{"id":52405,"date":"2025-04-02T11:10:42","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T19:10:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=52405"},"modified":"2025-04-02T11:13:51","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T19:13:51","slug":"william-astore-on-china-1-enemy-of-the-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/02\/william-astore-on-china-1-enemy-of-the-day\/","title":{"rendered":"William Astore on China, #1 Enemy of the Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views<\/a> with the author\u2019s permission.<\/i><\/p>\n

I caught a couple of news items yesterday. The first was a secret Pentagon memo<\/a> that indicates China is now America\u2019s foremost threat, especially because of fears of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The second concerns Code Pink<\/a>, those intrepid pro-peace activists who have the temerity to exercise their right to free speech in the halls of power. Code Pink is now being smeared by the likes of Tom Cotton<\/a> as accepting money from the Chinese Communist Party.<\/p>\n

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Well, duh! It\u2019s right in their name: they\u2019re commie pinkos! Thanks for nothing, Tom Cotton.<\/p>\n

I have a lot of respect for Code Pink. They stand up to be counted, and they don\u2019t give a damn when they\u2019re arrested. We need more women \u2013 and men! \u2013 like them.<\/p>\n

And so I ask myself: what\u2019s up with all the China references, the fear mongering, the smearing of sensible activists? I think the answer is obvious: the Pentagon needs a \u201cbig\u201d enemy. Trump is trying to forge a peace in Ukraine with Russia and Putin, so the usual Red Menace and Evil Empire won\u2019t do. Iran isn\u2019t big enough to justify colossal military spending. But China \u2013 CHINA when Trump says it \u2013 is perfect. Powerful economy, a military that\u2019s growing stronger, an expanding nuclear weapons program: bingo! In the age of DOGE and budget cuts, China is exactly the kind of \u201cthreat\u201d that can be hyped so that Pentagon spending continues to soar.<\/p>\n

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China a threat? Say it ain\u2019t so, Winnie the Pooh<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

So many items I buy are tagged \u201cMade in China.\u201d Now the Pentagon\u2019s most convenient enemy of the day is literally made in China. China truly is the workhorse of the world \u2013 and a convenient stalking horse for the Pentagon and its desire to dominate the world (and federal discretionary spending) at any cost.<\/p>\n

William J. Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), professor of history, and a senior fellow at the Eisenhower Media Network (EMN), an organization of critical veteran military and national security professionals. His personal substack is Bracing Views<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author\u2019s permission. I caught a couple of news items yesterday. The first was a secret Pentagon memo that indicates China is now America\u2019s foremost threat, especially because of fears of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The second concerns Code Pink, those intrepid pro-peace activists who have the temerity to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[758],"class_list":["post-52405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":"How else to justify trillion-dollar war budgets?"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52405"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52412,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52405\/revisions\/52412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52405"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=52405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}