US-China trade talks are a matter of national security: Gen. Jack Keane
Retired four-star Gen. Jack Keane told FOX Business that the U.S.-China trade talks are of upmost important for U.S. national security.
“China is the fastest-growing military in the world and they’ve caught us technology-wise, and in some areas they’re going right past us…that’s why this trade negotiation, dealing with intellectual property, is so much than just economics. It’s national security,” he said during an interview on “Trish Regan Primetime” Wednesday.
As U.S.-China trade negotiations gets underway, tensions could arise in the trade talks around China’s economic growth at America’s expense, according to Keane.
From a military perspective, the Fox News senior strategic analyst notes, capitalism and military build-up are linked for the United States.
“A free-enterprise, capitalist system is the engine of our democracy, and it clearly is what enables us to be a global leader in the world, and have the military power to enforce the values and national interest of the United States,” Keane said on FOX Business “Trish Regan Primetime” Wednesday. “They’re linked, and they always have been linked, particularly post-World War II to the present.”
Keane, chairman of the Institute for the Study of War, also warned against allowing China to encroach on America’s position as the world’s largest economy.
“Certainly there’s risk out there, and it’s not just GDP growth and where the stock market is and where unemployment is, and wage growth. Those are all very important, but here’s the other problem that we’re having and why I think this trade negotiation that we’re in, I think, is so critical to us…China has been stealing our intellectual property, and forcing companies who do business in China to transfer their intellectual property as a matter of course.”
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Keane believes the Chinese government has backtracked on their agreements with the U.S. around intellectual property theft.
“We were trying to get China to enact laws to prevent this from happening….Now, China has reversed course on that, because they believe that’s too stringent. But clearly, when you look at the technology that China has, space-based technology, stealth technology, you could go down the list—sophisticated missile defense—I believe much of that was stolen from the United States,” he said.