Secure Freedom Minute

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

The Chinese Communist Party has lately become decidedly more aggressive.  Consider a few examples:

The CCP is ramping up its non-kinetic “unrestricted warfare” against us, which includes fomenting street riots. It is listing more companies in our stock markets to finance the PRC’s malevolence. And the Chinese Communists make no secret of their determination to prevent President Trump’s reelection.

But what if Beijing has something even worse in mind? We cannot ignore evidence that the CCP is preparing for actual conflict with us. The PRC has declared a “people’s war” against America and dictator Xi Jinping has directed his rapidly growing military to get ready for it. China’s civilians have lately been subjected to air defense drills and encouraged to stockpile food and water in anticipation of imminent conflict.

If we hope to deter war, we better prepare for it, too.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Six decades ago, millions of Americans rallied to support domestic opponents of Soviet Communism. By making these “refusniks” famous, many of whom were imprisoned in the deadly prison camps and psychiatric wards of the Gulag Archipelago, their supporters here and elsewhere in the Free World helped protect them from the worst of the Soviets’ abuses and perhaps death.

Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo sought to provide similar protection to today’s refusniks – the courageous freedom-fighters in Hong Kong, now personified by media magnate Jimmy Lai. The CCP arrested him earlier this week for “colluding with foreign powers.”

Undeterred, following his release on bail, Jimmy spoke forthrightly this morning to Maria about the need for change in China, the danger posed by its Maoist dictator, Xi Jin Ping and why Western civilized values are the only basis for peace.

Stand with Jimmy and Hong Kong.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

The Chinese Communist Party has transformed Hong Kong media magnate Jimmy Lai from a courageous champion of freedom in the territory into a heroic leader in the War for the Free World. He was arrested earlier this week, charged under Beijing’s repressive new national security law with “colluding” with foreign forces.

Mr. Lai was initially detained in the newsroom of his bravely independent Apple Daily paper – a none-too-subtle message to its employees to abandon their opposition to the CCP and its attempts to eliminate the last vestiges of liberty in Hong Kong. Fortunately, Jimmy was not removed to mainland China. He made bail and is back at work – determined as ever to be a powerful voice of resistance to Communist totalitarianism.

We must stand with Jimmy Lai and Hong Kong and create real costs to the CCP for their suppression.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

At the start of the Chinese Communist Party's intensifying oppression of Hong Kong last June, President Trump sought advice on what he could do to punish the PRC and protect Americans from having their savings endangered by investing there. Unfortunately, he turned to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and other Wall Street insiders for answers.

Last week, Mnuchin’s so-called Plunge Protection Team finally responded and, predictably, recommended basically doing nothing for at least the next seventeen months. He hesitatingly admitted as much in a White House press conference yesterday.

If Mr. Trump agrees, the CCP will continue to garner billions, if not actually trillions, of dollars from U.S. capital markets. Wall Street fat cats will get richer on hefty commissions and help our enemy underwrite its oppression at home and threats to us.

Mr. President: That would not be putting America first.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

The so-called “dog days of August” can be a dangerous time. Enemies of freedom often deliberately choose this window to engage in dangerous, and sometimes game-changing, aggression. The Chinese Communist Party seems to be following that playbook now.

Fresh from its murderous incursion into India and its crushing of freedom in Hong Kong, the CCP is engaging in large-scale exercises that look like cover for an invasion of Taiwanese islands and perhaps Taiwan itself. Massive Chinese fishing fleets, with vessels that could be armed among them, are heading into waters controlled by Japan and those of our own hemisphere’s pristine Galapagos Islands controlled by Ecuador.

Throw into the mix the ongoing effects of the CCP’s biological assault deliberately unleashed on this country and the Party’s increasingly brazen efforts to prevent President Trump’s reelection and this August may literally be an explosive one.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

The Chinese Communist Party just suffered a significant casualty in its “People’s War” against America.

A man the CCP had successfully recruited and groomed to help underwrite its operations, both in China and in this country, through its insidious “Thousand Talents” program is no longer able to channel billions of dollars from California public employees’ savings to finance the Party’s military build-up, human rights abuses and other malign activities.

Unfortunately, while Yu Ben Meng’s run as CalPERS Chief Investment Officer is over, others in the U.S. financial sector are still working hard to help Beijing wage economic warfare against their own country.

Even Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is reportedly urging President Trump to allow Chinese companies that don’t conform to our securities laws to keep having access to our capital markets for two more years!

That should be a firing offense.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Seventy-five years ago today, the United States used a new weapon to end a global conflagration that had killed tens of millions of people. With the detonation of atomic bombs, first over Hiroshima and then Nagasaki, America finally broke the will of the Japanese government, precipitating its prompt surrender.

Ever since, critics have condemned these actions. Yet, they spared allied military forces and Japan’s population a far more costly invasion of the Home Islands. In addition, these demonstrations of such weapons’ devastating power have helped deter another world war for over seven decades.

Today, though, the adequacy of our deterrent is in serious question due to a lack of maintenance and modernization commensurate with the growing threats we face from Russia and China.

This solemn anniversary should remind us of the urgent need to attend to the dangers of such a shortfall.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Beirut used to be known as the Paris of the Middle East, a beautiful and civilized oasis in a region that has for  centuries by been wracked by death and destruction, much of it at the hands of jihadists. Today, that city lies largely in smoldering ruins as a result of devastating explosions that destroyed what was left of its Christian quarter and vital port facilities.

While what triggered this catastrophe is unclear, we do know that Hezbollah warehoused nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate in the midst of its longtime enemies in the Christian community. The jihadists knew full well the danger: They had used this highly explosive substance in successive, murderous terrorist attacks.

As the world mobilizes to provide humanitarian relief to Lebanon, it must go to the victims, not empower or legitimate the jihadists responsible for their suffering.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

With the United States preoccupied with new surges of the Chinese Communist Party virus, Beijing seems poised to act ever-more-aggressively in the Western Pacific.

 

In the aftermath of President Trump’s recent surge of two U.S. aircraft carrier battlegroups for exercises in the South China Sea, the CCP has asserted extended sovereignty over waters that allow access to that strategic area. The practical effect of this change remains to be seen. But it fits a pattern of ratcheting up the basis for China to deny ship and aircraft movements in the region as its ability to do so increases inexorably.

 

There are also fresh Chinese reports that the PRC is preparing to conduct large-scale amphibious “drills” whose real purpose will be to seize islands belonging to Taiwan.

 

The so-called “new Cold War” with China could get very hot, very soon.

 

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

President Trump has declared that he’s going to follow India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi in banning the popular Chinese application called TikTok. He said the company’s sale to an American one wouldn’t change his conclusion that its widespread use, mostly by young people, is a threat to their privacy and to the national security.

 

Mr. Trump is absolutely right. TikTok has been engineered to collect vast amounts of weaponizable information from its users and transmit such data to China. Worse yet, the app can reportedly be remotely reconfigured to be even more of a Chinese black hole for unsuspecting Americans’ privacy.

           

Friend-of-China Microsoft is seeking to put an American front on this Chinese collection operation. Its CEO spoke with the President and says he’s going ahead with buy-out negotiations.

 

Mr. Trump must hold firm: TikTok has to be banned, not bailed out.

 

This is Frank Gaffney.