Bannon Escalates Drive for Economic War on China

In a cover story on Steve Bannon in Bloomberg Businessweek on Sept. 28, Bannon has escalated his stated intention of driving President Trump into an economic war with China, assuring that the U.S. does not save itself by joining the New Silk Road.

The article is titled “Bannon’s Back and Targeting China,” with the kicker: “From Birmingham to Beijing, the former Trump strategist is leading a movement of his own, now warning of the forced technology transfer of American innovation to China—and working with Henry Kissinger.” They report that Bannon has been consulting with Henry Kissinger and others, “preparing a project to sound an alarm about what he views as the primary economic threat to America: China.” They quote Bannon: “If we don’t get our situation sorted with China, we’ll be destroyed economically. The forced technology transfer of American innovation to China is the single biggest economic and business issue of our time. Until we sort that out, they will continue to appropriate our innovation to their own system and leave us as a colony — your Jamestown to their Great Britain, a tributary state.”

Bannon told Businessweek that he made up his mind to quit the Trump Administration after a pair of September meetings at Kissinger’s country home in Connecticut. Kissinger, Bannon told them, said that during the Vietnam War, analysts outside the administration revived the Committee on the Present Danger because they were afraid that the U.S. was losing the Cold War with Russia. “They understood that you couldn’t do it from inside,” Bannon said. “You had to go outside and, like a fire bell in the night, wake up the American people.”

Bannon also pointed to his work with Andrew Marshall, director of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of Net Assessment for 42 years (who did his best to start a war with China in each of those years).

“There have been 4,000 years of Chinese diplomatic history, all centered on barbarian management, minus the last 150 years,” Bannon said. “China’s historical disposition toward trading partners is exploitative and potentially ruinous. It’s always about making the barbarians a tributary state. Our tribute to China is our technology — that’s what it takes to enter their market, and [they’ve taken] $3.5 trillion worth over the last 10 years.”

Businessweek writes that Bannon is planning to start a global conference series. “We are in advance discussions about having Breitbart sponsor a major security conference in sub-Saharan Africa, the Persian Gulf, Central Europe, and East Asia, in early to mid-2018,” he said.

The article also notes that Bannon’s meetings with Kissinger and with Politburo member Wang Qishan last week in Beijing don’t apparently cohere with his hardline posture.