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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| Newt Gingrich: I was wrong about China |
| 2019-10-28 |
| [The Hill] Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) admitted Friday that his stance toward China was wrong. Gingrich told Hill.TV that like many conservatives at the time, he was initially in favor of the country joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, but argued that China gradually started playing by different rules that were "driven by fundamentally different beliefs than we thought they were." "We thought getting them into a rules-based system would gradually permeate their culture and that’d be a big step in the right direction ‐ that was all wrong," Gingrich, who served as House Speaker in the 1990s, told Hill.TV. "The Chinese, in fact, decided to corrupt the WTO rather than be changed by it." Gingrich said it was this realization on China’s approach to trade that served as the inspiration behind his new book, "Trump vs. China: America’s Greatest Challenge." "I decided I really wanted to put together a book ‐ partly for myself ‐ but also because I thought it was useful to have somebody who had been part of the consensus on China to say, ’Wait a second, here’s what went wrong, here’s people like me to change their opinions and this is how big the challenge is going to be,' " he said. The conservative figure also expressed confidence in Trump’s ability to reach a trade deal with China, predicting that the president will refocus his attention on the issue if re-elected. "I have every confidence about the year two or three of his next term he’ll be right back at the Chinese again," he told Hill.TV. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #11 It's the typical embarrassing naivete only an academic can master and wield like a club. In that sense, Newt was just doing the same harm on the legislative side that people like Rice (Condi and Susan) and Samantha Powell did on the NatSec side. The only academics who have ever on balance done more good than harm in our government are Kissinger (almost a break even, could tilt either way) and George Kennan (more like this one please.) |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2019-10-28 15:56 |
| #10 8 getting them into a rules-based system would gradually permeate their culture Strange attitude for a self styled "conservative" to take. "A scrap of paper will make a mass murdering regime behave itself." |
| Posted by: charger 2019-10-28 10:27 |
| #9 They don't want to be like us. They sneer at our concepts of human rights. They guffaw at our stupid Hollywood movies. They have nothing but contempt for our identity politics. History did not end in 1991. To the Chinese, Persians and Russians, it has never ended. Their histories are long, as are their memories, and unlike us, they are not impatient people. "Winter will come." |
| Posted by: Lex 2019-10-28 10:15 |
| #8 getting them into a rules-based system would gradually permeate their culture The hubris inherent in this attitude is clearly amazing. As far as term limits go, the one big down side is that it would increase the power of the bureaucrats as they'd be the only source of institutional memory. I'm coming around to the idea that the first thing that needs to be done is a total revamp of the Civil Service system. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2019-10-28 09:51 |
| #7 #4 True, B. That's an astute observation and some rare (for Washington) truth-telling, to Gingrich's credit. Gingrich isn't as bad as most. At least he never cashed in on the Great China Sellout. |
| Posted by: Lex 2019-10-28 08:33 |
| #6 Lousy SF writer |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru PB 2019-10-28 07:11 |
| #5 #3 - failure to pass the Term Limits amendment. You think we'd have Pelosi, Schumer, and the GOPe still there? |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2019-10-28 07:05 |
| #4 He was right about this. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2019-10-28 06:45 |
| #3 It's a good start Newt. Now consider that else you were wrong about. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2019-10-28 05:06 |
| #2 Sam Huntington told youze. But ya didn't listen. How you tried to set them free... How you suffered for your sanity.. They did not listen - they did not know how... Perhaps they'll listen... now.... tra-la-la |
| Posted by: Lex 2019-10-28 01:05 |
| #1 This is significant. A member of the Uniparty admitting he was wr-... uh, wro-.... [darnit! can't quite get the word out!] EFFING WRONG about the central postulate of the 30+ year reign of foolish Globalism. No, Virginia, there is no Democracy Fairy that will magically transform the world's oldest, proudly non-democratic, anti-Western cultures (Chinese, Persian, Russian) into Norman Rockwell pictures of New England town halls. Clue: They don't want to be like us - except in the sense that we're very rich and very powerful. Clue #2: wealth & power to them are part of a zero-sum game. In their reading of the last 80 years, we gained at their expense. They now believe it's their turn to gain - at our expense. They don't believe in "win-win." Doesn't translate into mandarin, Farsi or russkii. Ponyal? |
| Posted by: Lex 2019-10-28 01:02 |