Knowledge of Fire

I wonder if China whines as much about the U.S. as the U.S. whines about China: "They're taking our manufacturing jobs; they're buying up our farmland; they're stealing our intellectual property... wah, wah, wah..." 

Robert O'Brien, American Global Strategies co-founder, and former Trump administration national security advisor, appeared on C-Span on August 5th and said, "It is hard to compete when people are stealing from you." As he rattled off China's litany of abuses, such a pained expression came over his face, I began to wonder if he would burst into tears. "There are slaves," he said, "picking cotton in China today - Uighura - and we are buying their product." Do you really want to go there, O'Brien? 

Throughout history, none has stolen more than the U.S., starting with the theft of free people in Africa and converting them into slaves for America. We stole great swaths of land from Native American tribes, and drove them - their women and children - out onto the barren prairie where they died by the thousands from exposure and starvation. We stole, took, and cheated Mexico out of lands that today comprise the states of Texas, California, Arizona, and New Mexico. We could not have cared less about "fair competition." 

China is competing. They did not kidnap Buick, and force it to perform in China. Buick went there of their own accord, as did many other U.S. manufacturers whose bottom lines thrived amid China's burgeoning middle class. Neither does China force Americans to sell their farmland. Those farmers gladly part with that land for Chinese cash. 

And, speaking of "intellectual property": The U.S. pulled off the greatest such theft in history with "Operation Paperclip" in 1945. There, U.S. agents secretly spirited 150 Nazi scientists away from Germany, among them Wernher von Braun, the greatest rocket scientist ever. His rocket design and mathematical calculations put America on the moon in 1969 and then brought us safely back to Earth. It remains humankind's greatest achievement. 

In a perfect world, nations would willingly share technology to ensure immediacy - that people worldwide simultaneously benefit from humanity's genius. That world is yet light-years away. Hence, countries like China, the U.S., and every other living nation must spy, steal, reverse engineer, and pull out every stop to learn what others know to advance their own societies. 

Heck, there was a time when men stole fire because they did not know how to make it themselves. I say: Knowledge by whatever means necessary. Why not?