The Real Manchurian Candidate: How Kissinger's Shadow Deal Sold the West's Soul to Beijing, By James Reed
Dwelling in the flickering glow of The Manchurian Candidate's Cold War paranoia, brainwashing feels like Hollywood fiction, a lone agent programmed to betray from within. But as Lee Smith's blistering October 22, 2025, excerpt from The China Matrix: The Epic Story of How Donald Trump Shattered a Deadly Pact lays bare, the real Manchurian plot wasn't cooked up in a lab; it was scripted in secret Beijing backrooms by Henry Kissinger, the ultimate insider-outsider who traded America's future for a handshake and a smile. For over half a century, U.S. presidents, from Nixon's "common ground" bromides to Biden's "they're not competition for us" chuckle, have parroted the line that China's communist ascent is a win for world peace, a boon for business, and a balm for global tensions. Smith's thesis isn't hyperbole; it's history unmasked: Washington's elite, seduced by Kissinger's realpolitik, forged a pact with the devil that enriched corporations, hollowed out the heartland, and handed Beijing the keys to the kingdom. This discussion defends that charge with the cold calculus of facts, economic evisceration, security breaches, and cultural capitulation, proving the threat isn't across the Pacific; it's in the mirror, staring back from K Street and Wall Street; treason from within.
The Kissinger Compact: From Secret Handshake to Strategic Suicide
Flash back to July 9, 1971: Kissinger, Nixon's éminence grise, lands in Beijing, extending a hand to Premier Zhou Enlai to erase the sting of John Foster Dulles' 1954 snub. It wasn't diplomacy; it was seduction, a covert channel bypassing Congress and the public, greenlighting Mao's regime as a counterweight to the Soviets. Nixon's toast? "What is important is not a nation's internal political philosophy," but "common ground" for mutual safety. Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush père, Clinton, Bush fils, Obama, Biden, they all echoed the script, a bipartisan chorus of "cooperation" and "mutual respect" that ignored the gulags, the Great Leap's 45 million dead, and Tiananmen.
Critics like Project Syndicate's Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson slam Kissinger's "opening" as a worker's requiem: China's WTO entry in 2001, midwifed by his framework, unleashed a flood of cheap labour that gutted U.S. and Australian manufacturing. From 2001-2018, America lost 3.7 million jobs to the Dragon, per EPI data, textiles in the Carolinas, steel in Pennsylvania, electronics in California. Kissinger's doctrine? Values be damned; strategy rules. As Dissent Magazine notes, he urged ditching human rights critiques to cosy up to the one-party state, paving the way for Beijing's espionage bonanza: Confucius Institutes on 100+ U.S. campuses by 2019, now shuttered amid spying scandals. X users echo the rage: One calls Kissinger a "Manchurian candidate" groomed in '71, a hero in communist China but a traitor at home. This wasn't naivety; it was narrative warfare, propagandising Americans into complacency.
This litany isn't coincidence, it's the Kissinger matrix, where "détente" devolved into dependence.
The Corporate Cabal: Wall Street's Red Wedding to Beijing
Smith's genius is tracing the rot beyond Foggy Bottom: Kissinger Associates, his post-State consultancy, raked in millions advising firms like Disney and Boeing on PRC penetration. Corporations didn't just join the party, they funded it. From Apple's Tim Cook genuflecting to Xi for factory access, to Hollywood self-censoring films (e.g., Top Gun: Maverick ditching Taiwan flags), the elite traded sovereignty for shekels. Result? America's trade deficit ballooned to $367B in 2022, per Census Bureau, enough to fund China's hypersonic arsenal. Universities? Bought off with $1B+ in CCP grants by 2020, per DOE probes, breeding a fifth column of Sino-philes.
Critics like the Lowy Institute decry Kissinger's "humility" as enabling Beijing's wolf warrior turn, Taiwan encircled, Uyghurs erased, Hong Kong crushed. X threads amplify: "Kissinger's betrayal" trends with posts likening him to a "groomed Manchurian" whose 1971 trip birthed the beast. The Washington Post notes China's frantic hunt for a "new Kissinger" amid Biden's decoupling, proof the old one's legacy lingers like a bad debt.
Trump's Fracture: The Pact Breaker Who Exposed the Plot
Enter the disruptor: Donald Trump, the anti-Kissinger, who shattered the matrix with tariffs, TikTok bans, and "America First" fury. Smith's book hails him as the shatterer; Phase One trade deal clawing back $200B in concessions, Huawei crippled, fentanyl flagged as a national emergency. Without Trump, no Biden-era scrutiny of university espionage or Musk's X pivot from CCP coziness. As Ted Cruz blurbs, Smith chronicles how Trump forced the elite to "reckon with the cost of their own corruption." The backlash? Impeachments, Russiagate distractions, classic deflection from the real foreign meddling.
Conclusion: Reclaim the Republic from the Red Lobby
Lee Smith's The China Matrix isn't alarmism; it's autopsy, dissecting how Kissinger's secret pact metastasised into a bipartisan betrayal that cost millions of jobs, trillions in wealth, and America's edge. From Nixon's naivety to Biden's bluster, the elite's "peace through engagement" was profiteering through appeasement, leaving the West poorer, divided, and diminished. Trump's hammer cracked it open; now, with 2025's midterms looming, the question is: Will we finish the job? Smith's verdict stands defended: The Manchurian threat is us, unless we evict the insiders and rebuild the walls.
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