Pinkerton: Tom Cotton Drafts ‘Beat China’ Plan to Win the ‘Economic Long War’ and Secure America

Tom Cotton (R-AR) has released an 80-page report, “Beat China: Targeted Decoupling and the Economic Long War,” which, along with other key documents, could serve as a guide for Americans as they think about how to compete with China. .

Cotton’s report envisions a Cold War against China—that is, a patient economic, strategic, and ideological struggle to beat China without firing a shot—not an actual hot war.  After all, we won the Cold War against the Soviet Union after five decades; today, the Arkansas lawmaker believes, we can do it again in Cold War 2.

Surveying the situation at present, Cotton works his way through a long list of issues and concerns, highlighting the need for a comprehensive national strategy on trade, investment, and intellectual property (IP).  He notes, for instance, that documented cases of Chinese IP theft in the U.S.

,Furthermore, Cotton zeroes in on sectors that have been targeted by China, including U.S.

Nobody should think of Cotton as anything other than a staunch champion of religious freedom, including in communist regimes, and yet the inclusion of faith as a matter of concern—and as a point of leverage—would have made this document even stronger.

No doubt Cotton will have more to say about China and freedom, including religious freedom, in the future.  In the meantime, this report—the old-fashioned term for which would be white paper—ends on a powerful note: .

By putting national security concerns at the forefront of our economic contest with China, strengthening our industrial base and supply chains, and better coordinating and protecting our nation’s research enterprise, America can create the government infrastructure it needs to properly utilize its vast capabilities and triumph in the long economic war. .

Fortunately for America, Cotton is not alone in raising concerns about China and calling for a stronger policy toward that totalitarian communist-capitalist regime.  Two years ago, for instance, this author took note of another muscular report on the China threat, that one from Sen.