OPINION:
Last week, the Biden State Department reportedly began contemplating exchanging missile launch notifications with China.
Will the era of China appeasement ever end?
As former Sen. Rick Santorum pointed out on Monday, first, the government recklessly began doing business with many companies that have known ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
Of particular note was how the departments of Defense and Homeland Security partnered with SAP Concur — an expense management company — and its wholly-owned subsidiaries.
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Worst of all, America’s defense leaders did this even though it knows Chinese law directs SAP Concur to share all the American data it accrues with China when asked.
Then, the Biden administration watched with near-indifference as China flew a spy balloon across the United States this past spring. Rather than do something about it — anything, really — the White House remained virtually unfazed, merely stating that it could not confirm that China had collected any real-time data. It proceeded to do more of China’s bidding at a meeting two months later even though it received little to no cooperation from the country’s leaders on its own requests.
But now, the administration seems poised to share America’s missile defense data with this adversary. Seriously?
We just discovered that China’s cyber army has hacked its way into two dozen critical U.S. services. Any reasonable person would say this successful hacking occurred because we have given Beijing too long a leash. We have essentially given China a back door into the inner workings of our government. We have handed the Chinese too many of their political requests on a silver platter while getting next to nothing in return.
Reasonable people can disagree on what the proper balance between diplomacy and discipline should be to solve this problem. But sharing missile launch notification with the country? Come on.
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It’s widely known that China is boosting its missile defense capabilities so the country can ultimately go toe-to-toe with the United States. As Thomas Shugart, a senior fellow with the Center for a New American Security, recently told The Wall Street Journal, “The threat to fixed bases from the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force, given its extraordinary growth in capabilities in the last few years, is front and center.”
Why, then, would we share this sensitive data with China?
Some might argue that sharing this data would counterbalance the threat — because while China would receive our data, we would also receive theirs. But that plan would work only if China remains an honest actor and decides to share all its data with us as opposed to choosing to be strategically selective.
On what planet would it make sense for the U.S. to believe that China will choose the former? It’s not like China has a great track record of being honest — quite the opposite, actually.
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That’s not to say that we should shut down diplomatic avenues with China entirely. Diplomacy remains one of the most critical tools the United States has in its arsenal to fend off this threat. But giving the country our missile defense data at this time and under this data wouldn’t be diplomacy. It would be just plain stupid.
Please, President Biden, let sanity, common sense, and reason take the wheel here.
• Paul Boardman is chairman of the Decouple China political action committee.
* Original Article:
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/dec/27/biden-wants-to-give-china-our-missile-defense-data/?utm_source=smartnews.com&utm_medium=smartnews&utm_campaign=smartnews%20