By Hannah Ng and Tiffany Meier
March 5, 2023Updated: March 5, 2023
Soldiers from China's
People's Liberation Army march on Red Square during a military parade, which
marks the 75th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War
II, in Moscow on June 24, 2020. (Pavel Golovikin/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
China is outpacing the
United States in military ship buildup, according to veteran intelligence
officer and author Grant Newsham.
Secretary of the Navy
Carlos Del Toro said on Feb. 28 that the Chinese
military is producing warships at a greater pace than the United States,
jeopardizing U.S. supremacy on the seas. He noted that China currently has
about 340 ships and is seeking to add 100 more by 2030.
Newsham echoed Toro’s
opinion, noting that the number doesn’t even include the regime’s coast guard
ships, which are built like warships, and a maritime militia that adds
thousands of ships to that.
The U.S. Navy reportedly
has about 295
ships to
cover the entire world.
“The Chinese shipyards
have been launching at about a rate of 5 to 1 over the last decade. So for
every warship we put in the water, they put five, and they have a much bigger
shipbuilding capacity than we do; we have allowed ours to wither. And the
Chinese have built theirs up just at a breathtaking speed,” Newsham told NTD’s
“China in Focus” program on March 4.
“If Chinese authorities
pick their spots, and get the right circumstances, they would give us a real
bloody nose, to put it mildly.
“And we’ve effectively
allowed them to catch up with us and overtake us. Over the last 20 years at
least, we dismissed the threat, we refused to address it, and people who did
raise concern … were sidelined and silenced.”
Multipronged
War
China has waged a
multipronged war on the United States for several decades, according to
Newsham, who is also an Epoch Times contributor.
“What I point out is that
China is already attacking us,” he said. “And they’ve been at it for at least
30 years—longer, most likely, but just take 30—and it has been a multifaceted
front.”
As the author of the
upcoming “When
China Attacks”
and with decades of experience in Asia, including as a U.S. Marine and a
diplomat, Newsham said that “the Chinese approach to warfare and their concept
of it is very different from ours.”
“To China, the shooting
part, the so-called kinetic warfare, is almost the last thing and you only do
it if you have to,” he said.
Newsham pointed to the
COVID-19 epidemic that allegedly stemmed from China and called it a “biological
attack on the United States.”
“Look at how successful
it has been in weakening us, getting us to fight each other, really destroying
our economy, shutting it down,” he said.
Newsham cited the inflow
of fentanyl reportedly from China, which has led to the deaths of about 70,000
Americans per year. More than 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in
the 12 months ending in April 2021, according to a report by the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.
More than 64,000 of these
deaths resulted from synthetic opioids such as fentanyl—the deadliest opioid in
existence—the study shows.
“The Chinese got the
American political class, the business class, and the financial classes to let
them into the World Trade Organization (WTO). And that cost well over 3 million
manufacturing jobs in the United States,” he said, calling it economic warfare.
China joined the WTO in
2000 after the regime’s Most Favored Nation/Normal Trade Relations status
was made permanent by the Clinton administration
in the same year.
“Additionally, they’ve
gone after international organizations, the United Nations, the World Health
Organization, to take control, effectively take a whole lot of influence into
these organizations and often have them do what China wants them to do,” he
said.
“They’ve tried to get
international law reinterpreted, or just ignored it, and daring the world to do
something about it.”
Beijing’s
Vulnerabilities
Newsham took note of
Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s call on the United States not to “abuse the concept of
national security to oppress Chinese companies,” during his November 2021
virtual summit with President Joe Biden.
The statement was
later reiterated repeatedly by the communist regime.
“That shows you that they
are terrified of being cut off from American technology, cut off from American
markets, etc., and even our allies’ markets,” he said. “The Chinese Communist
Party is vulnerable to an economic slowdown, and they know it.”
Newsham also highlighted
the CCP’s fear of the United States and/or other like-minded countries banding
together to present a unified front against the regime.
“When the free nations of
the world get together to protect themselves, it makes Beijing very, very
unhappy,” he said.
China is extremely
vulnerable on the financial front because its currency isn’t freely
convertible, according to Newsham.
If China’s access to
foreign exchange is cut, making it harder for U.S. companies to invest in
China, the regime is in deep trouble, he noted.
Understanding the
pressure points of the regime would give the United States a good idea of what
a counter-strategy should look like, Newsham said.
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