Communist China is our enemy – So why are we dependent on it for medicines?

***NEWS RELEASE***

For Immediate Release
March 20, 2020

Communist China is Our Enemy –

So Why Are We Dependent on It for Medicines?

The Center’s CPDC ‘Virtual Threat Briefing’ Assesses the Implications and Solutions

WASHINGTON, DC—In light of the worldwide coronavirus crisis, U.S. policymakers and media outlets are finally taking to heart warnings about America’s dangerous dependence on China for medicines that Rosemary Gibson, a member of the Committee on the Present Danger: China (CPDC), has been sounding for two years. In the course of a powerful CPDC  “Virtual Threat Briefing” about the coronavirus outbreak, the co-author of China Rx: Exposing the Risks of America’s Dependence on China for Medicine explained how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has used predatory trade practices and has exploited the single-minded focus of American pharmaceutical manufacturers on short-term profits to cause the “collapse” of our indigenous production of generic drugs and the active ingredients for most prescription medications.

Breitbart recently reported that, as a result, an estimated 97% of all antibiotics and 80% of the active pharmaceutical ingredients needed to produce drugs in the United States are either produced in or exported from the PRC. In China Rx, Ms. Gibson made clear that this arrangement was problematic under the best of circumstances – notably, given Chinese suppliers’ propensity to adulterate what they sell us, including the drugs and APIs they are supplying our patients and other consumers.

Under present circumstances, though, such a dependency can be utterly catastrophic if a hostile regime like China’s decides to withhold such products altogether. Gibson reported that Chinese sources have already signaled an intention to deny us medicines. And, as she noted in an interview  on Breitbart’s evening radio show on SiriusXM, there is a precedent: “This is not the first time China has threatened the U.S. government. There was a situation a number of years ago where the Chinese government did threaten the federal government with drug shortages if the U.S. government didn’t do what it wanted.”

In her remarks during the Virtual Threat Briefing, Rosemary Gibson described welcome executive and legislative branch initiatives aimed at reconstituting at the earliest possible time the manufacture of vital medicines and medical equipment (e.g., masks, sterile gloves and gowns, and ventilators) in this country. Much more needs to be done, however, to translate these initiatives into actual domestic sources of vitally needed drugs and supplies.

The Threat Briefing was moderated by Frank Gaffney, former Assistant Secretary of Defense (acting), Center Executive Chairman and the CPDC’s Vice Chairman.

Gaffney and Rosemary Gibson were joined by the following participants:

• Sean Lin PhD, a CPDC member who is a survivor of the Tiananmen Square massacre, Falun Gong practitioner and microbiologist who directed a viral disease laboratory at Walter Reed during his service in the U.S. Army, discussed the nature and provenance of the novel coronavirus-2019. He observed in connection with the latter that – notwithstanding CPP propaganda to the contrary – it first broke out in Wuhan and, therefore, is appropriately described as “the Chinese virus.” Dr. Lin also addressed the enormous contribution to the spread of this pandemic made by the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to deny and conceal its outbreak. He noted a recently released study by the British University of Southampton that, among other findings, concluded that as much as 95% of the damage done by COVID-19 could have been prevented had the PRC acted when it first learned of the virus (i.e., three weeks before it actually did).

• Gordon Chang, world-renowned author, essayist and commentator on China, outlined how recent events, including those arising from the coronavirus pandemic, have shed light on the CCP’s efforts to “take over the world” and “collapse the U.S. economy.” These include its “highly dangerous information campaign” blaming this country for the COVID-19 virus. He underscored the imperative need for the United States to be clear-eyed about the CCP’s hostility towards the United States and its relentless drive to displace this country as the world’s dominant power. He argued that, under the circumstances in which we are seeing Communist China “putting into place all the elements of conflict,” we have no choice but to decouple our economy from China’s.

• Brian Kennedy, Chairman of the Committee on the Present Danger: China, former president of the Claremont Institute and president of the American Strategy Group, warned of the “disaster” for our economy, society and polity – outcomes the Chinese Communist Party would welcome – that would eventuate if we are compelled to engage in protracted suspension of business activity and officially directed or voluntarily imposed quarantines of large numbers of Americans. He called to mind this nation’s ingenuity and enterprise and the contribution it can make to adapt, innovate and produce the vaccines, medicines and respirators needed to contend with this disease. Kennedy recommended a commonsensical approach that would enable “as soon as is reasonably possible” a return to work for millions of our countrymen and women under circumstances in which social distancing, robust hygienic practices and protection of the most vulnerable populations can be observed.

In a recent Secure Freedom Minute radio program, Mr. Gaffney illuminated many of the points made in the Coronavirus Threat Briefing:

“One of the few silver linings to the very dark cloud that is the coronavirus pandemic may be that American businesses, consumers and policymakers are alarmed by our country’s yawning dependence on Communist China for seemingly everything, That includes virtually all of our medicines—a national security, as well as public health, nightmare. Even if deliveries are restored, it’s now obvious that we cannot responsibly trust, let alone rely upon, a hostile power like the Chinese Communist Party for anything we have to have. 

“Beijing’s propagandists recently declared that we have no alternative to such dependency and dared the United States to try to free ourselves from it. Google’s former CEO, Eric Schmitt is warning that the federal government must invest to help us do so. So must Wall Street financiers who have been underwriting with our money Chinese competitors and threats.”

The Committee on the President Danger: China is a project of the Center for Security Policy.