Posted on 05/30/2004 6:58:55 PM PDT by Lando Lincoln
Four years ago I predicted that Beijing would grind its teeth if Bush won. Well, it did more than that: it threw a "right tantrum" as my old English teacher used to say. (He was full of delightful and colourful sayings). Even as I wrote party hacks busily churned out anti-American and anti-NMD propaganda.
The party line was the predictable one of arguing that the proposed missile defence system is hostile in intent and is meant to target Russia and China. (Democrats, Kerry among them, basically push the same line).
But by the same logic, the Nazi's would have been justified at levelling the same accusation against Britain's pre-war radar installations.
Beijing said that "Some Americans do not want to give up the Cold War mentality and retain a fierce hostility to the rise of China." This was truly rich coming from a mob that sanctioned an article in a Chinese military paper that threatened a loss of 200 million Americans as the price of defending 20 million Taiwanese (sic).
It should be clear as the nose on one's face that any country that does not take defensive measures against this kind of threat needs its collective head examined. Moreover, Americans should not forget the Chinese general who threatened to incinerate Los Angeles.
But no one ever accused our militarists and their politburo allies of having much in the way of brains. Theirs is the way of the jackboot, the club and the blackjack, as Tiananmen Square amply demonstrated.
Even these largely witless thugs feel the need, as the Nazis and Soviets did, to justify their threats. And as always, it comes down to the bully boy, the uniformed thug being the victim. Yes, those wilting flowers in Beijing were victims of American aggression and that's why Bush should have abandoned the NMD. One can now understand their enthusiasm for a Kerry and his merry band of appeasers.
Beijing's line that America was redeploying forces from Europe to the Asia region in an attempt to intimidate and contain China was such an obvious crock that it was quickly dropped, even though it was mainly used for internal consumption in a crude attempt to rouse nationalist feelings.
However, one should never underestimate a potential enemy's paranoia. When the US held a five-day war game in Colorado nearly four years ago Chinese militarists asserted that it proved America was plotting war against China.
Setting the war in Asia was, in the opinion of these militarists, the clincher that persuaded them that China was the target and that the NMD system was part of a long-term plan to annihilate China.
If this sounds paranoid, that's because it is. Why do these militarists think like this? Because that's what they would do if they had America's resources and technology, so they naturally assume America is as thuggish and as aggressive as they are.
They're also a touch schizoid. One minute America is a "paper tiger," a country in an advanced state of moral decay. The next minute she's a psychotic thug intent on world domination, a favourite lefty trope.
So what's the good news for the US? That's it. Make no mistake about it, these militarists' shrill cries contained a genuine note of apprehension. Motivating them is the fear that a successful NMD system (and our militarists don't doubt America's ability to build one) would turn China's expensive missile arsenal into a heap of scrap and render North Korean threats useless.
Unlike half-witted leftwing journalists, they know the "arms race" argument is hollow because attempting to breach such a system would require a horrendously expensive programme of trying to develop technologies to penetrate the shield, knowing that the shield itself was being continuously refined.
Beijing does not want to get caught up in the kind of technological race that finally broke the Soviet empire. Her only hope was to intimidate, by whatever means, President Bush into abandoning the project. This failed tactic mercifully failed. Her last hope is a Kerry victory.
In the meantime, their stupid support for the North Korea's loony dictator has backfired. Instead of Kim successfully frightening Japan into jettisoning her reliance on American military might by firing off missiles in the direction of Tokyo he persuaded her Government to invest in America's missile defence system. Given enough time these geniuses might even outwit themselves into extinction.
A fine piece of writing absolutely packed with the TRUTH about these two countries' reckless plotting to overtake as much geography as they possibly can.
The belligerent action of Kim Jong-il really hurt Chinese interest by causing the resurgent Japanese military.
ping
who is Peter Zhang?
he says "our militarists, our politburo"
Is he a Mainlander?
Is he MAD???
What's really funny, if there is a big rock incomming, stop it. If it's a missile you got to let it hit!
With his name phoneticized in Pinyin as Zhang, he in all likelyhood originates from the mainland.
I'll rephrase that: China, both ally and enemy.
That is the worst kind. One that smiles while they stick the knife in to you.
Are we forcing a hand with NMD? Either build a deterrence or fold. What do you think China, Russia, NK or *GASP* France will do?
OK, here's my 2c worth :-
1) the question isn't "Is Missile Defence good". It's "Could the money be better spent". For example, making the US borders more secure and lowering the chance of a bomb being smuggled in.
China openly gunning for the US is pretty insane given the US arsenal would annihilate China several times over. But the real threat is terrorists doing the same. Or (for States) "Terrorists" (Chinese, French, Russian et al) doing the same and being untracable.
I suspect China is figuring out what North Korea already has - you don't threaten the US when you can threaten US allies - e.g. the US could go in there now and be totally safe in mainland USA, but you wouldn't expect any support from the very vulnerable allies in Japan and South Korea. As long as the US cares about what happens to it's friends, missile defence or no, the US is not going to be able to remove the worst governments in the world once they get WMDs.
"China, neither ally nor enemy"
W had it right back in 2001. Dumping the feckless clintonian "strategic partner" BS, President Bush called it like it is--China is a "strategic rival."
And more likely to become an enemy than an ally, IMO.
A "strategic partner" is an ally, an unfit designation for the People's Republic of China, although perhaps better suited for the Republic of China (the official name of the "renegade province" of Taiwan). China is a strategic competitor--Bush has it right, as usual, much to the chagrin of liberals. It is a former ally (against Japan in the Second World War), and a former and perhaps future enemy (in North Korea), and perhaps a future ally (against the Islamofascist terrorists).
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