Webinar | Xi’s Barbary Piracy: The CCP Threat to Freedom of Navigation

Today is Flag Day and an appropriate occasion to reflect on the diminished presence of warships proudly displaying ours on the world’s oceans and an ominous consequence: Freedom of the seas is being increasingly threatened by the presence instead of hostile powers’ navies and what amount to pirates in a handful of strategic choke points and vital waters.

This is perhaps the most immediate result of Joe Biden’s finishing off of Pax Americana – a world order in which our largely benign exercise of global power enabled general peace and enormous prosperity, both here and abroad. Today, our national security and commercial interests are at risk from the Panama Canal to the one in Suez to the Straits of Taiwan, Hormuz, Malacca and the Bab El Mandeb. Ditto those of countless others.

This week’s CPDC) webinar examines the role the Chinese Communist Party is playing with its own, burgeoning fleet, dual-use shipping companies, controlled ports and proxies in places like Iran, Yemen, Algeria and the Western Pacific to enable free maritime movement for “friends of China,” but not so much for the rest of us.

Moderator:

- Frank Gaffney, Founder and Executive Chairman, Center for Security Policy; Vice Chairman, Committee on the Present Danger: China, co-author, “The Indictment: Prosecuting the Chinese Communist Party and Friends for Crimes Against America, China, and the World”

Panelists:

- Captain James Fanell, U.S. Navy (Ret.), Former Chief for Intelligence, U.S. Pacific Fleet; Senior Fellow, Geneva Center for Security Policy; co-author, “Embracing Communist China: America’s Greatest Strategic Failure” – Topic: “The CCP’s Growing Threat to Freedom of the Seas: A Global Menace”

- Lieutenant Commander/Dr. David Wurmser, U.S. Navy Reserves (Ret.), former assistant to an Under Secretary of State, National Security Advisor and Vice President of the United States; Senior Analyst and Director for the Middle East, Center for Security Policy – Topic: “The CCP and Friends Move to Institutionalize Effective Control over International Maritime Movements”

- Captain Jay Bolton, U.S. Merchant Marine (Ret.), Maritime Consultant; Tanker & Tall Ships’ Master; founder of the United States Maritime Foundation – Topic: “The CCP and Company in the Americas: The Implications for Freedom of Navigation and Our Other Vital Interests”

- Brian Kennedy, Chairman, Committee on the Present Danger: China; President, American Strategy Group; former President, the Claremont Institute; author, “Communist China’s War Inside America” – Topic: “A Strategic Imperative: Countering the CCP and Friends on the High Seas and Elsewhere”