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RUBIO: Re-Shore Rare Earths to Keep America Strong

A country incapable of providing for itself isn’t much of a great power. To ensure America stays strong for generations to come, we need to bring production of goods essential to our national security back home. That starts with re-shoring rare earth manufacturing.

For some, “industrial policy” is a dirty term associated with planned economies. But Americans have long accepted government action to help maintain domestic manufacturing in critical industries. It makes sense that we buy ships from General Dynamics, airplanes from Boeing, and missiles from Raytheon –– even if it would be cheaper to import them from abroad –– because it is clear they are goods vital to our national security. Well, the last two years have taught us that the list of such goods needs to be expanded.

One urgent addition to that list is rare earth minerals. In the 21st-century economy, rare earth minerals are crucial for powering advanced electronics. They form essential components of everything from batteries and household computers to wind turbines and military weapon systems. Without them, our modern way of life and capacity for self-defense would be crippled.

North America contains a considerable quantity of unprocessed rare earth minerals. However, the vast majority of rare earth manufacturing occurs in China. Even rare earth minerals mined in America are shipped to China for processing. In the wake of COVID-19, the invasion of Ukraine, and the supply chain disruptions that followed, it should be clear to everyone that relying on hostile regimes for basic goods is dangerous.

Just look at Western Europe’s predicament. Nations like Germany remain addicted to Russian natural gas, giving Vladimir Putin leverage over them. Cutting off Russian energy will require tremendous sacrifice on their part.

With expansive energy reserves, America is better positioned to counter Putin. But if China cut us off from rare earth products –– which Beijing has restricted in the past and could easily do again –– the effects would be catastrophic. That’s why I have introduced legislation to bring rare earth manufacturing back to America.

If passed into law, the Obtaining National and Secure Homeland Operations for Rare Earth (ONSHORE) Manufacturing Act will provide financial assistance to entities building rare earth manufacturing plants on U.S. soil and create initiatives to secure our international rare earth supply chain from foreign disruption. The ONSHORE Manufacturing Act will also prohibit taxpayer dollars from funding rare earth manufacturing in designated “entities of concern.” Americans’ hard-earned money should not be used to prop up the industrial capacity of China, Russia, or Iran.

I hope my colleagues in the Senate will join me in passing this piece of legislation, which is vital to keeping our country safe. However, we can’t stop with rare earth metals. There are other industries equally essential to our national and economic security that need re-shoring. In the coming months, it is critical that we begin rebuilding our capacity to produce pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and more.

This is the kind of targeted industrial policy America needs to maintain its status as a great power. The threats we face from our adversaries, especially China, are wide-ranging and immense. We will need a whole-of-society effort to ensure the 21st century is another American century, and securing supply chains will have to be a part of it.

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While the Russian War in Ukraine Rages, What Is China’s Takeaway?

China has been warned by the Biden administration not to support Russia in that nation’s illegal war, but China has merely parried that jab and is looking hard at the realities of the war in Ukraine.

The Chinese have learned two things already.

President Biden is not strong at home, which is mildly interesting to China, but is significantly weak abroad, which interests China greatly. They saw in Afghanistan that this White House offers no foreign policy expertise.

They are mystified by a nation that at one moment was energy independent — in the thirstiest energy consuming country in the world — and in the next it became intentionally dependent on many of its competitors.

Biden’s decision-making is even worse.

China also understands that Russia is not nearly the fighting machine that many, including an angry President Vladimir Putin, thought they were.

As of this writing, the Russian army, unable to muster combined arms fighting skills, is slogging its way through Ukraine, having lost thousands of soldiers, including four generals killed in action (by contrast, the U.S. lost exactly zero generals in eight years in Iraq).

Putin’s decision-making is even worse.

Nuclear weapons continue to occupy the thoughts of all in the region and worldwide. Part of Russian warfighting doctrine allows use of tactical low-yield weapons, designed to allow quick takeover of affected areas.

The Chinese are not overly concerned about Biden’s comments or with Russia’s conduct of battle.

The Chinese Communist Party is dispassionately going about the business of achieving its own goals of their plan for the Great Rejuvenation of 2049.

The Defense Department views the Great Rejuvenation’s purpose is “to match or surpass U.S. global influence and power, displace U.S. alliances and security partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region, and revise the international order to be more advantageous to Beijing’s authoritarian system and national interests.” It is not ambiguous.

It is worth looking at what China is doing, out of the spotlight.

China has threatened countries supplying Taiwan with military equipment. Their obvious aim is to intimidate countries, including the United States, to pull back on aid.

There have been indications that Russia has asked China for military support. It is not clear whether China has provided any equipment. For its part, China claims Russia has not asked for equipment and this is simply U.S. “disinformation.”

China is also projecting a neutral position in the war (which has a dubious basis given its brotherly relationship with Russia). The western nations must constantly point this out. China cannot have it both ways.

Militarily, China is likely assessing its own military readiness. Russia’s generals fooled Putin into believing their forces were ready to take Ukraine in days.

China’s untested generals, many selected for political connections, not military acumen, are likely feeding Chinese leaders with claims of supremacy. Look for major exercises in China in the next few months. Chinese leaders do not want the Russian experience.

China is also advising its fellow Asian leaders not to get too emboldened with their foreign policy.

For example, China issued a thinly veiled threat to Japan.

At a March 7 news conference, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi urged Japan not to take any actions that could be seen as interfering in things that are not their concern. In other words: Watch yourself, Japan.

The United States is not immune from efforts of intimidation.

On March 18, just before a scheduled phone call between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, the Chinese navy sailed an aircraft carrier through the Taiwan Strait. The move was meant to be a reminder that Taiwan is in the Chinese’s collective minds.

During the call, according to a vague White House readout, Biden “described the implications and consequences if China provides material support to Russia.”

The Chinese foreign ministry’s view of the situation was one in which “all-round and indiscriminate sanctions” would cause suffering to the “common people.” China merely changed the subject.

Naturally, the Chinese did not address the suffering caused by incessant bombing and missiles being hurled toward cities day and night.

China is not a friend of the west, especially the United States, or Ukraine, and the clarity of the country’s leaders is abundantly clear.

Now is the time to completely re-evaluate our multi-layered relationship with this giant and squash its dream of becoming the hegemon of the Pacific Rim.

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The PGA Tour’s Sportswashing Problem in China

On the heels of NBC’s Beijing Winter Olympics coverage, in which the network faced criticism for publicizing a sporting event staged by an authoritarian regime, numerous sports and entertainment organizations are facing renewed scrutiny over their relationships with China.

That includes professional golf’s PGA Tour, an organization whose close ties and extensive business investments with China have only recently come to light, raising potential legal and regulatory problems for the PGA Tour, which enjoys tax-exempt status courtesy of the American taxpayer.

China has long had a complicated and even strained relationship with the game of golf–going back to the days of Chairman Mao, who in 1949 denounced golf as “a sport of millionaires” and banned it from being played in China. As recently as 2015, the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) banned its members from joining golf clubs, warning expulsion awaited anyone who defied the ban.

In recent years, however, CCP leaders have warmed to the game, presumably because of the big revenue tournaments can generate for China and the international prestige the game could provide the abusive regime. Indeed, the Beijing-based Shankai Sports in 2018 signed a 20-year contract with the PGA Tour Series-China, a development tour similar to circuits run by the PGA Tour in Canada and Latin America.

The PGA-China deal has led to criticism that PGA Tour is providing cover for a government accused of widespread human rights abuses by partnering with them on high-profile golf events. It also faces regulatory and legal scrutiny as the PGA apparently failed to disclose it in recent tax filings.

“Today, under the dictatorial rule of Xi Jinping – a neo-Maoist thug – the PGA Tour and LPGA Tour include annual treks to Shanghai, China for the WGC-HSBC Champions and Buick LPGA Shanghai,” Pro Golf Weekly’s Jeff Smith recently wrote in an article titled “Where’s the Sportswashing Outrage With Communist China?”

“How evil is the current regime in relation to Mao?” Smith continued, referring to the founding father of the People’s Republic of China. “Last year, the United States officially accused China of committing crimes against humanity, which had engaged in the forced assimilation and eventual erasure of a vulnerable ethnic and religious minority group.”

The PGA deal in China establishes a direct connection between the golf organization and China’s government. Financing came from Yao Capital, a company whose principal is also a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a political advisory group to the Chinese government, which is in the midst of a five-year plan to develop the country’s sports into a $740 billion industry by 2025.

China has proven a difficult place to do business in for many American companies, with CCP leaders having a long history of pressuring them to conform to the nation’s principles and to avoid criticizing its policies.

China’s strong-arm tactics toward the NBA are well known. When Daryl Morey of the Houston Rockets tweeted his support for Hong Kong’s freedom in 2019, China stopped broadcasting the team’s game. The Rockets and the NBA quickly distanced themselves from Morey’s comments and issued apologies all around.

Even LeBron James, perhaps the biggest name in the NBA, has felt the need to publicly side with China. Now, fans fear the same will happen with the PGA.

“Decent people everywhere root against the power and influence of Communist China, which means hoping for the worst for CCP stooges like LeBron James,” said longtime sports journalist and podcaster Gerry Callahan. “Does golf want to see the PGA become the ‘Pro-Genocide Association?’” Callahan asked.

Those concerns have been heightened in the wake of a report from a public-integrity organization in Washington that the PGA is refusing to disclose details of its financial dealings with Shankai Sports.

Tom Anderson, director of the National Legal and Policy Center’s Government Integrity Project, said that as an organization with tax-exempt status from the IRS, the PGA Tour is required to file financial disclosures regarding its business dealings in China. But the PGA’s tax filings for 2018 and 2020 do not contain any disclosures about its transactions involving Shankai or Yao, Anderson told InsideSources.

In a statement, PGA Tour spokesperson Laury Livsey said the filing isn’t required because the China tour is a separate entity.

“The PGA Tour established a separate entity, based in Beijing,” Livsey said. “The PGA Tour’s Form 990 only relates to the tour’s activity, and the activity of a subsidiary would not be reported on the PGA Tour’s Form 990. In any event, it is not a requirement that organizations identify or disclose ancillary contracts or deals.”

Anderson doesn’t agree, and his organization is filing a complaint with the IRS about the PGA’s lack of disclosure.

“At the end of the day, if you have a serious operation outside of the United States and you’re a non-profit, you have to disclose that operation, and in detail: The number of employees you have, the companies you have contracts with,” Anderson said. “The PGA says they’ve found a loophole, but they haven’t.”

It is tempting to dismiss a topic like golf as just fun and games. But foreign policy experts say the Chinese regime sees it as something else: soft power.

“As China’s economy has grown in recent decades, so, too, has its desire to advance its soft power objectives around the world, including in sport,” said Craig Singleton, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), a nonpartisan think tank focused on foreign policy and national security issues.

“Beijing’s hosting of the 2008 summer Olympics was a watershed moment for China, representing the country’s return as a so-called ‘great power.’ Since then, and culminating in the most recent 2021 Olympics, Beijing has methodically invested in sport, entertainment, and international fora as a means to positively shape global perceptions about China.” Singleton added. “Beijing’s soft power investments are also intended to offset criticism of its hard power capabilities, namely China’s ongoing efforts to modernize its military and its intimidation of Taiwan.”

Will pro golfers who oppose China’s anti-democratic policies, its takeover of Hong Kong, or its threats against Taiwan be forced to remain silent or find themselves forced out of the league?

That type of arrangement is part of China’s playbook, James Carafano, vice president for national security and foreign policy at The Heritage Foundation, said in an interview.

“The Chinese purposefully look to take any national or international institution and essentially make it an extension of Chinese power and influence,” Carafano told The Daily Signal, which is Heritage’s multimedia news organization.

It is clear the PGA Tour has tried to minimize, if not outright conceal, their business relationship with China for years, and judging by their recent statement, they continue to downplay their close ties with the CCP. It is time for the non-profit, tax-exempt Tour to fully disclose the extent of their business dealings with China. If they refuse, the IRS and federal regulators must investigate to see if the Tour’s actions violate federal law.

 

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ERVIN: Absence of Secure Mineral Supply Chain Poses Threat to U.S. Manufacturers

Now is the time to ask: How important is the mining of minerals and metals in the United States to the advancement of clean energy technologies? As demand for clean energy metals soars, and as global supply chain challenges only grow more pronounced, the answer is exceedingly clear. Building a domestic mineral supply chain is foundational to the energy transition and electric vehicle revolution.

Geopolitical considerations are an important dimension of the need for U.S. mobilization in the minerals and metals space. U.S. mineral import reliance is at alarming levels and China is now the dominant producer of half of the more than 30 minerals the U.S. government has deemed critical to our economic and national security. Overreliance on a geopolitical rival for fuel or critical materials is not a place we want to be—just ask the E.U. as it deals with Russian dominance of the European gas market. But even putting aside grave geopolitical considerations, soaring commodity prices, and the threat they pose to clean energy deployment are reasons enough for the U.S. to fully engage in mineral supply chains.

Consider what is happening with the metals used for lithium-ion batteries, the enabling technology for EVs. Lithium prices jumped a staggering 437 percent in 2021 and they continue to rise this year. New battery manufacturing capacity is coming online far faster than miners can open new mines and bring production to market. The result is a tear in the lithium market that is showing no signs of slowing down.

What’s happening with lithium – while extreme – is precisely what could happen with so many other metals essential to the energy transition. From copper and nickel to rare earth minerals there’s well-founded concern the world is financing far greater demand for these minerals and metals than their supply. New mining projects are not coming online at nearly the volume or speed needed to keep up with the accelerating pivot to green energy.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicted in a landmark study last year that demand for some key metals, like lithium, could grow 40-fold by 2040. The mining industry is woefully ill-suited to keep up with that kind of demand. Mining projects are notoriously complex and time-intensive. While a new battery mega factory that can crank out batteries for millions of new EVs can be built and begin operation in just two years, the mines needed to supply it take far, far longer. In fact, from inception to completion, major new mining projects in the U.S. take 17 years on average to bring to market.

The machines of the green revolution have an acute materials problem and as we’ve seen, supply challenges can upend economies. This past year car dealerships were left empty when chip shortages deeply constrained new car production. The same kind of scenario could be coming for solar panels, wind turbines, and EVs as the materials needed for their production simply don’t materialize at scale.

The American manufacturing renaissance the Biden administration envisions led by the auto sector is being built upon a supply chain that for all intents and purposes doesn’t exist. That Made-in-America parade isn’t going to march unless there’s a swift and decisive commitment to mined-in-America.

Counting on global materials production to meet demand is a recipe for failure. As the IEA implored, mineral-producing nations must lean into the challenge. And despite our growing import reliance, the U.S. is rich in mineral resources. From lithium to nickel, copper, rare earths, and even cobalt, the U.S. has vast reserves. What we need is the policy commitment to ensure we can produce them and do so quickly. The U.S. has world-leading mining environmental and labor standards, what we must do is ensure we use those standards to encourage responsible production, not block it.

The world cannot afford for the U.S. to only be a materials consumer during the energy transition. We must also become a leading producer. Instead of depending on, or hoping for, imports from foreign-trade adversaries like China, we must help produce the materials that are the building blocks for the emissions-free technologies needed to win the climate fight. American manufacturing policy and energy policy should rest on the shoulders of American mining policy.

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McCormick Touts Mission at Campaign Stop in Bensalem

Republican U.S. Senate candidate David McCormick had never thought about running for elected office. Then he saw the Biden administration’s chaotic — and deadly — withdrawal from Afghanistan last year and decided he had to do something.

“Seeing Afghanistan play out just grabbed our attention and just shook us,” said McCormick, who is married to Trump administration national security advisor Dina Powell. “My wife has done a lot of public service, too. She’s an immigrant to this country. We both lived the American Dream. And when we saw that playing out — the humiliation, the embarrassment, and the lack of accountability — it just shook me.

Dave McCormick with supporter Austin Hepburn.

“As a patriot, you ask yourself what can we do? We think this seat is so important to Pennsylvania. It’s so important to the country. As this seat goes, the country likely goes. Pennsylvania needs a strong leader in the Senate, a strong fighter in the Senate,” McCormick added.

McCormick told a group of about 50 at the VFW post in Bensalem on Saturday there are many reasons Washington, D.C. needs to change.

“There are so many aspects of the country that feel like it’s headed in the wrong direction. We have 40-year high inflation, which is the result of these socialist economic policies. And that hurts all of us, but it really hurts working families all across Pennsylvania.”

McCormick, who served as undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs under President George W. Bush, grew up on a family farm in Bloomsburg. His dad was chancellor at Bloomsburg University and chancellor for the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education.

McCormick graduated from West Point and spent five years in the Army, where he served in the first Gulf War. He recently stepped down from his position as CEO of the hedge fund behemoth Bridgewater Associates.

McCormick has come under fire for his hedge fund’s investments in China, including an attack ad from a Dr. Mehmet Oz SuperPAC. But he noted that only 2 percent of Bridgewater’s investments were in China.

“China is the existential challenge of our time,” said McCormick. “It poses an economic risk. It poses a national security risk. We need a whole nation strategy to deal with it. And we need to reduce our dependence on China.”

Pharmaceuticals come from China and most semiconductors are made in nearby Taiwan. The United States’ investment and trade must not support the Chinese military or the oppression of its minority Uighurs, he said.

“The risk has grown in the last 10 years under (Chinese President) Xi,” he said. “Do you really want your drugs dependent on whether China is having a good day?

Meanwhile, America needs more skilled workers and must find a way for businesses to get capital to compete with Chinese businesses that are subsidized by the state.  More emphasis on technical training would help, he said.

“As military veteran…somebody who’s run businesses, created jobs, someone who’s served at the highest levels of government negotiating with China…That’s the kind of person you need to be able to go and fight in Washington.”

McCormick also discussed inflation, education, Pennsylvania’s natural gas industry, illegal immigration, China, Russia, and Ukraine.

And “the border situation is completely unsustainable,” said McCormick, who recently visited Yuma, Ariz., to see the situation first-hand. A year ago, there were 30 illegal border crossers caught every day at Yuma, he said. Now there are 1,000. The Border Patrol agents’ union has endorsed him.

“The border guards are completely overwhelmed,” he said. “Literally, people are just walking through.”

Deaths from fentanyl brought across the border are increasing, and so are related crimes.

“You all feel it here in Philadelphia and moving into the suburbs,” said McCormick.

On education, McCormick said, “I don’t recognize the history that’s being taught to our kids today, with parents not having adequate involvement. And I don’t recognize the cancel culture where you can’t have the right conversations and disagree. It’s a disaster…The American Dream we lived is not going to be available to our kids five years from now or 10 years from now.”

An audience member asked McCormick about the crisis with Ukraine and Russia.

“The world is more dangerous now than it’s ever been,” said McCormick. “I think Biden invited that with Afghanistan. If you show weakness the bullies will take advantage of it. And that’s what happening with Russia. That’s what I think is happening in China. So we need to project strength. And our military today, I’m worried about it.”

While the U.S. spends $80 billion on defense, “there’s a whole social agenda, ‘wokeness’ that’s taken over our military (instead of its) warfighting focus.”

And China is spending its military budget on next-generation technology while the U.S. is spending “90 percent on old platforms” instead of innovation for the future.

“Ukraine is a terrible mess,” he said, and he would “look hard” at sanctions against Russia if it crosses into Ukraine.

“I don’t think we want to be part of a land war in Ukraine. And if we get too focused on that, we have to look over our shoulder, because I think China will move on Taiwan. If we go into something militarily, it has to be so decisive and conclusive it has to be beyond doubt.”

Asked about natural gas, he said, “We have all this natural gas but we don’t have ways to get it there geographically.” A lot of natural gas is being transported by trucks when pipelines are safer. And Pennsylvania natural gas is being sent by pipelines to Louisiana and Texas rather than having a distribution center or port in Philadelphia.

Dave McCormick with state Sen. Robert “Tommy” Tomlinson.

“Our natural gas is the cleanest of the natural gases,” said McCormick. “And natural gas is cleaner than many other forms of energy…Mathematically, Biden shut down Keystone (pipeline), put the clamps on American gas, which is so much cleaner than Russian gas.

“Russian gas, which is much worse environmentally, is being shipped to Europe and the rest of the world so the greenhouse gases go up, our economic benefit goes down and our security in the world goes down because now we’re dependent on outside energy. It’s a madness that is taking place,” he said.

State Sen. Robert “Tommy” Tomlinson (R-Bucks) said McCormick is “truly a proud American, truly somebody capable of moving this country forward, truly somebody who believes in this country. I’m happy that we’ve got a candidate that I could feel that good about.”

And many in the crowd seemed to agree, leaving with McCormick yard signs and hats.

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NASCIMENTO: The China Challenge

China is the principal challenge to U.S. economic and political leadership in the world. With activities such as the Belt and Road Initiative, China is continuing to expand its influence economically and militarily with an eye on replacing U.S. leadership and Western democratic values with its own brand of statism. The challenge is seen in Beijing’s IP theft, culpability in the COVID-19 pandemic, aggressive behavior in Asia, disregard for human rights, and predatory economic practices.

Bringing China into the world economic and political order was done with the best of intentions across multiple U.S. administrations, both Democratic and Republican. The idea was that their increased participation in the global marketplace would bring China into the mainstream and drive internal reforms benefiting everyone. This has not happened. Instead, it has produced a military and economic juggernaut with little interest in maintaining the values we cherish.

The hope was also that globalization would benefit the American public by reducing costs and lifting more people up into the middle class. Cheaper goods would equal more disposable income for the average American, and more money to save.

The reality is that globalization has shipped the very jobs that allow that ascendancy to the middle class to China.

As global business leaders, in their search for higher earnings and larger profit margins, essentially outsourced the world’s supply chain to Beijing, we are left with the problems we see every day, from shortages of key industrial inputs to thinly stocked shelves.

By single threading the global supply chain, we have put China in the driver’s seat of the world’s economy. Even the basest components of items built in other countries are now sourced from China.

By taking away manufacturing jobs from the U.S., we make the population less financially stable, and drive wealth further into the pockets of a foreign adversary and in the US, an elite class.

Additionally, this is an urgent national security situation: With critical telecommunications gear, IP enabled security cameras, mobile phones, and other key components of 21st-century infrastructure manufactured in whole or in part in China, the global community has placed us all at the mercy of the whims of a “frenemy”.

At best, the global supply chain is at risk of the impact of disasters and pandemics on a country where hundreds of millions of people live below the poverty line; at worst, we have wrapped the world economy in dynamite and handed a potential foe the trigger. Imagine if China’s government, which centrally controls all businesses in that country, decided to stop producing cell phones or modems, or the parts that allow those devices to function? The result would be catastrophic for our internet-based economy.

The China challenge requires a strong U.S. response which I will work towards as a member of Congress. This response should include::

  1. Greater local investment in key technologies.  Intel’s recent decision to build a state of art chip plant in Ohio is to be commended, and replicated across industries.
  2. Tax incentives to encourage more manufacturing, R&D, and investment in worker training. Incidentally, the Delaware Valley is well-positioned to take advantage of this increased investment, with proximities to major arteries, abundant locations for factories and workplaces, and a diverse population.
  3.  Aggressive enforcement of IP laws and sanctions against nations that persist in the theft of Intellectual Property, to protect and encourage the innovation that will power the economy of the future.
  4. Increased investment in STEM education, educational choice, gifted programs, and skilled labor development. As a former School Board President, I am acutely aware of the challenges that public education faces, especially after the COVID-fueled “lost year(s)” that many children faced. In order to remain competitive on the global stage, education must be an urgent priority.

Mao Zedong said, “Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy,” The United States can no longer allow itself to be a nail. Strong, clear-eyed leadership is required to address the China challenge.

 

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KING: The 2022 Climate Debate: Will Population Growth Dominate?

It wasn’t front and center at the climate change summit, COP26, in Glasgow, but it was whispered about informally, in the corridors, and over meals.

For politicians, it is flammable. For some religions, it is heresy. Yet it begs a hearing: the growth of the global population.

While the world struggles to decarbonize, saving it from sea level rise and the other disasters associated with climate change, there is no recognition officially anywhere that population plays a critical part.

People do things that cause climate change from burning coal to raising beef cattle. A lot of people equal a lot of pollution equals a big climate impact, obvious and incontrovertible.

In 1950, the global population was at just over 2.5 billion. This year, it is calculated at 7.9 billion. Roughly by mid-century, it is expected to increase by another 2 billion.

There is a ticking bomb, and it is us.

There was one big, failed attempt to restrict population growth: China’s one-child policy. Besides being draconian, it didn’t work well and has been abandoned.

China is awash with young men seeking nonexistent brides. While the program was in force from 1980 to 2015, girls were aborted and boys were saved. The result: A massive gender imbalance. One doubts that any country will ever, however authoritarian its rule, try that again.

There is a long history to population alarm, going back to the 18th century and Thomas Malthus, an English demographer and economist who gave birth to what is known as Malthusian theory. This states that food production won’t be able to keep up with the growth in the human population, resulting in famine and war; and the only way forward is to restrict population growth.

Malthus’s theory was very wrong in the 18th century. But it had unfortunate effects, which included a tolerance of famine in populations of European empire countries, like India. It also played a role in the Irish Great Famine of 1845-49, when some in England thought that this famine, caused by a potato blight, was the fulfillment of Malthusian theory, and inhibited efforts to help the starving Irish. Shame on England.

The idea of population outgrowing resources was reawakened in 1972 with a controversial report titled “Limits to Growth” from the Club of Rome, a global think tank.

This report led to battles over the supply of oil when the energy crisis broke the next year. The antigrowth, population-limiting side found itself in a bitter fight with the technologists who believed that technology would save the day. It did. More energy came to market, oil resources were discovered worldwide, including in the previously unexplored Southern Hemisphere.

Since that limits-to-growth debate, the world population has increased inexorably. Now, if growth is the problem, the problem needs to be examined more urgently. I think 2022 is the year that the examination will begin.

Clearly, no country will wish to go down the failed Chinese one-child policy, and anyway, only authoritarian governments could contemplate it. Free people in democratic countries don’t handle dictates well: Take, for example, the difficulty of enforcing mask-wearing in the time of the COVID pandemic in the United States, Germany, Britain, France, and elsewhere.

If we are going to talk of a leveling off world population we have to look elsewhere, away from dictates to other subtler pressures.

There is a solution, and the challenge to the world is whether we can get there fast enough.

That solution is prosperity. When people move into the middle class, they tend to have fewer children. So much so that the traditional populations are in decline in the United States, Japan, and in much of Europe — even in nominally Roman Catholic France. The data is skewed by immigration in all those countries — except Japan, where it is particularly stark. It shows population stability can happen without dictatorial social engineering.

In the United States, the not-so-secret weapon may be no more than the excessive cost of college.

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Can ‘Top Gun’ Training Give U.S., Taiwan Leverage to Keep China at Bay?

It was an image that got the Pentagon’s attention: Satellite photos of targets shaped like an American aircraft carrier and at least two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers on a Chinese military weapons range. The images were made public earlier this month by the U.S. Naval Institute.

“What we’re concerned about … is the increasing intimidation and coercive behavior of the Chinese military in the Indo-Pacific,” Defense Department press secretary John F. Kirby said in response. “We’re focused on developing the capabilities, the operational concepts, making sure we have the resources and the right strategy in place so that we can deal with [China] as the No. 1 pacing challenge.”

And one of those key capabilities, many military experts believe, is advanced and enhanced training for America’s warfighters.

In September, a series of military tests were conducted at the Naval Air Systems Command in Patuxent River, Maryland using an advanced training environment incorporating live, virtual, and constructive capabilities developed by Cubic Mission and Performance Solutions and its partners– the same company responsible for the training and tech that was seen in the movie “Top Gun.”

“This is really changing the way that we go about training,” says Paul “PK” Averna, a former Top Gun instructor now working for Cubic.

“For the live platforms, when you’re out on the range and you’re looking at your displays, all of the displays are correlating to the environment in which you’re fighting,” Averna said. “So, if I’m locking up somebody beyond visual range, I would expect to see certain indications across all of my displays, and you get that with this equipment – you can’t tell which targets are real, which are virtual, or which ones are constructives.” [sic]

“It’s called ‘Train Like You Fight,’ Averna said.

And it’s not just flight training. On the ground, the U.S. Army is reportedly looking into creating a Synthetic Training Environment combining augmented and synthetic reality.

At sea, the U.S. Navy has deployed Fleet Synthetic Training. “The whole program is designed to get all the different warfare communities – air, surface, special warfare, information warfare, expeditionary warfare – working together to support the strike group commander and staff,” David Fishbaugh, Training Specialist for Naval Information Forces (NAVIFOR) Fleet Synthetic Training, said in the Department of the Navy’s information technology magazine CHIPS.

Advocates for this new generation of integrated, high-tech training argue that it’s more than just military bells and whistles, or advanced video gaming. They believe it can help tilt the advantage toward the U.S. and provide some of the leverage to keep China’s ambitions in check.

In the past, America could count on a large advantage in technology and firepower over its potential adversaries. Today, China is a “near-peer” adversary — and some defense experts in the U.S. say it’s time to drop the “near.”

“We should be quite concerned,” says Zack Cooper, Senior Fellow in U.S.-China Relations at American Enterprise Institute (AEI). “China has the world’s largest navy now, it has been engaged in a remarkable military modernization over decades and yes, the United States still has some very substantial military capabilities, but we’ve been fairly distracted.”

“Many analysts expect a conflict with China will be over quickly, and because of the nature of modern warfare there are reasons for that view,” says Gordon Chang, author of “The Coming Collapse of China.”

“Nonetheless, we should expect a long conflict, and we have to prepare for the worst,” Chang said.

After all, wars rarely turn out the way planners contemplate.

“China’s military tech is good,” Chang added, noting its July test of a hypersonic glide vehicle with nuclear capabilities. That test, it has now been learned, also included the unprecedented launch of a separate missile from that same vehicle. China’s level of technological advancement caught Pentagon officials completely by surprise, according to media reports.

Chang says the U.S. did not develop hypersonic glide vehicles in hopes of avoiding an arms race in that arena.

“Unfortunately, neither China nor Russia showed the same restraint,” says Chang. “We are behind in anti-satellite tech for the same reason: American leaders failed to understand their Chinese and Russian counterparts.”

All of which is more reason, advocates for “Live Virtual Constructive” or LVC Training argue, to invest in the advanced training of the men and women who would be on the frontlines of any fight. It’s an advantage that can’t be taken away, they say.

“The ability to rapidly upgrade existing range infrastructure and integrate live participants with a common synthetic environment is essential to provide the realism needed for the Night One scenario,” said Mike Knowles, president of Cubic Mission and Performance Solutions.

“It’s not enough to field a system that can only support one platform. It has to deliver the common training environment for the way we will fight – distributed, alongside Joint and Coalition partners, leveraging advantages in multiple domains with proficient warfighters.”

A demonstration of this training was held at the Pax River Naval Air Station in Maryland in September. Another is scheduled for January.

Still, says Brent Sadler of Heritage  “there is no substitute aggressor training, Top-Gun style, when you’re going against human operators for real.”

Sadler agrees that superior training plays a role in attempting to achieve military advantage against China and Russia.

“Yes, training matters. It always matters. And new technology makes it much more realistic — for submarines, surface ships, pilots — it can be helpful. But at the end of the day, there’s still the time you have to be in the seat. There has to be in the back of your brain, ‘I’m going to die if I get this wrong,’” Sadler said.

At the same time, Averna says, the Live Virtual Constructive training gives the warfighters another advantage.

“We all have perceptions of what’s going on in the middle of a high-intensity environment, but it’s really when we’re able to pull back and look objectively at relative positions of one another, and who did what to whom, that is where those kinds of systems really help,” Averna said.  Combined with the advantage of having Live participants operating their platforms as they would on Night One in an authentic training environment securely, where potential adversaries can’t observe how you are training, and you have introduced a new lever in the Combatant Commander’s available options against a potential threat.”

The U.S. military will likely need every advantage it can get to counter China’s ever-more aggressive stance toward Taiwan. The Chinese military set a new record in October for incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, with 196 sorties. The previous record was set in September with 117 sorties.

James Hutton, a former assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and a retired colonel in the U.S. Army, says China views Taiwan as the crown jewel.

“Taiwan stands out as a democratically governed oasis, and for that China cannot let it continue,” says Hutton.

“Taiwan presents a particular challenge to the People’s Republic of China,” added Chang. “Although the citizens of the Republic of China–commonly known as ‘Taiwan’–do not generally consider themselves ‘Chinese,’ the citizens of the People’s Republic consider them as such, and the democracy on the island undermines the critical narrative of the Communist Party, that the Chinese people are not ready to govern themselves.”

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CPB Nominee Points Finger at China Over Counterfeit Meds

While the debate over sanctuary cities and migration made the headlines, President Joe Biden’s nominee to be America’s top border cop used his recent appearance before the Senate Finance Committee to call out a country far from the border for its role in counterfeit goods and illegal drugs: China.

Tucson Police Chief Chris Magnus, nominated to lead the Customs and Border Protection Agency, was questioned about the trade and commerce aspects of his duties by committee members, including Pennsylvania Senators Bob Casey and Pat Toomey.

Committee member Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) focused on border security and drugs.

“U.S. Customs and Border Protection has an important role in disrupting international drug smuggling operations and interdicting the flow of drugs and money across the U.S. border,” Hassan said, noting that opioid addiction “is ravaging my state of New Hampshire.”

Asked what he would do as CBP director to fight international drug trafficking, Magnus said he was well aware of the problem of fake pharmaceuticals, particularly those made with fentanyl and other opioids, and he pointed a finger at China.

“We should touch on e-commerce, where we know that there are many opioids and precursors of such that are coming through in small packages,” Magnus said. “Many times through the Postal Service because of relationships that are complicated involving China.

“There are a whole series of ways in which we can do more to address the scourge.”

“China remains the primary source of fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked through international mail and express consignment operations environment, as well as the main source for all fentanyl-related substances trafficked into the United States,” according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).  The danger from these drugs, which have migrated to mainstream e-commerce sites like Amazon and eBay, has become so great the agency issued a rare public alert last month.

“The Drug Enforcement Administration warns the American public of the alarming increase in the lethality and availability of fake prescription pills containing fentanyl and methamphetamine,” the alert reads. “International and domestic criminal drug networks are mass-producing fake pills, falsely marketing them as legitimate prescription pills, and killing unsuspecting Americans.”

The agency has seized more than 9.5 million counterfeit pills so far this year, and “the number of DEA-seized counterfeit pills with fentanyl has jumped nearly 430 percent since 2019,” it reported.

“DEA laboratory testing further reveals that today, two out of every five pills with fentanyl contain a potentially lethal dose.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates China is the source of 86 percent of the world’s counterfeit goods, much of it shipped directly to customers in the United States.

The problem of e-commerce counterfeiting has gotten so big that private businesses are banding together to network with law enforcement in the fight. One organization, United to Safeguard America from Illegal Trade (USA-IT), recently hosted a roundtable on “The Dark Side of Cybercrime” to help warn businesses and consumers of the dangers.

“Most of these counterfeit goods aren’t made in America. They’re made in China and Asia, and they’re transiting around the globe to come into the U.S.,” said Matt Albence, spokesperson for USA-IT and a former acting director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. “And a lot of it now comes through the mail — UPS, the Postal Service, DHL. There are all sorts of vulnerabilities in the supply chain, and these are areas where law enforcement and corporate America are investing in security.”

And whether it’s counterfeit medications or fake drugs laced with fentanyl, Albence added, the funds from this e-commerce trade often go to criminal gangs and terrorist organizations, like Hezbollah, ISIS, and Al Qaeda as well as drug cartels.

“It’s not just a loss to our economy. The public safety and national security implications from this illegal trade are quite dangerous,” Albence said.

Magnus pledged to collaborate with state and local law enforcement to fight the flow of drugs, but he also said new technology is required.

Magnus also mentioned the STOP (Synthetics Trafficking and Overdose Prevention (STOP) Act, which strengthened the collection and sharing of advance electronic data (AED) by the United States Postal Service (USPS) and CBP for international mail shipments.

But, Albence said, with China so deeply embedded in the supply chain and e-commerce becoming such an integral part of the U.S. economy, “there’s only so much law enforcement can do.”

“The only way to go against these criminal networks is to have a network of our own. And that’s a network of public-private partnerships, working together to combat these criminal organizations threatening our communities.”