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SALT LAKE CITY — The coronavirus outbreak has awakened the United States to China’s “grand strategy” for economic, military and geopolitical domination, Sen. Mitt Romney says.
“China has done what we have allowed it to do; to save a few dollars, we have looked the other way. COVID-19 has exposed China’s dishonesty for all to see. And it is a clarion call for America to seize the moment,” the Utah Republican wrote in an op-ed for the Washington Post.
When the health crisis has passed, the U.S. should bring together like-minded countries to develop a strategy aimed at dissuading China from pursuing its “predatory” path, he said.
Romney identified Russia as the nation’s top geopolitical foe during his 2012 presidential campaign. But more recently said though Russia is an ongoing threat, it is a nation in decline while China is on the rise.
China, he said, poses a threat to freedom, human rights and free enterprise, and will be the principal challenge facing the U.S. in the 21st century.
Last month, Romney called on the National Security Council to counter the Chinese government’s “sinister propaganda” about the origins of the coronavirus. In early April, he joined a bipartisan group of senators demanding China shut down its wet markets to prevent the spread of disease.
“America is awakening to China,” he wrote in the op-ed.
The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed that, to a great degree, Americans’ health is in Chinese hands. From medicines to masks, the country is at Beijing’s mercy, Romney said.
“Embarrassed by the revelation of this vulnerability, politicians in Washington will certainly act to remedy our medical dependence — with the usual fanfare and self-congratulation,” Romney said. “But China’s stranglehold on pharmaceuticals is only a small sliver of its grand strategy for economic, military and geopolitical domination.”
Right now, Beijing’s weapon of choice is economic, he said.
When a predator, unbound by the rules followed by its competitors, is allowed to operate in a free market, that market is no longer truly free.
–Mitt Romney
China not only steals technology from other nations, it massively subsidizes industries it determines to have strategic importance. It also employs practices that have long been forbidden by developed nations, including bribery, monopoly, currency manipulation and predatory pricing, Romney said.
“As China ascended in the global marketplace, the West indulged its aberrant industrial policies, hoping it would move toward freedom and adherence to the international rules of commerce. That indulgence exacted a heavy toll,” he said.
China captured the global steel market through means that are illegal or impossible elsewhere, including pricing far below cost, artificially depressing currency, massive government subsidies and bribery, Romney said. It controls more than half of the world’s output — resulting in steel plants shuttered around the world and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs.
“When a predator, unbound by the rules followed by its competitors, is allowed to operate in a free market, that market is no longer truly free,” he wrote.
Romney said President Donald Trump was right to blow the whistle on Chinese President Xi Jinping and impose tariffs.
“But we must go a good deal further. We must align our negotiating strategy and policies with other nations that adhere to the global rules of trade. This means narrowing trade disputes with our friends and uniting against China’s untethered abuse,” he wrote.
China, he said, must understand that it will not have free, unfettered access to other economies unless it stops using anti-competitive and predatory practices.
Romney said China faces a simple choice: Play by the global rules, or face steep economic penalties.
