How China Already Controls A Whole Generation Here

'Most of us do not grasp the sheer dominance of it in their lives'

- Stephen Pollard

BACK in the 1950s, a group of academics, politicians and writers set up the Committee on the Present Danger, which was designed to warn of the threat posed to democracy and the West by communist subversion. With hindsight, the collapse of the USSR in 1991 looked inevitable. But it was no such thing: there were many naive fools in the West who refused to acknowledge the extent of Soviet sabotage of key Western institutions, and it was a constant battle to defeat it.

Plus ça change. Today it’s not the Soviet Union but China that poses the threat. Yesterday’s statement by Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden made clear some of this.

Chinese influence on academia, for example – essentially throwing huge amounts of cash at it in return for compliance – is a huge issue. But the greatest threat to the West is hiding in plain sight. Imagine if the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) controlled the BBC, ITV and Sky, as well as NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN and Fox. It’s unimaginable, isn’t it?