House Republican Jim Himes, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Peter Arnett, and James Jay Carafano, Ph.D. the Vice President for the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy join Larry King tonight on PoliticKING to weigh in on China and if the country is a new threat to our national security.
Jim Himes represents Connecticut's Fourth Congressional District. He sits on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and is ranking member of the National Security Agency and Cybersecurity Subcommittee.
For more than 40 years Peter Arnett has reported from the world’s most dangerous combat zones. The New Zealand native went to Vietnam in 1962 for the Associated Press, staying with the story through the fall of Saigon and winning a 1966 Pulitzer Prize. As a correspondent for the fledgling cable news during the first Persian Gulf War, he delivered unprecedented reports from behind enemy lines in Baghdad, including an interview with President Saddam Hussein. Arnett returned to Baghdad for the 2003 Iraq War, but was summarily fired for criticizing the American-led war effort during an interview on Iraqi state television. He also conducted the first ever interview with Osama Bin Laden on CNN in late 1997. He recently wrote a new memoir titled "Saigon Has Fallen
James Jay Carafano, a leading expert in national security and foreign policy challenges, is the author of the article "Wake Up, America: China is a Real Threat." You can read a short excerpt of the article below:
Rather than muddy the differences between what Beijing wants and where America stands, the United States should give its friends and allies a clear choice of visions for the future. Asia-Pacific nations will make their own choices and chart their own destinies. The United States needs to cover the bet that, given a choice, more will break our way.
America also needs a serious case of real economic growth. This is best accomplished by expanding economic freedom at home and abroad. Beijing was too ready to take the American recession as a sign that America's inevitable decline had begun and it was time for China to start taking over.
The 2015 “Index of Economic Freedom” shows that, after seven years of continuous decline, economic freedom in the United States has pulled out of its tailspin. In part, the American energy renaissance has helped. Politics helped, too. When the House flipped, Congress didn't accomplish much, but it did slow roll President Obama’s agenda of higher taxes, deficit-spending and more government programs.
If the U.S. economy really took off, it would be a true setback for China. Trade deals that actually promoted free trade and liberalizing markets would help make it so, as would tax reform, a free-market energy policy and trimming back the mind-numbing regulatory burden that Mr. Obama has been wrapping around the economy.
Meanwhile, China continues to steadily lose economic freedom. It has overinvested at home and abroad, and many of those investments are now looking decidedly unsound.
The double shock of a resurgent, self-confident American voice and an American tiger economy, paired with a more proactive regional diplomacy and a renaissance of American military power would have Beijing rethinking about whether all its bluster over the last year has left the regime better or worse off than when it started.
In the end, China may still be China. But that might not matter as much as it does now if a resurgent America pulls all the levers at its disposal to advance the prospects for freedom, prosperity and peace in the Asia-Pacific.
The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Ora Media, LLC, its affiliates, or its employees.
