America on autopilot to self-inflicted destruction

At a recent hearing in the US Senate, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas apparently had trouble understanding that a citizen of Singapore can look like a Chinese, talk like a Chinese and yet not be a member of the Communist Party of China. In Cotton’s questioning of Chew Shou Zi, the chief executive of TikTok, even the fact that Chew’s wife and children are American citizens seemed suspicious to him.

This was all serious stuff for Cotton and his fellow senators as they probed in the name of safeguarding America’s national security against the looming threat of China. Apparently, Cotton’s Harvard education did not tell him that Singapore is thousands of kilometers from Beijing and is a sovereign nation independent of China. Or maybe he was just grandstanding to cater to the lowbrow mindset of his constituents.

At around the same time, the South China Morning Post reported that Chinese scientists had developed a “game-changing military surveillance device for electronic warfare.” In effect, the paper said, their breakthrough will enable the People’s Liberation Army to find and pinpoint the quadrants of a military target in real time with no place to hide.

This is the latest of a series of technological advances China has made in military arms that indicate it has either caught up with or surpassed the US in weapons development. Others include hypersonic missiles, stealth fighters and drones, advanced launch system on aircraft carriers, and the capacity to build many more naval vessels than the US.

While the US has been busy hunting for spies from the “whole of China” under every bed, China has been investing in hardware and software developments to neutralize American military superiority.

Each time, as China develops a