PRESS RELEASE
Woolsey Has Kind Words for China, with a Clear Anti-Russia Thrust
Nov. 30, 2016 (EIRNS)—Former CIA Chief and neo-con James Woolsey, who is slated to have some role in the coming Trump Administration, spoke briefly today at the conclusion of a Silk Road conference in Washington organized by the Asia Society and the China Energy Fund Committee of Hong Kong. He was introduced by Bud McFarlane, who waxed warm about his meetings with Deng Xiaoping during the early years of Nixon’s “opening to China.”
Woolsey was keen on wooing China.
“A friendly cooperative relationship between the U.S. and China can and ought to occur,” Woolsey said.
“Both are commercial nations. They have a sense that prosperity and happiness is possible and plausible, based on friendly commercial relations. China has generally not been an aggressor nation. Its general history and approach has generally not been aggressive.”
Not the case with Russia, however, Woolsey continued. Quoting a saying from Lincoln regarding a farmer he knew, who had said, “I don’t need much land, except when it adjoins mine,” Woolsey portrayed Russia as a predator.
“Any weakness shown which leads them to feel that they can assert power, we will have to react to,” he said. “It makes it difficult to work with them.”
He then went on to praise China’s One Belt, One Road, saying that the United States shouldn’t avoid using railroads built by China. “We can work with China on trade and other issues,” he said. While he felt China’s actions in the South China Sea were “troubling”, he felt these issues could be resolved. He then said the United States should work with China to develop ethanol in order to become less dependent on oil, in particular, Iranian and Russian oil.
“States dependent on oil production like Norway will not be happy, but neither will Russia and Iran,” he said.
Woolsey said to the Chinese participants that they could probably work with the new Trump administration on “infrastructure, growth, and developments in fuels.”
