Here’s a letter to the Wall Street Journal:
Editor:
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) urges candidates for the U.S. presidency to take more seriously the military threat posed by the Chinese government (“GOP Presidential Candidates Need to Talk About China,”August 22). One of the best strategies for doing so is not mentioned by Mr. Gallagher but is evident in your nearby report on the failure of Chinese industrial policy (“The Electric-Vehicle Bubble Starts to Deflate,” August 22) – namely, the U.S. government should fund several all-expenses-paid trips to Beijing by Oren Cass, Robert Reich, Marco Rubio, and other American advocates of industrial policy to persuade the CCP to double-down on its suppression of market forces. If this American delegation succeeds in China as it is succeeding here at home, the weakening of the Chinese economy will accelerate noticeably. This weakening, in turn, will diminish the quantity and quality of resources that Pres. Xi and his henchmen can divert to military uses.
As a bonus, Messrs. Cass, Reich, Rubio, et al., would spend less time urging Americans to embrace policies destined to further damage the U.S. economy.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
