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The Confederate Lawyer
December 8, 2009
Obama Avoids Free China on Asian
Tour
by Charles G. Mills
GLEN COVE, NY — President Obama recently visited all of the economically powerful countries of East Asia except one: the Republic of China. He skipped that friendly country out of fear of offending the brutal and Communist regime on the mainland, the People’s Republic of China.
The Republic of China was formed in 1911 at the time of the overthrow of the Manchu monarchy. The new republic was heavily evangelized by American Catholics, Methodists, and other Christians. Ironically, the sons of American Methodist missionaries, born in China and serving as American Foreign Service officers, were some of the best friends of the Communists in the Chinese Civil War from 1945 to 1949. An earlier civil war between the Republic of China and the Stalinist “Chinese Soviet Republic” had been waged from 1931 to 1941.
During World War II, the Japanese Army was so brutal that it united all of China against Japan. Once the war ended, the Chinese Nationalists who supported the government, and the Communists who were Stalinists, resumed their civil war. On his death, President Roosevelt left a State Department full of Communists and sympathizers, especially among the China experts. This support contributed to the Communist victory on the mainland of China.
By the end of 1949, the Republic of China held only the island of Taiwan (Formosa) and a few smaller Islands. The Communists established the People’s Republic of China, recognized by the Soviet Union in December and by Great Britain the following month. To President Truman’s credit, despite earlier statements hostile to the Republic of China, he refused to be stampeded by our allies into recognizing the Communist regime and remained loyal to the Republic of China.
Once Chinese Communists began fighting against Americans in Korea in 1950, American attitudes against Communism hardened and America remained solidly on the side of the Republic of China until the Nixon years. Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson had continued to have friendly relations with the Republic of China. Nixon softened that stand; in 1979, the Carter administration established full diplomatic relations with the mainland regime and we broke diplomatic relations with our allies.
The Vatican still maintains friendly diplomatic relations with the Republic of China, as do many American private organizations. Officials of the Republic of China present government decorations to American citizens in America, but the President of the Republic of China is not permitted to set foot in America, and the American President does not visit the Republic of China.
The Communists created the most brutal regime in human history, probably killing more innocent people than Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and Hirohito combined. The regime persecutes all Christians who do not subordinate their churches to Communist control, still executes huge numbers of people for political and economic crimes, and suppresses basic freedoms.
The regime pursues a strict one-child-per-family policy, enforced with involuntary abortions. This is leading to a situation in which the mainland of China has a far greater proportion of old people than it can support and could well lead to the murder of elderly patients in hospitals. Since the Chinese are such a large part of the world population, it is unlikely that the population imbalance can be confined to that country; it will spread worldwide. Ultimately, the mainland Chinese will attract young migrants from the rest of the world. Furthermore, borders will be ineffective at stopping the migration out of China of the unwanted elderly. This will create a chain reaction. It is very much like the increase in worldwide prices caused by one major nation’s crop failure or animal disease.
Although the Republic of China is a free and prosperous nation that has extensive trade relations with us, we refuse to offer even the diplomatic courtesies we extend to countries with which we do not exchange ambassadors.
Nixon visited the mainland long before the United States broke diplomatic relations with the Republic of China. Why then do American presidents never visit the Republic of China, a friendly and free ally of the United States? The answer is that the United States Department of State is full of cowards afraid of offending the mainland Communists. We really have nothing to fear. If they sell their dollars, they harm themselves as much as they harm us. If they expel our ambassador, we can expel their ambassadors both to us and to the United Nations. Anything they can do to us, we can do to them, and we can add some measures to make their mission to the United Nations miserable. They would no doubt engage in some bluster if Obama paid a state visit to free China, but would not do anything that would hurt them more than us.
President Obama’s failure to include free China on his trip was a great opportunity lost.
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The Confederate Lawyer column is copyright © 2009 by Charles G. Mills and the Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation, www.fgfBooks.com. All rights reserved.
Charles G. Mills is the Judge Advocate or general counsel for the New York State American Legion. He has forty years of experience in many trial and appellate courts and has published several articles about the law.
See his biographical sketch and additional columns here.
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