Wes Vernon, NewsMax.com
Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2003

WASHINGTON – China is every bit as much a threat to the free world today as it was on Sept. 10, 2001. Sept. 11 has diverted America's attention to al-Qaeda, Iraq and lately North Korea. In fact, China has been doing business with America's enemies in the Middle East and elsewhere.

In his book "Troublemaker," dissident Harry Wu notes that American policy-makers are constantly reminding us that China will soon have the largest economy in the world.

"What seems to be lacking in this discussion," Wu writes, "is the implication of an economic giant's turning into a military and political giant."

Any leader who ignores this reality of "deep-rooted Chinese nationalism does so at his or her own peril and at his or her nation's peril." Wu obviously believes Bill Clinton ignored that threat as his eight years in the White House gave us an era of burying our heads in the sand where national security was concerned.

He says it is too early to tell whether President Bush will provide the backbone needed in America's dealings with China.

Meanwhile, based on his studies and personal experience in the slave labor camps of China, he offers a 10-point plan for his adopted country, the United States:

1. Condemn the continued existence of the loagai, the camps in China where political prisoners work 14 hours a day, eating coarse rice and rotten vegetable leaves, hands bleeding and infected from brutal working conditions, and lacking in anything approaching decent health care.

2. Make clear to the Chinese that their repression of dissidents will have costs. Countries doing business with China should demand verification of every product they import from China. The U.S. should insist the Chinese not make profits on the backs of prisoners.

3. The U.S. should try revoking China's most-favored-nation (or "normal," as it is now called) trade status. Withdrawing MFN "might hurt Chinese workers in the short term, but it would hurt business leaders in Hong Kong, Taiwan, America and China even more. It would surely get their attention."

4. Apply pressure on the World Bank to look more carefully at its projects. With all the unmet needs in free countries, there is no reason why China should be the largest customer of the World Bank, whose operations are funded largely by American taxpayers.

5. Pressure the U.N. Commission on Human Rights to hold more hearings on China's slave labor.

6. China should be banned from the World Trade Organization.

7. Chinese acts that violate "international norms" — such as the sale of missiles and nuclear technology to threatening regimes in countries such as Syria, Iran and Iraq — should be condemned, "not swept under the rug. A consistent response is necessary if the United States is to have any credibility with the Chinese and end this danger to world peace."

8. Respect "the legitimate demands" of Tibet and Taiwan, and link them to other aspects of U.S. policy. "Particularly in the case of Taiwan, the United States must make very clear that the cost of any use of force by the Mainland Chinese will be extremely high." American policy must be "powerful and consistent."

9. Other nations should stop selling China the technology and equipment used by the military and police against dissidents.

10. 1International broadcasts to China should be greatly expanded. The information flow to the Chinese through computers is fine (to the extent the Chinese don't find ways to block it, as they have done), but is no substitute for broadcasts.

Wu thinks the Chinese can develop their own free nation, but not as long as the aspirations of their own people are repressed. Believe it or not, he hopes to go back to China someday.

"Front door next time."

NewsMax offers a $5 discount on Harry Wu's "Troublemaker."

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