China, Russia, Black

It's a bit of a slow day so all I have to offer is a bit of commentary. However, Conrad Black and Tucker Carlson have some quality commentary today, so ...

Conrad Black has a wide ranging article that addresses America's rivalry with China. Here's what I like about it. Too many "conservatives" have fallen into the trap of criticizing Zhou for being soft on Russia--it's a cheap but ultimately stupid approach. Stupid, because it's at odds with Trump's sensible approach to Russia, which was thwarted by the Globalist/Deep State set. Adopting Globalist/Deep State talking points simply isn't the way forward for intelligent conservatives who have our nation's interests at heart. It may be fine for National Review, but not for conservatives. Conrad Black, after noting the moral disarray that is roiling our national life, disposes of this fallacy very quickly:

China’s COVID Coup 

China deserves credit for a remarkable feat of strategic improvisation in translating a public health crisis into a large economical and geopolitical advance at the expense of the West.

Excerpts:

The American indulgence in an entire summer of white-hating, statue-toppling, rioting, and denigration of American history, freedom, and values astonished the world. Moreover, it helped China propagate its message that democracy leads to chaos and waste and that the United States is an unreliable and unstable country.

I hate to say this but ... It just may be true that the United States is an unreliable and unstable country. Two words: Donald Trump. He attempted to restore reliability and stability to our foreign policy, and look what happened to him. If you were a foreign leader, how far out on a limb would you go if asked to do so by an American president? Would you assume that America would have your back? Well? That's where we are.

The Baiden regime is sustained by a helter-skelter coalition of elements that are not much interested in America’s retention of its status as the world’s most important country and are explicitly critical of many of the policies that have conferred that status on us. ...

...

National self-loathing rules the American academy and most of the school system and is at the root of the troubling fact that, as Western society has consecrated greater and greater resources to education in the past 50 years, it has produced a steadily stupider crop of graduates. This unfortunate phenomenon has produced more destructive and less professionally rigorous media and declining standards of public entertainment.

The American Left has become almost entirely a loudspeaker for national self-hate, and its recipe for reform is little more than the abasement of the white majority. ...

...

Fundamentally, the United States is a much stronger country than China and, if it comes to its senses quickly enough, it will more than meet this challenge. China has a dangerously aging population, no institutions of any integrity or value whatsoever, and a system that is still 40 percent a command economy. Every day, the Chinese betray the arrogance of their official nature. If the West wakes up soon enough, the Chinese challenge will be much easier to meet than was Nazi Germany or even the Soviet Union. 

Unfortunately, the closest we have to recognizably intelligent thinking on the subject within the administration has as its end, finally, to drive Russia into the arms of China. Russia’s only real threat to the United States is if it enables China to use its surplus population to develop Siberia and make up for China’s own lack of natural resources. Innocuous massaging of Russia’s bruised post-Cold War ego, as long as it does not become too indulgent of Russia’s own expansionist ambitions, could be useful. We want Russia as a Western and not an Eastern country and the erosion of the Democrats’ Russo-hysteria is the first good sign we have seen from the Biden State Department.

Trump rightly saw the usefulness of cooperation with Russia--and was thwarted by Globalists who can't stomach love of country (as exhibited by Putin). I'm a bit puzzled, however, by Black's reference to an "erosion of the Dem's Russo-hysteria." Last I heard, additional sanctions were in the works.

I link here to Tucker's latest because he brilliantly exhibits the moral depravity of pretty much all of America's ruling class. I picked this link up at Andrea Widburg's Chicago shows the existential danger behind the Democrats' policies. The link to the Youtube is here.