Breitbart’s Adelle Nazarian on CPAC ‘China Rising’ Expert Panel

NATIONAL HARBOR, MARYLAND– Breitbart News’ Adelle Nazarian was part of a distinguished panel of experts on Friday at the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) titled “China Rising,” where speakers elaborated on the threats posed by China to the west, and spoke to their beliefs as to whether the Middle Kingdom should be seen as a friend, enemy or “frenemy” to America.

Nazarian was joined by Gordon Chang of Forbes; Dennis Shea, vice-chairman of the US-China Economic and Security Commission, Congressman Dave Brat (R-VA), and moderator Bill Gertz, who is a columnist for the Washington Times.

“China is engaging in a tremendously expansionist strategy,” said Nazarian.

She added that Japan is enemy number one to China, and the United States is a close second, but China wants to usurp America as the world’s hegemonic power.

Nazarian warned that the closer ties between China and Russia could be dangerous for the United States.

She suggested that in order to understand the threat posed by China, we should not engage in mirror imaging and try to see China’s culture from an unbiased perspective.

Gertz explained that one of the chief priorities of Chinese foreign policy is to measure “anti-China sentiment,” and how the Chinese government is actively engaged in a propaganda campaign to portray itself as a non-,threat to the West.

“The U.S. government for several decades has underestimated the threat posed by China,” Gertz assessed. “China remains a nuclear-armed Communist dictatorship… We need to tell the truth about China,” he added.

Gertz concluded that China “remains a soviet style system” which espouses an ideology that is antithetical to the West.

Shea commented, “Over the past 2/12 decades, the rate of modernization of China’s military has been truly remarkable.” Shea assessed that last year the Chinese government spent about $200 billion dollars on defense. He added that one of China’s primary goals is to “deter” and “defeat” U.S. interests within China’s sphere of influence.

“China Rising” is a misleading title because “I believe that [China] is actually falling,” opined Gordon Chang, before discussing indicators backing up his suspicion that the Beijing central government has made false claims of its economic success. For more than three decades, the Chinese communist government has based its legitimacy on bringing prosperity to its people, Chang explained. He added that Beijing has become increasingly hostile to the United States’ eastern interests. “All is not well in Beijing,” the Forbes columnist summarized.