Add Twinkle Cavanaugh to the growing list of leaders sounding the alarm over China’s role on the world stage.
“China has set out to weaken America, and it is has become more apparent that we need to take a more firm stand on protecting ourselves economically,” the president of Alabama’s Public Service Commission recently told Yellowhammer News.
China’s coronavirus response has been more heavily scrutinized by intelligence agencies in recent days. And its relationship to the World Health Organization (WHO) has brought criticism from foreign policy experts as countries across the globe continue dealing with a disease which originated on Chinese soil.
All of this should cause the U.S. to change its course on how it handles China, according to Cavanaugh.
“We’ve been conceding the energy war to China for several years now,” she stated. “Look at our state, Alabama has much of the nation’s 250-year supply of coal that has played a major role in the production of cheap electricity for decades, but during the Obama administration regulations were enacted that shut down many units in our state and across the country. During this same time frame, China burned enough coal to produce over 4 million gigawatt hours of electric power every year and is now geared for an explosion of new coal-fired plants.”
She said this puts the U.S. in a sharply contrasting position from that of China.
“China has developed tremendous energy strength by doing this,” Cavanaugh explained. “Meanwhile, we are closing coal-fired units left and right and have no plans to build more. And then the elitist liberal reaction to this is to propose the Green New Deal which would put America in the dark ages and hand China permanent energy superiority.”
Cavanaugh seems confounded by this public policy decision.
“If Nancy Pelosi and AOC got in a room and said, ‘How can we help China and hurt America?’, well this would be it,” she remarked.
Although she believes China’s energy gains have driven the country’s economic growth, there are other areas she wants to see the U.S. focus on to occupy a more secure position.
“It doesn’t stop with energy policy,” she emphasized. “‘Made in America’ has turned into ‘Made in China.’ We systematically closed our manufacturing plants, sent all of those jobs overseas and then filled our homes and businesses with cheaply made products from China.”
Cavanaugh lodged this complaint amid recent reports that Chinese ventilators have proven to be faulty in the fight against COVID-19.
It does not stop at cheap goods for her, either.
“We’ve created a daily dependence on China for our senior citizens because of the enormous quantity of medicines made there,” she pointed out. “Do you really trust them to send our medications or will they one day hold us hostage?”
She says she has seen enough and hopes others have, as well.
“The coronavirus crisis should be a wake-up call to our state and our country,” Cavanaugh said. “We’ve reached zero hour for action against China. The Chinese government is a totalitarian regime. The Chinese people are not free; they live under an iron hand. To say otherwise is just not dealing in the truth.
“There may not be many good outcomes from the Chinese virus, but hopefully it helped open our eyes to the assault on our country. We have to stop allowing China to pour cheap products into our homes; stop allowing China to make our medicines; stop letting liberals determine our energy policy that gives China the upper hand; stop allowing China to subsidize our researchers and college professors; and stop allowing China to steal our intellectual property.”
The path to relying less on China starts in one place for Cavanaugh.
“Alabama can maintain our energy independence and keep our energy costs down by making sure we determine our own energy policy, not people from D.C. or California or New York,” she concluded. “When we do that, we will see ‘Made in Alabama’ on more and more things we buy and build.”
Tim Howe is an owner of Yellowhammer Multimedia
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