Sanders, and the election of Boris Johnson are not aberrations, but evidence that a large number of citizens have had it with the way things work no matter what the mainstream media tries to tell you. It does not take a university degree to figure out if your cupboards are bare, you can't pay for health care or an education for you or your kids, high paying jobs are moving away to third world countries, you have no savings, and your kids are getting killed in the streets, that something is wrong.

Challenges To The Status Quo Are Only Shocking To The Self Deluded

Successful challenges to American dominance upsets the status quo, which today is a world order that benefits a small group of people who see a borderless world for American business interests to dominate the economic landscape globally. America's vision of its military and economic superiority does not include actually having to negotiate with an equal and opposite party in the world to achieve a result. It's about not having to divvy up the pie. That message is clearly repeated in any foreign policy discussions you can read coming out of American think tanks.

China's growth limits the leverage American economic interests have over it and other nations since these nations have the option of trading with China as well as other Asian block countries. You see other nations using that fact to their advantage already. The adage "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" can be easily translated to "there is another deal available." America's only response to that is China and Russia will kill you and we are the only force that can stop it.

Take the case of energy sales for example. America is trying everything it can to prevent Europeans from buying lower cost and continuously available energy from Russia, citing all of the dangers of doing so. However as long as there are multiple suppliers, it is the buyer and not the seller that is in control. Does anyone seriously believe American companies will not sell Europe its energy if Russian or the Gulf States refuse to? That will only work if the American government interferes in the operation of their businesses and threatens them as well as Russia. Sanctions and punishing domestic corporations are framed as a national security issue. When China does it it is called a human rights violation, oppressive state control blah, blah.

Show me a corporation that has an advisory board chaired by the Catholic Church to provide guidance and that refuses to sell their product because it is the moral thing to do. You can pretty much guess how that would work out with both the LGBT community and shareholders. The point being that corporations are driven by the bottom line. 

Challenging American power and its economic model cannot be tolerated because it emboldens American citizens and the rest of the world do a rethink of America's form of governance and business.  While capitalism does produce strong results and economic growth, America's version of it is no longer capitalism. Its version leaves a lot of people behind when it is out of balance as it is now. That problem needs to be fixed, but is hard to do when the wealthy and powerful of a country live in a bubble of gated communities, are resplendent in riches, and have no idea what the majority of their people go through daily.

One of the obvious failures of American capitalism is allowing major corporations to tailor the economy to suit their interests to the detriment of citizens.  Its called cheating when it happens in cards. Sheila Kennedy, Professor of Law and Policy in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Purdue from the link above sums it up perfectly in the quote below:
"First, the system we currently have in the U.S. is not market capitalism. It is corporatism. Corporatism has been defined as the organization of society by major interest groups, specifically corporations. It isn’t exactly a secret that the last thing many of our captains of industry want is genuine competition. The legions of lobbyists sent to Washington and state capitals are not arguing for open markets; they are vying for competitive advantages and taxpayer subsidies."

She is totally correct, and if you read through the links in this site you will see that.  I have created laws and they were not designed to benefit competitors or let the government regulate the business. In fact they were barriers to entry designed to remove any opportunity competitors had to compete. Companies lobby to get their way with elected officials, and donating money to them is how their cooperation is purchased for as long as it lasts.

Their money has allowed them to provably rig the laws, avoid taxes using tax havens and off shoring strategies, buy lawyers by the dozen, buy the courts, buy the media with advertising dollars or simply purchase them, buy governments, buy the resources of the nation, and indirectly threaten other countries with the military by buying politicians that will do their bidding and direct military policy favorable to their business expansion. With all that going for corporations and the rich why even bother listening to the common person? 

One reason to do so in America in the long run is because its citizens are capable of fighting back, a strength they have yet to flex. If American citizens give up their right to take up arms against tyranny as THEY see it and not what anyone else says, they will become the same as any other helpless and hapless band of citizens in countries other than America. Look at the Mexicans who cannot defend their families against the cartels. Watch this video of a grandmother defending her store from robbers and you tell me whose citizens are better off. The founding fathers actually knew what they were doing with the second amendment.

I would like to take that one step further.  It really does not matter what the founders thought, although it is instructive.  If there is tyranny in government, corruption in the streets, mayhem like in Mexico because of the cartels, you do want to be armed to protect your home and your families, and even to throw the corrupt bastards out that helped it to get that way.  So regardless of the second amendment or not, an armed populace that is responsible for defending their rights is simply desirable.  If you can't think for yourself and are too gutless to fight for your rights and don't think that is the case, then stock the military with vegetables and rocks instead of weapons. 

"A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." - John Stuart Mill

While there is no question people are being killed by people who are deeply disturbed in some way, study some history to see what happens when the only people in control run the government and can do what they want if you really want to understand hell on earth. In this brief article they are telling your kids you are too stupid to take care of them so the state will do it.  Please.
"It is also in the interests of a tyrant to keep his people poor, so that they may not be able to afford the cost of protecting themselves by arms and be so occupied with their daily tasks that they have no time for rebellion." - Aristotle in Politics (J. Sinclair translation, pg. 226, 1962)

"What country can preserve its liberties, if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms." - Thomas Jefferson in a Letter to William Stephens Smith, Nov. 13, 1787

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive." - Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (Philadelphia 1787).

"The great object is that every man be armed" and "everyone who is able may have a gun." - Patrick Henry, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution. Debates and other Proceedings of the Convention of Virginia, taken in shorthand by David Robertson of Petersburg, at 271, 275 2d ed. Richmond, 1805. Also 3 Elliot, Debates at 386

"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?" - Patrick Henry, 3 J. Elliot, Debates in the Several State Conventions 45, 2d ed. Philadelphia, 1836

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined" - Patrick Henry, 3 J. Elliot, Debates in the Several State Conventions 45, 2d ed. Philadelphia, 1836

In the meantime, the so called deplorable ones are waking up after years of seeing wages and savings decrease, jobs and factories moving away, the mundane replacing jobs that provided meaningful work, and being told it is their fault for not being educated.  In such circumstances politicians like Bernie Sanders seem to offer option, or at the very least someone who will take out voters' frustration on the system and the tone deaf rich and powerful befitting from the way things are now.  The young people that make up Sander's constituents now, are the future, and although they may not vote in 2020 they will change the future in the same way people who lived through the complete failure of the Vietnam war did as they grew older and took their beliefs with them.

Historically politicians have only given lip service to these problems have swept them under the rug except at election time, when they lie their ass off in the political version of Survivor until the season finale. They either do not care or have no idea what to do about it but they will take donor money so they can get reelected and buyself inflicted themselves a job on the failed hopes of the people that elect them. Years later the charade restarts all over again with a new season of the political reality show.

If you look at Trump, despite the fact that he was an outsider operating in a completely hostile environment meeting with huge resistance, and in many ways invites the trouble he gets, Trump is upsetting the applecart and getting things done. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. His opposition is so blinded by hate they are missing the fact that he is killing them with a million paper cuts. 

Now in a real act of brilliance, along will come the Democrats promising to undo anything Trump did and flood the country with illegal immigrants who will work for less, undermine your jobs and they will take away your arms and the right to defend yourself. Who the hell is voting for these guys?

Sanders is more extreme in his views, yet the fact that his supporters are listening and turning up in droves should not be overlooked. They may well prove to be a big chunk of the citizens of the nation acting out in the future so it is important to know who they are and what they want, unless you are so blinded by your own hubris you believe you can stick it to them no matter what. Boris Johnson reached an audience that was/is fed up. Calling these constituents stupid, racists, uneducated and so on may be satisfying, but it won't work.  

China's Challenges To The Status Quo Include Taking Pages From America's Handbook

China is making a go of hybrid capitalism run by a communist government, historically benefiting from low cost labor and the pent up individual desire of its people to prosper. China is cherry picking ideas from market economies and combining them with their own culture in a controlled environment to see if it can compete on the world stage. They are also following the way leading economies that have gone before have done and are evangelizing Chinese capitalism around the world backed by hard cash, engaging nations while providing economic assistance.

There are complaints that China's hard bargains are debt traps, but I suggest people look at landlords in New York and Los Angeles to understand what hard bargaining with limited availability looks like. Anyone who has ever leased a commercial property understands the idea of a debt trap.  The moment you enter into a lease your inventory, your store and its fixtures, your receivables and cash on hand, and in many cases your lines a of credit are all encumbered by the landlord.  The bank as a lender is another debt trap.  So anyone that believes the debt trap nonsense has never operated a business. 

In addition, no one has ever said you have to give ground on a negotiation. You also can't corrupt the incorruptible, so if deals China does smell of corruption it may well be that crooked politicians sold their people out.  Surprise Surprise. The situation becomes slightly more complex when the buyers do not have alternate suppliers and are desperate to make any deal. China has enough money that it can pay the long game in backwaters with strategic locations and undeveloped resources. 

If you were lending in these places and were smart you would drive a hard bargain and cover your ass too.  Again, China did not invent this playbook, America did. One of America's advance economic hitmen who worked with the NSA talks about how the American version of shakedown lending works. His book on the subject in its entirety is here. Read it online or save it to a file so you can read it at your leisure.

Anyone needing money for a project and being forced to go to second or third tier lenders will know exactly what I am talking about.  Trump's shyster lawyer Cohen hung around with a lot of private lending thugs, many criminal and having access to black (off the books) money. Trump easily could be described as a high risk borrower forced to go to lower tier lenders considering some of his riskier business failures. Trump is not alone. One of the smartest and largest developers in the world, Toronto company Olympia & York owned by Paul Reichmann and his brothers, Albert and Ralph, went from the top tier to bankruptcy when their English project Canary Wharf got into trouble. The Reichmanns were devout Jews, widely respected and visionary and should have been able to attract support from their community and the banks, and yet when things started to go wrong the Reichmanns golden touch disappeared along with their credit. Business is business, and the business of business is business.  Screw up and its a long road back.

There is also talk that when China covers the globe it will need to duplicate America's military infrastructure to protect its investment. Perhaps, but that sounds an awful lot like a way to justify the nation's own costly and military stance to continue. Anyone who sincerely thinks the earth can go another 10,000 years by militarizing every square inch of it needs to have their head examined. 

Another thing China is doing is building its intellectual capital by stimulating the education of its people and securing that intellectual capital by filing a huge number of patents. Patents are not only an indication of Chinese inventiveness, but they are also a form of monopoly that can be used to restrain competition globally. This article on patent lawsuits in telemedicine illustrates the problem.

Forbes magazine suggests China's spectacular rise is attributed to "the Chinese people, the true creator of China’s economic success and the great culture that shapes their characteristics: ambitious, hardworking, thrifty, caring for their families and relentlessly pursuing good education and success."

Malcolm AbbottIt should be easy for anyone to understand how important the citizens of any nations are in China's rise, and Taiwan's rise, and Singapore's and America's rise and every other nation that has broken free from their past and become economic powerhouses. China took the necessary steps to unleash its citizens' potential and willingness to work hard to get ahead.

The Chinese people responded in kind by behaving like capitalists. Too bad we can't get everyone in America do the same.  Unless of course we use genius' like the one pictured here smoking dope and defending cheating to get into college as a role model for all Americans.  Is it possible America is allowing its children to lose their way and be absorbed by foolishness and complacency?

I asked a Chinese national, a number of whom worked for me as engineers, what the difference was between earning a living in China and in America, and his answer was that working in America was like being retired. In China everyone is hyper competitive and if you blink you lose. While only one person's opinion, no one seriously thinking about it would believe China's explosive growth is being driven by a bunch of lazy slackers or driven by government edict.

Our schools teach some perverted versions of diversity, feeling good about yourself, and suggest doing good enough is ok. You know, the same people that believe it is OK to teach your children that they are smarter than you and that your children should not listen to or talk to you.

Sorry, that won't cut it except in a welfare state, which also does not work. Of course teaching our children without any form of yardstick lets all of the slackers get away with under performing, as long as nanny state unions protect slacker teachers from hurt feelings and retires them with an entirely undeserved pension for failing the nation's children.  Oh well, at least they will be able to afford an electric SUV in their retirement and travel 100 miles at a time with lots of stops to recharge their batteries. The frequent recharging stops will help them to see urban America 2 hours at at a time, although trying for the wide open spaces where the deer and the antelope play will be too risky.  How much does it cost to tow an SUV?

In spite of the smart moves it has made, the Chinese government is not some miraculous, hard working agency pulling the levers of innovation, inventiveness and hard work. Governments are the same everywhere, a bunch of self-entitled bureaucrats protecting their positions, hanging on to whatever largess their members can get, and looking askance at the Jack Mas, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Michael Bloombergs and every other innovative and creative person that makes things happen.

Think of government bureaucrats as leeches who have no real idea of how much blood they can suck out of the host and who do not understand that killing the host will eventually kill them too. They are supported in their self delusion by guys like Joseph Stiglitz who expound the idea that their brilliant management has explored the limits of what the economy can be expected to do.  Then Obama, who never built and ran a real business in his life lays claim to the fantasy that the economy is booming because of him. The only people that believe that nonsense have never tried to own and run a business. Governments are a necessary component in the grand scheme of things, but they need to be better managed than they are. 

“A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.” -Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801

To further illustrate how important hard working and innovative people are you need to look at Israel as another example. Israel punches way above its weight and everywhere you turn there is a Jewish person involved at a high level in critical industries around the world. And yes in finance too if the SPLC wants to raise a fuss.  Even Jews that abuse their heritage have unique personal skills and a desire to achieve success as they define it, benign or not. Bottom line, if the cultural and human environment fosters self reliance, education, hard work and the desire to get ahead, a nation will become better off. Many of the leading nations in that regard today are Asian countries.

The longer term challenge for China, made much easier by the United States' constant attacks on them, will be convincing a hard working population that they need to carry on with their work and achievements and rely on having a strong government to defend them against foreign aggression. While there is no question China among other nations is spying on the United States to steal its secrets, it is equally true that America has been doing the same thing to everyone else long before the Chinese people could get away from back breaking work in the rice paddies, and for most of the same reasons they blame the Chinese for doing so.

Inventiveness and Captive Knowledge

As a person having invented technology that is in widespread use today, there are several things to consider. There is raw innovation, such as the AHA flash of insight, and the progressive discovery of new information developed from brute force application of resources to expand the sphere of knowledge in a particular area.  At one time the first to invent patent filing system provided some degree of protection to original inventors, but that system has been replaced by the first to file system which provides patents to those who are the first to register them.  Later on, patents issued have to be defended which is a costly process that limits who can participate. 
First in
An abundance of money and lawyers can destroy the benefits of innovation to original thinkers, especially when they can not profit from what they invented.  Think of it in terms of an island in which the land is fully developed and owned. Once the land is gone and ownership is passed from generation to generation those coming after can at best only hope to be tenants, and in the face of ever rising rents, may end up being homeless.

The question you must ask yourself is do I believe future generations should be denied the opportunity to live in a desirable place or do we come up with some way of recycling ownership. No idea what that might look like. Similarly, if you take the idea of intellectual property ownership to the extreme, nations that are first in can so totally dominate the landscape that emerging generations have little chance but to be subservient to those that got there first. That will not work if nations like China, or anyone else for that matter, understand that they have the right to benefit their nation in the same ways as the first in and take steps to overcome a system that favors the first and penalizes the second.

First movers will always have an advantage in a game as long as everyone in in the game agrees to the rules and has to play out of necessity. However there needs to be a better system to accommodate future generations, which will only work if the entire system supports it. If I were in a country that was behind the technology first movers controlled and could be held for ransom because I did not have the resources of the first mover, I would not be willing to cede control to the first mover if I could find a way around it. Doing so is only a problem if I want to do business with the first mover. If I don't and they cannot operate in my country, I would use whatever I like.

You do not have to study the matter in depth to understand China's resistance to allowing America's first mover advantage to dominate, placing them at a long term disadvantage they may never recover from.  That becomes especially clear when America will use any means possible to press their advantage, including sanctions, military action and so on. 

America is calling on China to limit its growing nuclear arsenal. That is the last thing China should do.  China must preserve their ability to resist any pressure from any nation with any kind of military advantage while they pursue the goals of expanding their own national strengths. What is laughable is when the US complains China is stealing its military technology.  That is kind of like the British complaining the colonists hid in the swamps and behind trees. It wasn't the proper way to do things. Sorry, but as far as I am concerned the entire group of idiots on both sides should steal each other's military technology until they are both so well armed they can completely kill everyone and everything. 

China has the people and the capacity to unleash a billion fresh minds with an almost fever pitched desire to grow and achieve a better future. Coming from nothing with nothing to lose and facing an opportunity to improve across the board is a far more powerful force that complacency from having much for a long time and worrying about losing it. China benefits from being able to suppress the negative influences of conflicting religious and gender identity issues, and it can prevent outright a destructive press and opposition party whipsawing the public with conflicting and competing narratives.  If doing so was not necessary to get everybody shooting in the same direction, which clearly proved to be a problem in Vietnam, the military would have courses for its recruits to study all sides of a military issue and decide if they believe their own Generals. Never happen.

If you look at nations that are highly developed, the only way they can grow is to create an endless stream of things people do not need or want and then continually find ways to manipulate them into buying them.  Then to keep that system working you have to plan obsolescence so they have to replace what they bought previously, continually extending credit to allow the cycle to continue.  It is a ponzi scheme that has to collapse so you have to open your borders to the poor who will be only too glad to provide fresh suckers for the ponzi scheme. Eventually you will create a nation of hard working, low wage peons with garages and storage lockers full of worthless stuff.

China's people should be effectively harnessed to rethink how economic systems and their products and services should function to be sustainable, provide growth, and fulfill the needs of billions of people. That does not mean cranking out billions of cupie dolls, disposable vehicles, houses that get ever bigger, and fashions that have one foot in the closet and the other in the trash.  China should let everyone else do that and sell it to them as long as it is profitable for China to do so.  In the mean time China should keep an eye on the exit looking for new and better ways to do things across the board that are invented and refined in China.  There are an unlimited opportunities in doing so. China's history shows the Chinese have the capacity for innovation like everyone else and their definitely is an opportunity in unstructured creative thought unencumbered by any beliefs. Believe in AHA.

The Most Important Question is Why Spy On American Citizens?

The deluge of propaganda aimed to denigrate China is supposed to justify policies to increase the level of spying America does abroad and prepare for future conflict. However, as the previous links show it is also part of a broader policy to justify increasing spying on American citizens without oversight. Assuming foreign nations have the resources to defend themselves, we need to worry about the impact gathering every bit of information on us has on helping to manipulate our behavior and destroy our freedom.  There are only few things to know about what spying on you enables:
 The simplest way to prove the truth of what I am saying in the above points is to start by reading this simple paper explaining how information on the Japanese people was used to change a Japanese tradition of hundreds of years.  The Japanese people were manipulated USING WORDS ALONE into buying diamonds, which are essentially worthless pieces of rock. When you read and understand how having the right personal information on the Japanese people allowed the ad agency to identify what messages to play to change their minds and what group of people to target with those messages to turn them people that will influence others (peer influence), you will have all you need to know about how your personal information can be used to operate a behavior change campaign. Understanding how this process works allows you to see what is happening in the news and advertising today in an entirely new light.

The constant attacks on Trump and the Republicans are one big propaganda campaign as are those on Sanders. As I have repeatedly pointed out in all of the articles in this news site, you are being conned and hustled on a daily basis. There is no logical or sound reason to flood the country with illegal immigrants, and there is no reason to let corporations that are simply pieces of paper have the rights of a human and be able to buy off your laws, your politicians, your news and everything else.  Until you wake up to that, the only thing you will do for you and your children is enslave them to a bunch of lying and corrupt schemers.  Tyranny is at hand for those of you who read the writings of the founding fathers and know what it means.

The next thing to understand is how powerful having your personal information is in being able to predict what you will do and what events will occur in your life, which is explained by looking at the growth of the life insurance industry.  At one time life insurance companies were richer than banks, and it was all because of the way life insurance companies collected and used peoples' personal data to design insurance policies that offered lower risks to insurers and to design marketing campaigns to sell the policies.  Their data mining and the use of the information gleaned from it is called actuarial analysis. Essentially, by studying the historical behavior of people the life insurance industry is able to identify risks of someone dying or being injured and offered them insurance against that happening in an untimely way.

So for example if you are a stunt car driver doing dangerous things you might pay a huge premium to get any kind of coverage whereas if you are a librarian taking the bus to work everyday your might get the same insurance coverage for a mere fraction of the cost.  Simply put, knowing a lot about people allows life insurance companies to make a buck.  Today with artificial intelligence and massive amounts of data, their risks can be far more clearly identified and their policies more specific.  Insurance companies are not in the business of paying out claims unexpectedly.  At the very least what they want to be able to do is use the money you pay in premiums over a long enough period of time to invest it to make a return on the investment of that money before they have to pay any amount for a claim on your policy.

When anyone says collecting your personal information is not important or that it just meta data they are complete and utter liars and dangerous.  The American people must never give up their constitutional rights across the board, including their right to bear arms because at some point they may be obligated to take action against the corrupt and abusive liars they are being hustled by. And no, I am not talking about Trump.  These guys have been at it a lot longer than Trump and have been sticking it to you for years.

The previous two examples explain how your personal information can be used to alter your behavior, and to capitalize on it. The third example is changing your behavior without permission. That is what the military does to recruits in boot camp and it is exactly what we do to teach small children how to behave. Now the schools are getting into the act and brutalizing your children into following their edicts. Stir it up

Bottom line, most of behavior change takes place at a level where we do not notice it happening. Instead of looking at behavior change like something you do at New Years, a resolution you never keep, look at how quickly the military changes your behavior and packs you off to kill people.  That ain't no long process folks.  Think of the process like a long water slide with high walls.  Once you are boot camped to the top of the slide and pushed off, the water and the walls take control of where you are going.  That's called a Skinner Box in psychology. Then just to make sure the behavior change sticks and you believe in its truth and righteousness - oorah - they create conflicts.  And the guys that are supposed to be the bad guys you must kill, shoot back in self defense, confirming the programming you got in boot camp that they must be enemies.

Your data streams - everything that is revealed minutely about you - are actually like the strings on a puppet. Think of it this way.  Imagine if an invisible person is living in your house 24 hours a day, following you wherever you go, and constantly directing the experiences you have without you seeing it happen.  Imagine everything you do at home is being recorded and photographed, and every image captured in your home is used in public systems to confirm where you are going, who you are seeing, measuring your response to conversations and situations. This is exactly what your phone does, backed by your bleating on Facebook. Now you have some idea of the world you are living in.  So if you are either unwilling or are unable to afford to buy the services you are getting in exchange for being spied on, you do nothing.  Have you noticed how nice and friendly the shrink wrap terms of service are?  In the meantime, the military tells its personnel to stop using these platforms.

The Chilling Effect of Domestic Spying
The Guardian's Bombshell Revelation About NSA Domestic Spying Is Only The Tip Of The Iceberg
The government just admitted it will use smart home devices for spying
NSA Surveillance Drives U.S. Writers to Self-Censor
Government Surveillance and Internet Search Behavior

Why Spying On Anyone To Screw Them Over Is So Easy

 What is the common factor between American companies exposing themselves to Chinese spying and why you put up with the government and American companies spying on you. One word - "GREED."

When an American company willingly goes into China they gain access to the largest market in the world (1.439 billion people) and certainly one of the lowest cost and highly skilled manufacturing bases in the world.  THEY DO NOT HAVE TO GO FOR ANY OTHER REASON THAN TO MAKE MONEY. Whether they sell anything in domestic China today or not they still benefit from high quality products that can be produced at low costs and come with a significant distribution infrastructure to deliver their products worldwide. The fact that the Chinese may take advantage of them has limited deterrence.  It is the same basic idea as mall developers charging exorbitant rents and a percentage of sales.

The potential to make a buck and save a buck, greed for an improved bottom line trumps everything. No company can claim they were not aware of the trade offs when going to China. They are simply whining hoping big brother and its military will shakedown China so they can go in and manipulate (excuse me, market to) their people too. Trading in another country is not a right of any kind, and whoever says it is, is simply lying, or they are spreading an even bigger propaganda lie, that of globalization and the desire to spread freedom and democracy (and here.) Moreover, you will read about complaints that China is holding down the wages of its workers to remain competitive. You can bet your bottom dollar if China's wages go up every single US company will go to the next dictatorship that will beat its workers silly to keep prices low.  Forget the nonsense that they care.  They may only care when it gets noticed.

That is why the US resorts to sanctions to punish or dissuade countries and companies trading with China in order to exert influence over China, although the record is mixed with regards to sanctions' effectiveness. Greed is tough to control, so beating them with the stick the carrot is supposed to be tied to is the favored response. Nobody believes in integrity or loyalty when corporations are involved, as this previous link shows.

If the threat from doing business in China is so great, encourage the government to ban all US companies, their subsidiaries and proxies from doing any business there.

You personally acquiesce to being spied on for the same reason. You are either cheap or you can't afford it and yet want free searching, convenient technology in your phones, cars and home, and the ability to communicate with others on social media platforms. In exchange you are willing to give up everything about you just so that you do not have to pay for the privileges directly. Talking to you about protecting your privacy and that of your children does not work if you do not understand what is happening to you and how dangerous it is to your future.  Only when you wake up completely helpless and your kids future is gone will you understand why the founding fathers put in the second amendment.  Then it is just a matter of getting the balls the grandma has in the link showing her defending her store.  And don't worry about being out gunned.  The military has had to create so many disposable lemmings, all well trained to fight in their campaigns for righteousness, freedom, democracy, doing gods work, taming the heathens, the communists, the socialists, the chinks, gooks, wops, Nazis, those that simply did not believe, and anyone else I may have left out that  plays into the narrative, that you will have company.

Fighting A War On the Cheap With Innovation And Thinking Outside the Box

In thinking about the future conflict with China and Russia the hawks openly discuss I could never figure out why anyone in their right mind would spend billions of dollars building instantly disposable weapons that cost immense sums to deliver and have to be made all over again once they blow up, when illicit drugs have exposed the Achilles heel of every nation on earth. There is not a kid in school that cannot find a drug dealer somewhere, and today's meth labs along with the guys cooking acid and other psychedelics in the 60's proves conclusively the cheapest and most effective way to wage mass destruction is with biological agents.

To heck with vastly expensive and inefficient propulsion systems when baggies, vials, blotter paper, spray bottles and possibly restaurants and crowded markets are all you need. What is happening in China shows how effective and damaging biological agents can be. They are proving themselves to be highly effective delivery systems capable of causing immense disruption and financial damage to a nation. They certainly do not have to kill everyone to be highly effective if economic disruption is a goal, and potentially even more damaging than the illness long term. That will prove to be especially true in a financially vulnerable population. That is  a factor the promoters of a pure dog eat dog capitalistic system ignore, especially in America. American citizens are armed and will likely increase their armaments.  What happens to their mental state when their families and their financial affairs are destroyed and it is easily provable those in power and with power corruptively obtained can be clearly demonstrated to be to blame for a corrupt and badly managed system.  It is badly managed in the fact that unleashing financial hyenas on a population propagandized to accept them in their midst is a failure when the hyenas destroy the basic structure of society and leave the massive divide that is in place today.  To merely blame it on the people who have kept an almost religious faith in the American system while that system is a wolf dressed in sheeps clothing is delusional.

This Is War  - CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, Dr Richard Hatchett

Defense: Officials probe the threat of a coronavirus bioweapon

About the only good reason to keep making and blowing up disposable weapons is so you can make more.  More weapons, more money, more improvements and repeat ad nauseam.  Think of it like buying a new car and before it is even paid for it dissolves just as the warranty ends but the payments continue and suddenly you are sliding on your ass down the street with the kids behind you and your wife screaming.

I must be thinking like a colonist instead of a bamboozled member of the public.  Why buy fancy clothes, wigs and brass buttons for your bright red tunic when you can fight on the cheap making your own lead balls and shoot from the trees wearing your old clothes?

Of course encouraging dumb ass behavior in the population and lowering resistance to substances we know nothing about by legalizing marijuana is a great start. Another brilliant idea the governments hope to tax like tobacco. The upside for Homeland Security is that toking up may pacify the people, who would rather chill and eat munchies than get rid of the tyranny in the nation.

China is now going through one of the most effective real life training exercises on earth to confront and contain the spread of biological agents across an entire nation and hundreds of millions of people. It does not matter how it started, coping with it effectively is the real challenge. The Coronavirus pandemic offers China huge lessons in mobilizing and understanding how to deal with such an event in any future biological wars. Try getting millions of Americans in its major cities to stay home and not work in the land of the brave, home of the free, and buried to their armpits in debt. The only difference between what is happening now in China and a calculated attack are limits to the source of the biological agent. In a real attack you would want hundreds of targets throughout the nation, including crowded markets, sporting events, lakes, rivers and reservoirs, subways and so on. The Coronavirus pandemic is a real world military training exercise, unintended or otherwise. The original development cost of that viral agent is zero and a little hunger.

And just in case you think discussing biological wars are horrifying, go ask the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki if any are alive from that time and ask them what being bombed by Nukes was like, if you really want to understand horror. 

I wrote this article mid February.  At the time I had limited understanding of the impact a biological event like Covid 19 could have.  That is becoming more apparent to everyone by the day.  Forget all the blaming going on, that will be for history to document. One thing is clear though, a biological war is as damaging as any other type of war and effectively can destroy the world as we know it.  We assume the purpose of a fight is to win it. However anyone living in a situation in which they are bullied for years may develop a desire for another outcome, and that is not to win but merely to end their life and those of their enemies.  Biological agents are the weapon to do that and they are cheap.  Remember that when the military industrial complex tries to explain the benefits of war as they portray it, and have them explain how they can keep their recruits shooting in the same direction when recruits' families and the lives of all those they care about are destroyed. 

Why You Cannot Find Out About the Total Extent of Spying On You

The government could be examined through FOIA requests to reveal the type of information they have and are collecting on you, unless it is classified.  Private corporations get away with it by citing the information as proprietary trade secrets. You make that job a lot easier by agreeing to shrink wrap agreements allowing them to collect your data and do what they want with it.  Now here is where it gets tricky.  When you agree to a shrink wrap, you are agreeing that this is the type of information they can have and then further to allow your personal information to become part of their trade secrets:
"the term trade secret refers to all forms and types of financial, business, scientific, technical, economic or engineering information, including patterns, plans, compilations, program devices, formulas, designs, prototypes, methods, techniques, processes, procedures, programs, or codes, whether tangible or intangible, and whether or how stored, compiled, or memorialized physically, electronically, graphically, photographically, or in writing if:

The owner of a trade secret is the person or entity that has rightful legal or equitable title to, or license in, the trade secret."

Once they have that information, the government steps in and using the "Economic Espionage Act of 1996" protects it and can also classify it.