> it's the logical consequence of trying to channel public money into private economies, public money that is meant to fund our most basic civic activity.

Yes, and that logical consequence is being exploited by foreign governments. By "infiltrate" I mean "taking advantage of our shortsightedness," similar to how we ignorantly offshored pharmaceutical sourcing/production to China [1].

There's plenty [2] of loose threads that warrant my "only the paranoid survive" POV on stuff like this.

Hell, there's even a book that goes into detail about the strategy [3]:

> "If one party is at war with another, and the other party does not realize it is at war, the party who knows it is at war almost always has the advantage and usually wins.” And this is the strategy set forth in Unrestricted Warfare: waging a war on an adversary with methods so covert at first and seemingly so benign that the party being attacked does not realize it’s being attacked." - Qiao Liang

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[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/u-s-officials-wor...

[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/china-houston-consulate-docu...

[3] https://www.amazon.com/Unrestricted-Warfare-Chinas-Destroy-A...

>>>But why should we as Westerners actually care?

Because the CCP has built a blue-water Navy, which it continues to expand, with the stated goal of dethroning the US as the global hegemon?

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-ar... https://www.amazon.com/Unrestricted-Warfare-Chinas-Destroy-A... https://sg.news.yahoo.com/china-seeks-become-worlds-next-025...

Because the CCP conducts influence operations globally? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-49511231 https://uscnpm.org/2021/09/14/prc-overseas-influence-disaggr...