China is now sponsoring a number of conferences in the West. While we should always encourage dialogue, we should also be aware of who we are dealing with
In his Oct. 2 response to my latest article in The Diplomat, Amitai Etzioni, a professor
of international affairs at George Washington University and a flag bearer of
“communitarianism,” demonstrated that even well intentioned and intelligent
individuals can be duped by Chinese political warfare. [Note: I decided to publish my response on this blog rather than on Thinking
Taiwan or at The Diplomat to avoid dragging those publications into
the dispute. As always, the views expressed here are mine alone.]
What prompted
Etzioni’s reaction was my Sept. 23 article, titled “Chinese Propaganda: Coming Soon to a
Conference Near You,”
which discusses the links between the China Energy Fund Committee (CEFC), a “strategic
think tank” which recently co-organized a conference in Washington, D.C., and
the PLA’s General Political Department Liaison Department (GPD/LD). As one of
the co-organizers of and main speakers at the “Beyond the Current Distrust”
conference, held on Oct. 5, Etzioni doesn’t seem to have appreciated the fact
that such uncomfortable information was exposed to the public a week prior to
the event, or my pointing out that the panels were nakedly stacked in China’s
favor.
Leaving aside
his preposterous and factually wrong reference to my employer — which was based
solely on unnamed “commentators” at the bottom of my initial article, something
the 86-year-old professor of sociology should have known not to do — some of Etzioni’s remarks warrant a few words. I do
thank the professor for his response, which allows me to clarify my position.
(Oddly enough, Etzioni feels compelled to defend his own think tank, of which I
make no mention whatsoever in my article. There is something to be said about
individuals who have an urge to deflect accusations that were never made in the
first place.)
The principal
aim of my article was to alert readers, and possibly some individuals who
intended to attend the conference, to the fact that the Chinese propaganda
apparatus has extremely close connections to the CEFC. Given that
China-organized academic conferences in the West are a relatively new
phenomenon, it is crucial that society be aware of the origins, goals, and
connections of such organizations. When a “strategic think tank” that is headed
by a billionaire and former deputy secretary general of the GPD-LD-linked China
Association for International Friendly Contacts (CAIFC) claims to be an
impartial outlet, it’s important that we know who it is we’re dealing with —
and such transparence isn’t exactly a strength of the Chinese.
Let me first
state that propaganda isn’t merely “subjective.” In China’s case, as is often
the case with Marxist-Leninist regimes, there are institutions, funded by the party/state
and staffed with intelligence officers, whose sole remit is to engage in
propaganda and information/political warfare, and whose efforts are normally
accompanied by heavy censorship. GPD 311 Base (61716 Unit), to which I refer in
my article, is an example.
Using hyperlinks
to various Chinese-language articles, I also supported my claims about the CEFC with
plenty of evidence from my own research, articles by journalists Andrew Chubb and John Garnaut, and the landmark report on Chinese political
warfare by Mark Stokes
and Russell Hsiao of the Project 2049 Institute.
My objective therefore
wasn’t to say that such conferences should not be held, but solely to alert
consumers to the likelihood that what they were about to hear presented a very
pro-Beijing position on issues ranging from its territorial claims to its
attempts to annex Taiwan. Mr. Etzioni may claim all he wants that the CECF
didn’t “advocate for the presentation of any particular viewpoint at the conference
[or] seek to influence our selection of speakers,” the fact remains that the
panel titled “Time to Decide: Contain China or Accommodate It?” only comprised
individuals who favor the latter option. And why not? After all, Etzioni
himself has sided with the accommodationists and the intellectuals who have
made the case for ending U.S. arms sale to Taiwan in the naïve belief that
doing so would secure guarantees that Beijing would drop its annexationist
designs on the democratic island-nation.
Etzioni seems to
have concluded that I was aiming to silence the “doves” and, presumably, of
siding with war-hungry militarists. This is the usual trope, which turns logic
on its head: call for the defense of democracy or respect for international
law, and you’re a “hawk.” And that is where I think we enter sensitive
territory with individuals like him. Although I have no doubt that Mr. Etzioni,
who says he has seen combat, has pure intentions and wants to encourage
dialogue between the U.S. and China, I fear that his noble intentions are being
exploited by wolves passing off as doves. With all due respect to the old
sociologist, there is nothing “dovish” about an increasingly authoritarian
regime that builds military airstrips in the South China Sea, holds a fascist-style
military parade to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World
War II in the Pacific, threatens a democratic neighbor with military invasion,
occupies two nations and ethnically cleanses them, and that oppresses its own
people by locking up dissidents, lawyers, writers and a Nobel Prize winner, and
censors its media. I’m not saying we should demonize the CCP, but let’s not kid
ourselves: we’re not dealing with doves here.
The CCP has
demonstrated a keen talent for identifying individuals — prominent academics,
retired generals and so on — who can be manipulated to further the Chinese
cause. Some are conscious that this is happening; others, customarily known as
“useful idiots,” aren’t. I believe that Mr. Etzioni falls in the latter
category, and that his indignant reaction to my article stems from the
all-too-understandable resentment at being proven to have been
duped by the CCP.
