March 2017 – Page 4 – USA Gov Policy

(National Harbor, Maryland) The last full week of February brought an extraordinarily clear picture of the diverging fortunes of the opposite ends of the increasingly polarized political spectrum.

Conservatives, meeting at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor near Washington D.C. were in a celebratory mood. They described eight years of powerlessness during the Obama presidency, maintaining that during that period, they had been subjected to inappropriate, repressive, and discriminatory treatment at the hands of federal agencies, especially the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Justice.

They stressed that within two years of President Obama’s 2008 election, leftist policies began to lose favor with the electorate, despite his continued personal popularity. Republicans regained the House of Representatives in 2010, and the Senate in 2014. The takeover of the national government become complete with Donald Trump’s capture of the White House in 2016. The GOP also won extraordinary dominance in the majority of state legislatures and governorships, as well.

In contrast, their opponents are facing a period of reduced influence unprecedented since the mostly Democrat and slave-holding south lost to the mostly Republican and abolitionist north in the Civil War.

CPAC speakers argued that the results of leftist policies included reduced U.S. national security, a dwindling supply of middle-income jobs, deteriorated race relations, a vast increase in the national debt, and a diminished health care system.

This year’s gathering was notable in that it included a wider range of viewpoints. While some tensions remain between hard core conservatives and “Tea Party” elements on one hand, and traditional Republican centrists on the other, there appeared to be sufficient agreement to support continued cooperation.

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Both Perez and Ellison have views that leave centrist Democrats behind, and which face criticism as advocating more of the same concepts that did not succeed, either in making gains for the nation or securing support from the voters, during the Obama presidency.

An open wound may have become larger. Supporters of Bernie Sanders had hoped that an Ellison win would have made up for what they believed was the unfair treatment of their candidate in the primaries. Perez’s ties to Hillary Clinton bring back to the forefront the never-ending saga of scandals the former Secretary of State continues to be surrounded by. (“Lock her up!” was a commonly heard chant at CPAC, whenever Ms. Clinton’s name was mentioned.)

Both men share hard left views. Ellison was noted for his bizarre statements about the 9/11 attacks, suggesting that President Bush (43) used the terrorist assault to copy Adolph Hitler’s infamous Reichstag Fire strategy to destroy his opponents. Ellison has also been tied to anti-Semitic positions. His 2010 comments about Israel led to a demand by the Anti-Defamation League that he be disqualified from being appointed to federal office.

Perez has been a no-holds barred fighter against those not in lockstep with left wing views. The National Review complains that “Perez stood out as a Democratic lawmaker willing to ignore or contravene laws that impeded his agenda. … As Mitch McConnell put in when Perez was nominated to be labor secretary, he is ‘a committed ideologue who appears willing, quite frankly, to say or do anything to achieve his ideological end.”

J. Christian Adams, a former attorney in the Department of Justice’s Voting Rights section, told Fox News that Perez “testified falsely under oath” about a Philadelphia voting rights case and “told the DOJ inspector general he didn’t think cases should be brought to protect white voters.”

This season’s crop of awards shows produced the usual political soliloquies from the Hollywood crowd.

Since the period, well over a half century ago, when Senator Joe McCarthy harshly probed the influence of Communism in the United States, it has become almost taboo to question the loyalty or motivations of those in the entertainment community who take left-wing positions. Therefore, even when sporadic acts that raised serious legal questions were committed in the subsequent decades, there was little backlash or repercussions.

One of the more salient examples was the deeply disturbing antics committed by Jane Fonda during her trip to North Vietnam, providing moral support for the very forces that were concurrently killing American troops on the battlefield. The question wasn’t about support or opposition for that war; it was the provision of comfort to those that were fighting the U.S.

There have been incidents both eyebrow-raising and ridiculous. Dennis Rodman’s trip to North Korea and his cavorting with one of the worst dictators in existence, Sean Penn’s friendly meetings with a member of a brutal Mideast regime, and the praise provided by Michael Moore and Oliver Stone after their visits with Fidel Castro, one of the world’s leading sponsors of terror and practitioners of repressions within his own nation, are just a sampling.

Lately, something even more insidious has occurred. Even though China has backed off on plans for some major purchases of Hollywood assets, the influence of the Beijing regime continues to grow, and it is neither paranoid nor inappropriate to examine what this means for the independence of America’s signature art form, and whether this is leading to a pandering by movie personnel, both in the boardrooms and in front of the cameras, to foreign interests.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Chinese companies engaged in $4.5 billion in purchases of Hollywood assets. “The new dynamic highlights Hollywood’s dependence on China, where the slightest change in state policy has ripple effects across the entertainment industry. China’s deep pockets have become a frequent topic of speculation and intrigue among entertainment executives, some of whom see the country as full of prospective buyers willing to pay high premiums for flashy Hollywood holdings.”

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An NBC Today review notes that “If you got to a movie theater right now, there’s a pretty good chance that the film you see will have been partially financed in China.” Correspondent Ronan Farrow outlined how that influences the scripts of the movies Americans watch.

To understand how China’s investment provides influence for the Beijing government, it must be understood that Chinese companies are subservient to and work diligently for China’s foreign policy. That, however, is only part of the story. The appetite for films in China’s largest-in-the world population is vast, and even those Hollywood studies not financially dependent on China have a significant financial interest in producing movies that appeal to their worldview, even if that is detrimental to American interests.

Politico provides another example of the interrelationship between Chinese companies buying major stakes in Hollywood and Beijing’s political goals. Dalian Wanda is a Chinese firm that has intimate ties to the Chinese Communist Party, and it is intent on making major purchases of Hollywood assets.

Politico asks “For American moviegoers, the peril lies in the unseen. Would a war movie called South China Sea ever play in one of Wanda’s theaters? What about an action flick with a Chinese villain?…When you control the movie experience, you can subtly influence public opinion. And the Chinese government — Wanda’s staunch supporter — has been transparent about that goal. The Communist Party has banned or currently bans thousands of books deemed controversial. It heavily censors the Internet, while Facebook and Twitter remain prohibited in China — one of the reasons Freedom House ranked it a more restrictive society than Iran and Saudi Arabia.”

With all that money and influence in the minds of Hollywood’s moguls, don’t expect to hear many patriotic statements on those award shows anytime soon.

Quick Analysis

China’s Tech Targets

Chinese technology is changing and its leadership is using it, along with espionage, to challenge the West in a number of critical areas. The United States is only one of its targets. Previously, Beijing’s spies primarily sought Western technologies as a way to skip generations of develop cost and time to modernize its economy. Today, its acquisition of advanced technologies, and now also its indigenous development, makes the communist giant a threat to freedom-loving people everywhere. This week Nan Mulchandani, the CIA’s chief technology officer, said Director William Burns is preparing for an “infinite race” with Beijing for artificial intelligence and advanced technologies. He argues the US must pivot toward providing American spies with the latest transformative technologies to outcompete China. Mulchandani says this means updating everything the agency does “from operations to the analytic function, support functions and other piece there.” America, he suggests, needs to alter its thinking toward viewing this not as a race with a finite end point, but as an ongoing competition. Mr. Mulchandani predicted that the next area of competition would “be primarily a software war that is powered by something like AI” rather than hardware fueled by software. That competition, however, is not confined to simply acquiring critical technologies for use in the future. China is also challenging the US in space. China announced today it launched a groundbreaking mission to retrieve samples from the far side of the moon. The space capsule will arrive in four days and collect 4.4 pounds of moon rocks and regolith, or moon dirt. Beijing’s desire to one day become a space power and scientific force is for pragmatic purposes in 2024 a fait accompli. Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, said during a NASA budget hearing this week, that “while the US remains the global leader in space exploration, we face increasing challenges internationally.” Referring to China’s space station, Lucas said: “We cannot allow China to become the front-runner in space exploration… There are too many consequences for our competitiveness, our national security, and our continued ability to explore space.” A new report released this week by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) says that the United States, to further its geopolitical interests and maintain a strong domestic economy, must approach every aspect of economic and trade policy through the lens of global technology competition. The Biden Administration’s approach, it says, discounts the landscape of competition between China and the US and may “jeopardize US advancements in emerging technologies… which could cede the advantage to China….” In particular, the report recommends that the US take action now because quantum and artificial intelligence (AI) need a federal policy to ensure the country can spur the entrepreneurship and R&D efforts foundational to the strength of the technology sector. As China’s Communist Party (CCP) becomes more hostile to the United States and other Western nations, its aggressive activities abroad expand and intensify. Chinese spy cases far outnumber those of Russia and every other nation. CSIS reports that since President Xi took over in 2012 there have been 224 incidents of spying. Estimates of the long -term economic, scientific, and national security cost to the US run into the billions and have “created immeasurable damage to national security with the theft of weapons technology, including nuclear weapons test data… China has added the theft of massive quantities of personal information, political coercion, and influence operations, to its espionage activities.” The CSIS reports says that 49% of incidents of spying in the US directly involved Chinese military or government employees, with private Chinese citizens accounted for 41%. In 29% of the espionage cases the person involved was attempting to acquire military technology, while in 54% of the incidents it was related to commercial technologies. Almost half of the cases involved cyber espionage, usually by state—affiliated actors. No matter where one turns today China is challenging the West, from the depths of our oceans to outer space. The United States cannot count on China to be a good global citizen and refrain from attempting to enforce its vision of world order with Beijing at the apex. The time is growing short for the West to take action. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.