It is enormously foolhardy and dangerous to ignore threats posed to America's economic, technologic, and by extension, national security.
U.S. Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, highlighted the importance of this in a Dec. 3 Wall Street Journal op-ed titled "China Is National Security Threat no. 1." He warned: "The intelligence is clear; Beijing intends to dominate the U.S. and the rest of the planet economically, militarily and technologically. I call its approach of economic espionage "rob, replicate and replace."
DNI Ratcliffe explained: "China robs U.S. companies of their intellectual property, replicates the technology, and then replaces the U.S. firms in the global marketplace."
Ratcliffe reported having personally briefed members of Congress about how "China is using intermediaries to lawmakers in an attempt to influence legislation."
That same issue regarding Beijing's combination of cozy insider relationships with high level U.S. government and industry leaders and espionage on some of those same congressional members has recently become publicly exposed by private sources.
As reported in my Dec. 11 column, outsider President Trump made powerful enemies when he broke with those longstanding undercover manipulations of domestic and foreign affairs.
Prof. Di Dongsheng, a professor and associate dean at the Renmin University School of International Studies in Beijing, made special note of how easy it had been to manipulate the Obama-Biden administration. He expressed pleasure that a Joe Biden presidency will be favorable to a return of Beijing influence through their undercover network of "old friends" who were at the highest levels of the U.S. government and financial institutions.
The professor observed that after Trump was elected in 2016, "Wall Street couldn't control Trump, because, awkwardly, there was a soft breach of contract between them, which made them hostile to each other."
Just whom might some of those big power brokering interests be?
Perhaps it might be no long stretch of imagine to think of Goldman Sachs, which plans to acquire 100% ownership of its China joint partner Gao Hua Securities, a company previously headed over 32 years by former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson who, according to The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, "played a leading role in opening up China to unprecedented access to the country's political and business elite, including its three most recent heads of state."
The Paulson Institute which he founded in 2011 is a nonprofit self-described "think-and-do" tank which, as its information site says, "aims to foster a U.S.-China relationship that maintains global order in a rapidly evolving world."
Another big player might just possibly be Black Rock, the world's biggest asset manager that has recently received the first approval from the China Security Commission to form a wholly owned mutual fund.
Although Di said he was unable to give specific details without compromising the identities of those involved, he revealed how President Trump's trade war with China caused huge upset over ties that had been nurtured for decades between Washington and Beijing.
"During the U.S.-China trade war, they tried to help," Di said. "My friends in the U.S. told me that they tried to help, but they couldn't." He later added, "I can't say more without getting in political trouble."
Di expressed optimism that Beijing's U.S. influence is about to return its long-held connections when an incoming Biden administration is in charge. "Now with Biden winning the election, the traditional elites, political elites, the establishment, they have a very close relationship with the Wall Street," he said.
The professor intimated that Beijing held special personal extortion influence over Joe Biden.
Di rhetorically asked the studio audience, "You all heard that Trump said Biden's son has securities companies all over the world. But who helped Biden's son build his global companies? Got it?"
Referring to lucrative Biden family influence peddling deals first reported in a bombshell Oct. 14 New York Post report, Di further elaborated, "There are indeed buy-and-sell transactions involved in here, so I think at this particular time, [with Biden winning the election], it is of strategic and tactical value for us to show goodwill to him."
Beijing relied extensively upon spies to establish useful political assets for a massive espionage, influence and disinformation campaign.
Prof. Dongsheng reported that one Wall Street agent who has been particularly useful helped the Chinese government with Washington, D.C., propaganda operations. That individual is now a dual U.S.-Chinese citizen who lives part time in Beijing.
An expansive investigation of these covert activities conducted by Axios revealed a successful operation targeted upon U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., who serves in the House Intelligence Committee.
Axios recently reported that Swalwell first had ties with a Chinese spy named Christine Fang ("Fang Fang"), a student in the Bay Area when he as a city council member in Dublin City, Calif. Fang, who was actively involved in raising campaign money for up-and coming Democrat office candidates, became a financial bundler for Swalwell's congressional election and reelection campaigns.
Through extensive networking, personal charisma and seduction, Fang reportedly gained very close proximity to political targets, including sexual encounters at least two different Midwestern mayors and one U.S. government official.
U.S. intelligence officials believed Fang was overseeing likely unwitting subagents whom she helped to install in local political and congressional offices. She reportedly arranged to place at least one intern in Swalwell's D.C. staff office.
Another high-profile espionage example dates back over nearly two decades when a Chinese spy was inadvertently hired by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., as her "office director" and driver including a time when she chaired the Senate Foreign Intelligence Committee.
FBI director Chris Wray warned in a July 2020 speech that Beijing "is engaged in a highly sophisticated malign foreign influence campaign." These efforts, he said, involve "subversive, undeclared, criminal, or coercive attempts to sway our government's policies, distort our country's public discourse, and undermine confidence in our democratic processes and values."
Yes, and at this time of wholesale election fraud connected to a candidate whose family is being tied to clear evidence of murky influence peddling business transactions with Beijing, that American confidence in democratic processes and values on the part of powerful public and private interest groups has never been more distressed.
Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture (SICSA) and the graduate program in space architecture. Larry has written more than 700 articles for Newsmax and Forbes and is the author of several books. Included are: "How Everything Happened, Including Us" (2020), "Cyberwarfare: Targeting America, Our Infrastructure and Our Future" (2020), "The Weaponization of AI and the Internet: How Global Networks of Infotech Overlords are Expanding Their Control Over Our Lives" (2019), "Reinventing Ourselves: How Technology is Rapidly and Radically Transforming Humanity" (2019), "Thinking Whole: Rejecting Half-Witted Left & Right Brain Limitations" (2018), "Reflections on Oceans and Puddles: One Hundred Reasons to be Enthusiastic, Grateful and Hopeful" (2017), "Cosmic Musings: Contemplating Life Beyond Self" (2016), "Scared Witless: Prophets and Profits of Climate Doom" (2015) and "Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind the Global Warming Hoax" (2011). He is currently working on a new book with Buzz Aldrin, "Beyond Footprints and Flagpoles." Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.