MORNING GLORY: Trump’s key signals amidst the noise

President Trump is working to contain and control the People's Republic of China.

We all fell for the open secret that Deng Xiaoping proclaimed as China’s key principle during his long run as the PRC’s leader: "Hide your strength, bide your time." Quietly, consistently, China built its economic strength and then its military strength. America’s China lobby helped the process of China’s astonishing growth until Trump arrived on the scene.No documentary source has ever been found for the saying, often attributed to Vladimir Lenin, that "the Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them," but it served nicely as an explanation for the early decades of the Soviet Union’s growth and it most certainly applies to America’s China policy after the dissolution of the U.S.S.R.  Not now. Never again for the foreseeable future in all likelihood. In early February Trump put a 10% tariff in place against goods from China and China quickly issued retaliatory tariffs. In early March, Trump upped the U.S.’s tariff on China by 25%. More retaliation from China followed.Don’t expect this confrontation to be toned down or delayed. America has one peer competitor on the world stage across all domains and it is China, and China’s hostility to us and our allies is open and ongoing. The espionage effort against us is vast and has gone mostly unchecked during the Biden years of fog and mumbling. The FBI under Trump raided and shut down the PRC’s Houston consulate. The FBI under Biden raided Mar-a-Lago. Trump is back and new FBI Director Kash Patel will hopefully not disappoint when it comes to CCP espionage.There is talk of summits between Trump and Xi. Fine. Richard Nixon met with both Leonid Brezhnev and Mao. Summits can keep the crises away, conflict below the kinetic level. Both China and Russia have vast nuclear arsenals and emerging new technologies, though not as large or as lethal as ours. It’s good to keep everyone focused on that basic fact set and to not lose sight of our need to keep our guard up there.