This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.
As President Trump prepares for his upcoming meeting with Chinese President-for-life Xi Jinping, he will be under intense pressure to focus narrowly on trade disputes – and back away from addressing myriad other, serious differences between the two countries.
But we simply cannot safely ignore Xi’s increasingly aggressive policies designed, for example, to: crush Hong Kong’s autonomy; terminate Taiwan’s sovereignty; control the world’s strategic waterways; dominate space; and use its 5G technology to fracture our security ties with key allies.
In the near future, these challenges will supersede the importance of rectifying trade imbalances, China’s currency manipulation and even its theft of U.S. intellectual property. That is especially true if the effect of a trade deal with Beijing is to buy time for the Chinese Communist Party to realize its plans for global domination.
This is no time to “go wobbly” on China.
This is Frank Gaffney.
This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.
Yesterday, one of the most consequential men in public life, my friend Tony Perkins, was elected to chair the vital U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Praise God.
The USCIRF press release announcing the election of the Family Research Council’s president signaled the quality of Tony’s leadership. It declared that he was adopting Leah Sharibu and will work to free her as he tirelessly and successfully did for another prisoner of conscience long held by Turkey, Pastor Andrew Brunson.
Given his great influence with President Trump, this priority may not only help save Leah, a Nigerian girl enslaved by the terrorist group Boko Haram because she refuses to renounce her Christian faith. As Leah’s mother, Rebecca, who is in Washington this week, yearns to impress upon Mr. Trump and his team: Unless America acts, every Nigerian Christian faces a similar fate.
This is Frank Gaffney.
This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.
On Friday, 600 American companies publicly opposed President Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports. While this “China Lobby” professes opposition to Beijing’s unfair trade practices, they don’t want him to use that countermeasure to address them.
The day before, Senator Marco Rubio raised an alarm about Beijing’s exploitation of our stock markets to underwrite its companies – including some engaged in “unrestricted warfare” against us. The Senator challenged index fund MSCI about its practice of helping PRC businesses raise billions of dollars here without the sort of transparency and risk disclosure required of American corporations.
The effect of this practice is to expand enormously the China Lobby by recruiting millions of Americans whose pension funds can then be manipulated by the Chinese Communist Party. President Trump needs our support for standing firm against this foreign adversary and their allies here.
This is Frank Gaffney. Learn more at PresentDangerChina.org.
This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.
Yesterday, two more tankers were attacked in the Persian Gulf. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo quickly confirmed that the perpetrator was the region’s most dangerous regime: the mullah-ocracy of Iran.
Mr. Pompeo cited intelligence about the types of weapons used, the pattern of previous attacks on shipping in the Gulf and the absence of other militaries in the area with the requisite training and capabilities. In addition, there is what amounts to a smoking gun: U.S. Central Command has released a video showing an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ patrol boat removing an unexploded limpet mine from one of the stricken ships.
If we want to discourage more of such aggression, the Iranian regime must understand that there is a cost to engaging in it. Time to dust off and exercise longstanding Pentagon contingency plans for stealthily degrading Iran’s oil exporting capabilities.
This is Frank Gaffney.
This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.
Thirty years ago this month, the Chinese Communist Party used murderous violence to crush peaceful pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square.
The PRC suffered little for this egregious crime against humanity. To the contrary, the West’s business-as-usual response only incentivized the Communists to believe they can engage in repression of any kind with impunity.
That proposition is now being tested in Hong Kong, where Beijing and its surrogates seek to end that former British colony’s autonomy. We have an opportunity to change the calculation that this can be done cost-free.
Under U.S. law, if the President does not certify that China is respecting Hong Kong’s autonomy, it can be denied the opportunity to enjoy most favored nation access to the United States via Hong Kong. Mr. Trump should make clear now that Beijing will suffer real penalties for any further assault on freedom.
This is Frank Gaffney.
This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.
As Chinese authorities in Hong Kong crack down on freedom-fighters there, former Vice President Joe Biden has evidently concluded that his recent cheerleading for Beijing is a liability. Yesterday, he started sounding instead like Donald Trump, warning that the PRC is a “serious challenge and in some areas a real threat.” He even said, “We need to get tough on China.”
Mr. Biden still doesn’t see the Communist Chinese as the kind of “existential threat” that he says President Trump poses. But, now he wants us to forget that, just last month, he dismissively asserted that “they’re not competition for us” – an untenable and even delusional proposition.
The question occurs: Were he to gain the White House, which Biden would be our Commander-in-Chief – the one whose family took $1.5 billion from the PRC and parrots Beijing’s line or the putative China hawk?
This is Frank Gaffney.
This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.
This week a remarkable delegation is visiting official Washington in a last-ditch effort to avert an avoidable disaster in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country. Its members include prominent Nigerian religious leaders and victims of anti-Christian persecution at the hands of jihadists.
Among the latter is Rebecca Sharibu, whose daughter, the Leah is the only one of the 110 girls seized by Boko Haram in February 2018 still held by that terrorist group because she refuses to disavow her Christian faith and convert to Islam. As a result, she has been condemned by her captors to be a “slave for life.”
The destabilizing repercussions of Nigeria melting down in a bloodbath of Sharia-supremacist violence against the country’s Christians are unlikely to be confined to the African continent. The prospect of tens of millions of refugees will be felt in Europe and far beyond, possibly including here. The Nigerian crisis delegation can help President Trump and his national security team stave off that prospect if only they will listen.
This is Frank Gaffney.
This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.
In July 1997, I was in Hong Kong when the United Kingdom surrendered that colony to the Communist Chinese. The totalitarian PRC thereby achieved the bloodless conquest of millions who enjoyed great freedom and prosperity under British rule.
That moment was particularly demoralizing since – despite formal commitments by Beijing to respect the non-Communist political “system” in Hong Kong – clearly its people would inevitably be deprived of their liberties. Sadly, that has come to pass, most recently with the announcement that the Chinese will compel Hong Kong to extradite so-called “fugitives” without due process, sparking immense popular protests this weekend.
The United States has long allowed China to enjoy free trade access to this country’s markets via Hong Kong on the condition that the Communists respect the former colony’s autonomy. The PRC’s heavy-handed behavior precludes a continuation of this undeserved sweetheart deal.
This is Frank Gaffney.
This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.
In July 1997, I was in Hong Kong when the United Kingdom surrendered that colony to the Communist Chinese. The totalitarian PRC thereby achieved the bloodless conquest of millions who enjoyed great freedom and prosperity under British rule.
That moment was particularly demoralizing since – despite formal commitments by Beijing to respect the non-Communist political “system” in Hong Kong – clearly its people would inevitably be deprived of their liberties. Sadly, that has come to pass, most recently with the announcement that the Chinese will compel Hong Kong to extradite so-called “fugitives” without due process, sparking immense popular protests this weekend.
The United States has long allowed China to enjoy free trade access to this country’s markets via Hong Kong on the condition that the Communists respect the former colony’s autonomy. The PRC’s heavy-handed behavior precludes a continuation of this undeserved sweetheart deal.
This is Frank Gaffney.
This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.
President Trump seems to have persuaded Mexican officials that there is, indeed, a crisis at the southern border – theirs with Guatemala, as well as ours with Mexico.
Suddenly, the government of Andres Lopez Obrador has apparently abandoned his previous stance that everyone in the world has a right to migrate to the United States and is welcome to come to Mexico for that purpose.
Press accounts say Mexico is stopping some Central American “caravans” and arresting several of those responsible for encouraging and facilitating them. 6,000 newly designated Mexican National Guard personnel are reportedly being assigned to help control their country’s southern frontier. We’re told further concessions are on offer, too.
If all this actually materializes and endures, it will be a powerful vindication of President Trump’s threats to impose sweeping tariffs on Mexican imports and a welcome repudiation of his critics.
This is Frank Gaffney.
