COMMITTEE FOR THE REPUBLIC Sleepwalking Toward Biden's War with China

COMMITTEE FOR THE REPUBLIC Sleepwalking Toward Biden's War with China John Lander Empire Salon | John Lander Introduction by Committee for the Republic Chairman John B. Henry: The United States is the most secure country in the history of the world. Does anyone in the audience go to sleep at night fearful of an invasion? If so, please raise your hand and identify the foreign aggressor. We are existentially unique. The United States is the only country on the planet that does not confront an existential threat. Does anyone in the audience disagree? If so, please raise your hand and identify the country you believe presents an existential threat. The corollary is that we are an existential threat to every country in the world. Does anyone in the audience doubt that we can annihilate any nation? Remember during the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination contest with Obama, Hillary Clinton boasted that if she were president she would "totally obliterate Iran" if Iran attacked Israel. She was not asked to identify her constitutional authority or explain how obliterating Iran would make the United States safer. Does anyone in the audience doubt that our nuclear arsenal is the most formidable in the world? Does anyone doubt our aircraft carriers, submarine fleet, air force fighters and bombers, cyber and space weapons are orders of magnitude above all others? Does anyone doubt that our offensive military spending exceeds the combined total of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea? We do not need any country to defend ourselves. Does anyone seriously believe that China, Russia, Iran and North Korea would commit suicide by attacking us? Our greatest threat is at home -- the multi-trillion dollar military industrial security complex. We have met the enemy and the enemy is us. From 1798 -- when Congress voided our defense treaty with France -- until 1949 -- when we created NATO -- the United States flourished with no defense treaties. For 151 years, we remained faithful to George Washington's injunction against entangling alliances in his time-honored Farewell Address. With no existential threat, why then did we become heretics to the man who was first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen? There must have been ulterior motives. It was not to defend ourselves. It was to project our military to command the world. We have three defense treaties in Asia -- with Japan, south Korea and Australia -- that mirror NATO in Europe. Tonight's speaker John Lander will explore our defense treaty with Australia. For half of the treaty's life, John served in Australia’s diplomatic service with a principal focus on China. Do you realize that President Joe Biden is usurping the powers of Congress by using the treaty to inch the United States and Australia into a war with China? John, please tell us what ulterior motives are not being debated in Australia. Salon Invitation: For 160 years after ratification of the Constitution, the United States stood aloof from defense treaties following President George Washington’s Farewell Address: “The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.” Then Secretary of State and future President John Quincy Adams amplified the Farewell Address in his July 4, 1821, address to Congress: We do not race abroad in search of monsters to destroy; and, while we smile on freedom and independence everywhere, we fight only to maintain our own. Otherwise, the thinker will bow to the armored knight—liberty to domination by force of arms. The United States first broke ranks from the foreign policy of Washington and Quincy Adams in 1949 with NATO. The 1951 United States Security Treaty with Australia and New Zealand soon followed. Both departures from the nation’s longstanding foreign policy -- that had brought the United States to the summit of prosperity and security -- were ill-conceived. The Soviet Union and China were no existential threats to us. We were to them. Our military establishment, like all others, magnified foreign danger manifold to justify military spending and public salutes to the armored knight. The 1951 ANZUS Security Treaty was followed by the United States overthrow of Iran’s popular Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, a CIA sponsored coup in Guatemala, the domino theory to support the French in Vietnam, and the 1955 Taiwan Defense Treaty. Sober second thoughts occasioned President Jimmy Carter’s exit from the latter in 1979. Experience has discredited the domino theory and the follies of the 1953 and 1954 coups in Iran and Guatemala. The raison d’etre of NATO, if there ever was one, ended with the Soviet Union’s dissolution. New Zealand abandoned the ANZUS Treaty in 1986. The United States should follow suit and return to the time-honored foreign policy of Washington and Quincy Adams with a congressional statute that terminates the treaty (as was done in 1798 to terminate a defense treaty with France antedating the Constitution). Instead, President Biden is provoking China by joining Britain in equipping Australia with nuclear submarines and expanding United States military bases there. John Lander, a retired Australian ambassador, will present the Australian minority view that discerns no military threat from China and opposes the bought and paid for Australian establishment that is welcoming the United States with open arms. Mr Lander contributed directly to recognition of the PRC and establishment of diplomatic relations in 1972. He served as Deputy Ambassador in Beijing 1974-76 (providing practical support to the US Liaison Office under George Bush senior). Director of the China Section of the Department of Foreign Affairs on three separate occasions, he personally negotiated Consular relations between Australia and China. Apart from a stint as Australia’s first Ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Iran (1985-88), the better part of his 30-year career was devoted to relations with China. He has become increasingly alarmed at the rapid deterioration in those relations in recent years, particularly when it is couched in the notion that war against China is “inevitable”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQUCQJOYMzM All Salons since September 2020 have been recorded and archived at the Committee Youtube Page. The Committee for the Republic is a citizen-based, non-partisan, nonprofit organization founded in 2003. The Committee sponsors speakers monthly on challenges to the American Republic, including the military-industrial complex, too-big-to-fail banks and U.S. competitiveness. 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