GOOD MORNING FROM LONDON
The phrase Reds Under The Beds refers to an obsessive fear of the presence of communist sympathisers in US and UK society. It came to prominence in the 1940s/1950s when Senator Joe McCarthy, Chairman of the US Committee on Un-American Activities led a witch-hunt against Hollywood film actors and directors which resulted in the Hollywood Ten (famous directors) going to prison for refusing to name friends with Left political views. It was a time of heightened madness in America as the US State Dept, led by Secretary of State Dulles, argued, wrongly, that the US was under attack from the USSR and decided that sympathisers needed to be rooted out, exposed, made unemployed and – in some cases – go to prison.
It was Panic. Sometimes panic is justified – such as in 1940 when Nazi troops were massed on the French coast preparing to invade the UK. But Reds Under the Beds was quite different. There was no Soviet threat to the US but the US wanted to create an anti-USSR mentality among its people in order to push back the advance of Left thinking and ideology.
The same is happening today re China. Again, there is no China threat but the US/UK governments are creating an anti-China madness. But why? Quite simply the US/UK governments – and others too, Japan, Australia and Europe – realise that China is going to become the Number One Economic Superpower in the World. It is only a matter of time.
But this is not meant to happen. Communism cannot do better than Capitalism. But it is. The predictions of Washington and London; Harvard and Oxford are wrong. China grows remorselessly. “This must be stopped,” says the West so Reds Under the Beds is re-created.
And not a day passes without a ‘China Scare’ story – genocide in Xinjiang; threats to Tibet/Taiwan/India; Huawei and Chinese investors in the UK. Led by Ian Duncan-Smith MP and the Henry Jackson Society, the media is engaged in a campaign to whip up a frenzy against anyone with links to China. See Edward Lucas in the Times or Ian Birrell in the Daily Mail.
To those in the firing line – stand firm, don’t buckle, stay strong. The ride can be uncomfortable but you are on the right side of history.
GRAHAM PERRY
TOMORROW – THE WINTER OLYMPICS
