USA Today - 26.08.2019

NEWS USA TODAY z MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 2019z 7A

Vice President/Local News and Audience Development: Amalie Nash

Vice President & Executive Editor/Investigations: Chris Davis

President, USA TODAY NETWORK Marketing Solutions: Kevin Gentzel

Gannett Company Interim

Chief Operating Officer

BARBARA WALL

USA TODAY Publisher

President, USA TODAY NETWORK

MARIBEL PEREZ WADSWORTH

Executive Editor/News: Jeff Taylor

Executive Editor/Audience: Patty Michalski

Editorial Page Editor: Bill Sternberg

USA TODAY

Editor in Chief

NICOLE CARROLL

“USA TODAY hopes to serve as a forum for better understanding and unity to help make the USA truly one nation.” – Allen H. Neuharth, Founder, Sept. 15, 1982

OPINION

DAVE WHAMOND/CANADA/POLITICALCARTOONS.COM

I keep reading that no one — not

even Jill Biden — actually prefers Joe

Biden to the other Democratic presi-

dential candidates. Supposedly, he is a

front-runner who is solely supported,

with tiny sighs and great regret, by

those too fearful to follow their hearts.

My friend Walter Shapiro has written

that Biden is the “safety school” of

Democrats — regarded fondly, but the

first choice of nobody.

Early admission: He’s my Harvard,

OK? And I do not favor the former vice

president because I think he has the

best chance of winning, which may or

may not be true.

Instead, if the contest were tomor-

row, I’d vote Biden because I think he’d

do the best job if we did manage to grab

the wheel away from a president who

reminds me more every day of “Vinny

the Chin” Gigante, a mob boss who

used to go around New York City in his

bathrobe and house shoes, babbling to

himself. (Vinny might have been faking

madness to stay out of prison, but the

guy currently faking sanity to stay in

the Oval Office does a pretty good Vin-

ny imitation all the same.)

So how is it that everywhere I go, I

meet Biden supporters who don’t know

they’re settling? And how is it that only

we nonexistent Joe enthusiasts seem

to be able to see each other?

At a wedding in New York, changing

planes in Washington, over coffee in

Boston and on my porch in Kansas City,

what I hear from pro-Joe Democrats is

hardly resignation. Nor is it some com-

plicated, defeatist calculus about how

appealing non-Trump-loving Republi-

cans might find him.

A childhood friend in Illinois talks

about how blessedly comfortable Biden

makes her feel — and if you think “com-

fortable” means meh, you must have

slept through the past three fun-filled

years.

His authenticity and experience are

exactly what the country needs now,

says a former colleague in Florida.

Not bloodless or strategic

And best of all, he would have no

learning curve, so he could get right to

work undoing the damage caused by

what’s-his-name, says a therapist in

North Carolina.

“He’s a good, honorable, smart, de-

cent, civil man who has dedicated his

entire life to public service,” says Mor-

na Murray, executive director of the

Rhode Island Disability Law Center and

former senior counsel to Sen. Bob Ca-

sey, D-Pa. “He was a great senator and

vice president, and I’m pretty sure it

does not get much better than that!”

It’s early in the campaign, and I’m

not even trying to win converts; love

who you love, and I will, too. But pun-

dits, please stop insisting that nobody

is excited about Biden’s candidacy, or

that he’s the head-over-heart guy who

appeals only to those making a blood-

less, Vulcan and strategic choice.

Really, have you metJoe Biden, peo-

ple? I ask because if you’ve glimpsed

him at any point over the past 40 years,

you may have noticed that his biggest

selling point is his giant heart, and the

way that after multiple tragedies, he

walks through the world as the com-

passionate consoler and messy, highly

emotional and ever-ready empathizer

we do need most right now. It’s strange

for those of us who appreciate these

qualities in him most of all to then be

told that we shouldn’t be so passionless

and practical in choosing a candidate.

Biden is getting Al Gored

It’s so painful to watch Biden being

Al Gored, with every utterance shorn of

context in service to the narrative.

Then, it was that Gore exaggerated.

And he did, but the planet is consider-

ably worse off today because we were

saved from that nightmare. Today, of

course, it’s that Biden is gaffe-prone.

And he is, but by getting stuck on Biden

gaffes as we did on Gore exaggerations,

the planet will be worse off.

Maybe this is not unlike that day in

fourth grade when our teacher Miss

Wiswall said, “No one in here still be-

lieves in Santa Claus, do they?” and I

put my hand up and said, “I do.”

Not because I didn’t know the other

kids would laugh, and not even because

I believed in Santa Claus, but because I

wished I did, and wanted to stand up

for innocence, or maybe just contrar-

ianism, and against being told what to

think. What if some other 9-year-old

was sitting there crushed at the news?

But back to Biden, him I do believe in.

Melinda Henneberger is an editorial

writer and columnist for The Kansas

City Star and a member of the USA TO-

DAY Board of Contributors.

Biden really is my

favorite 2020 Dem

Why do political pundits

find that hard to believe?

Melinda Henneberger

Former Vice President Biden in Clear

Lake, Iowa. ALEX EDELMAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

YOUR SAY

Sunday marked the one-year anni-
versary of two profoundly important
deaths affecting our nation: the death
of Arizona Sen. John McCain, an Amer-
ican patriot and hero, and the official
demise of the Republican Party.
McCain will be remembered for many
things, but perhaps most important
was his refusal to renounce America
and abandon his fellow soldiers while
being tortured in a North Vietnamese
prison. His resolve and fortitude not
only enabled him to endure the barba-

rous treatment suffered at the hands of

the enemy in wartime but to also accept

and embrace his fate when diagnosed

with a lethal brain tumor later in life.

When Donald Trump won the 2016

presidential election, virtually all Re-

publicans in Congress traded their dig-

nity for subservience — but not

McCain. His refusal to fall into lockstep

with Trump’s policies out of fear of ret-

ribution was a profile in courage and a

turning point for the Republican Party,

which no longer is worthy of the appel-

lation “the party of Lincoln.”

Jim Paladino

Tampa, Fla.

With McCain’s death, GOP also died

LETTERS

[email protected]

WANT TO COMMENT?Have Your Say at

[email protected], @usatodayopinion on

Twitter and facbook.com/usatodayopinion. Com-

ments are edited for length and clarity. Content

submitted to USA TODAY may appear in print,

digital or other forms. For letters, include name,

address and phone number. Letters may be mailed

to 7950 Jones Branch Drive, McLean, VA, 22108.

All Americans should be concerned
about the potential for China to replace
the United States as the most impor-
tant economy in the world. We face a
potential future where Mandarin and
the yuan, not English and the dollar,
dominate the global economy, and the
U.S. government is pursuing the wrong
strategy to prevent this reality.
Over the past two decades as a for-
mer CIA officer, partner in an interna-
tional strategic consulting firm and
now member of the House Permanent
Select Committee on Intelligence, I’ve
seen how the Chinese government has
threatened global supply chains, stolen
U.S. intellectual property and economi-
cally bullied smaller countries. Instead
of pursuing a 19th century tit-for-tat
tariff war, which is a self-imposed sales
tax onAmerican consumers, we should
be collaborating with our allies to out-
innovate China.
A common mistake in Washington is
thinking about U.S.-China competition
through a Cold War mentality that
views Beijing as an adversary that we
can contain and isolate like the Soviet
Union. The United States and China are
economically intertwined in a way that
America and the Soviet Union never
were and that America and Russia are
not today. Regardless of presidential
tweets saying that “we don’t need Chi-
na” and that U.S. companies should
find alternative markets, decoupling
from China is simply unrealistic and
would be in neither country’s interest.

Economic competition we can win

Meeting the challenge of head-to-
head economic competition with an
authoritarian regime requires a new
approach. We are not fighting a Cold
War but a New War. And it is an eco-
nomic competition we can win.
The first step in this New War is to
focus on policies that incentivize struc-
tural changes in China’s economy and
its treatment of foreign companies and
investors. U.S. consumers shouldn’t
have to pay for Middle Kingdom mis-
deeds through tariffs. Instead of a tax
on our consumers and businesses, we
should have a policy of reciprocity.
If U.S. companies and investors are
unable to do something in China, then
Chinese companies and investors
should be unable to do thosethings
here. If U.S. venture capital firms can’t
invest in Chinese artificial intelligence
companies, then Chinese capital
shouldn’t be allowed in the American
AIindustry. If U.S. software companies
operating in China must turn over their
source code to the Chinese govern-
ment, then Chinese software compa-
nies will have to reciprocate in America.
We also must build a coalition to
counter the Chinese government’s
growing global influence. Strengthen-
ing North American supply chains will
bolster advanced manufacturing in the
Western Hemisphere, providing an al-
ternative to China. Ratifying the United
States-Mexico-Canada Agreement

would provide a framework for attract-

ing advanced manufacturing and tech-

nology production to places like San

Antonio, Toronto and Monterrey — not

Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing.

We should also strengthen econom-

ic ties with countrieswary of an aggres-

sive China, such as Vietnam.

Old battle lines will still exist, like

Hong Kong, Taiwan and human rights

abuses, but the new line of conflict is

advanced technology — AI, 5G, the In-

ternet of Things and aerospace engi-

neering. China was clear about its in-

tentions when it released its 2015Made

in China plan. By 2049, when China

celebrates 100 years of communist rule,

it plans to be the world’s leader in ad-

vanced technology and manufacturing.

Innovation and immigration

The United States and our allies will

not prevent countries from doing busi-

ness with Chinese companies like Hua-

wei on the basis of security concerns

alone, though they exist. We must pro-

vide an alternative service or product

that is better, cheaper and more secure.

We need toout-innovate our opponent.

Close cooperation between the govern-

ment and the private sector will be es-

sential to win this competition.

Instead of stifling innovation

throughregulations or talking about

breaking up American companies,

Washington should work on things like

a national strategy to coordinate efforts

across government, academia and the

private sector to advance research, de-

velopment and adoption of AI.

Washington should also be working

to streamline legal immigration so that

America remains the beneficiary of the

decades-long “brain drain” of the rest

of the world. Today, more than 1 million

international students are studying in

the United States, including more than

360,000 from China. The best and

brightest areeducated here, and we

need an immigration system that lets

more of them stay. If the Chinese want

to steal our secrets, we should be steal-

ing their engineers and scientists.

While we are attracting global talent,

we must prepare our American work-

force to meet the challenges of a 21st

century economy and long-term com-

petition with China. We simply do not

have enough people to fill jobs in tech-

nology and advanced manufacturing.

We have to retrain and “reskill” our

workforce over time and prepare our

kids for jobs that don’t even exist today.

To ensure that the free world con-

tinues to set the rules in the global

economy, America and its allies must

work together to preserve their posi-

tions as world centers of innovation

and technological advancement.

By moving past Cold War-era think-

ing and adopting 21st century solutions

to this New War, the United States can

continue as the world’s most important

economy, creating opportunity at home

and for millions around the world.

Republican Rep. Will Hurd represents

Texas’ 23rd Congressional District.

US has the wrong

strategy on China

Beat it on economics, don’t disengage

Will Hurd