Although it is from 1953, it sums this up quite nicely. Although the UN is featured in this cartoon, Red China will use these guys too.
Posted on 02/06/2005 7:33:07 AM PST by maui_hawaii
IN just under three months, both the president and vice president of China have led high-powered teams of ministers and officials to the Caribbean and Latin America.
In doing so they have underlined the strategic importance that Beijing now places on its relationship with the region. In November 2004, Chinese president Hu Jintao visited Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Cuba.
Then in late January to early February of this year, vice president Zeng Qinghong travelled to Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, Trinidad and Jamaica.
During these visits, China, the fastest growing economy in the world, committed itself to new investments totalling over US$50 billion. Under president Hu Jintao, China has been pursuing a policy described as the 'peaceful rise'.
This recognises that to prosper, China needs to have stable international relations in order to obtain the energy and resources it needs for its development. To achieve this, it believes that it has to encourage development and world peace.
The result is that China has embarked upon a global programme aimed at securing the energy and minerals necessary to ensure its growth. In this and perhaps uniquely, it sees the stability of the Caribbean and its development as an important aspect of its own economic future. In a Caribbean context, the relationship with Cuba, Jamaica and Trinidad are central to its thinking. They variously have minerals, energy or steel.
In contrast, China's other regional relationships are largely either tactical, such as its involvement in Haiti, or complementary, as with the eastern Caribbean. For example, in the case of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, its ties reflect a desire on the part of Beijing to support economic integration and regional stability while ensuring support in the United Nations and elsewhere on matters of principle, including China's continuing desire to neutralise the influence of Taiwan.
But when placed in a broader hemispheric perspective, a bigger picture becomes apparent. China's relationships - most especially those with Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Chile and Cuba - suggest the real possibility that a quite new role within the hemisphere is emerging at a time when the United States and Europe are almost wholly preoccupied with events in the Middle East.
In particular, the range of issues covered and the policy and economic understandings reached by China with Brazil suggest the emergence of a global order in which the countries of the south begin to forge new alliances based on a very different perception of the world. Moreover, the rapidly developing relationship with Cuba suggests that, over time, Chinese involvement may also have broader and more strategic implications for the region.
Speaking in September in Beijing, Hu Jintao told Cuban vice president and Politburo member Jose Ramon Machado that China 'has set an unswerving policy on consolidating ties with Cuba, and the policy will not alter regardless of changes in international situation'.
This unusually explicit quasi-political statement is reflected also at an economic level, and may be why Cuban president Fidel Castro felt able to state on February 1 that Cuba does not need the US or Europe. It has, as he put it, "learnt to do without them."
China recently signed with Cuba investment deals amounting probably to over US$800 million. By far the most important of them involve the production of ferro-nickel and, very recently, the announcement that the Chinese company SINOPEC, one of the largest oil companies in the world, is to develop potential oil fields off the island's coast.
This contract, according to the official Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma, "confirms the ascendant political and trade relations between the two countries."
During his visit to Jamaica last week, Chinese vice president Zeng Qinghong called for 'continued and substantive progress' in China's relationship with the Caribbean. More specifically, he put forward in Kingston a five-point proposal for enhancing Beijing's relations with the Caribbean.
At the opening ceremony of the China-Caribbean Economic and Trade Cooperation Forum, Qinghong suggested that there was a need to maintain high- level exchanges to cement political relations.
He proposed the exploration of new forms of cooperation; suggested the need for governments to seek to expand the ways they are providing quality services; and referred to the need to encourage cultural exchanges. And, in a comment that suggests the possibility of greater dialogue on global economic and political issues between the region and Beijing, he proposed that the region should engage in greater consultation and co-operation with China "in order to safeguard common interests."
In taking forward an Americas policy, China has stepped into a near vacuum. Both North America and Europe through disinterest, benign neglect and more recently as a result of newer global priorities have marginalised the Caribbean and, to an extent, even Latin America from their strategic thinking.
While China will have to prove by its actions that its interest will remain constant over many years, its engagement should be causing both Washington and those European capitals with a long-term interest in the region to consider the implications in a region in which their influence has been and still is substantial.
Despite this, both Europe and the United States remain curiously silent about developments that suggest that the long-term strategic balance of power in the Americas is changing if, as seems likely, Brazil continues to prosper and China emerges as a super power to rival the United States. All of this is happening at a time when the US seems to wish to define the world in absolute terms.
It has little time for Latin America and the Caribbean unless the issue relates to trade liberalisation, terrorism and narcotics or to counter insurgency measures in Colombia or other parts of Latin America. Europe too has no grand vision in the Americas.
At an all EU-level, most policy is reactive with the exception of the well-funded development programmes that set it apart from the US. Its focus too remains on governance, narcotics interdiction, terrorism and the opportunity to improve trade relationships.
However, this may change as the need for energy security within the western hemisphere becomes paramount.
Sounds like a game of RISK. "Owning" China and then going after SA can be a good strategy to "attack" NA and eventually win.
James Monroe must be spinning in his grave...
my my busy busy busy
Watch out for the double standard. When American capitalists invest in infrastructure to exploit natural resources, we hear the cries of "imperialism". When China does exactly the same thing, all that we hear about is international cooperation and friendship. What a crock...
China will probably start shipping their infected poultry and non-recyclable nuclear waste to Cuba
We are being invaded. Reagan tried to stop it and Clinton and the Bushes have let it get out of hand.
"Unrestricted Warfare"
China is playing their hand very well. Their actions in Argentina will probably be among their best investments in the region.
They are gearing up for free trade of the Americas....
Its in its infancy but a likely presence for the future.
China putting to use all the Walmart $$ we've been sending over there.
For the last two years I've been fighting an often lonely battle against Bill Clinton and what could well be the deadliest sellout of America in our history.
I feel today as I did on the eve of Pearl Harbor. America is in danger and we could face another Pearl Harbor — only this time it may be a nuclear Pearl Harbor.
I am referring to Bill Clinton's decision to OK the imminent takeover of the Panama Canal by Communist China. For over 80 years, keeping the Canal under the control of the U.S. was properly regarded as vital for the safety of all Americans.
Control of the Canal will give China the ability to block vital food and oil shipments to the U.S....prevent deployment of our navy in times of national emergency...and create an enemy beachhead within striking distance of our cities. Red Chinese J-11 attack jets — each of which can drop 13,000 pounds of bombs — launched from Panama can strike our cities.
The notion that a U.S. president and Congress could allow this Canal — built and defended by the U.S. at an incredible cost in treasure and blood — to fall under the control of our avowed enemies, the Red Chinese — without a shot being fired — is incredible. Yet we are just days away from that nightmare becoming reality... -http://www.warroom.com/panamacanal.htm
We are going to pay dearly one day. China would love to snuff us out and be world power. Except when they are the #1 superpower they will not be like us but ruthless.
meanwhile...american citizens continue to buy cheap goods from china because it "capitalism" in it's purest sense.
Rome is still burning.
Adding in the amount of money China is putting into Argentina (some $20 billion back in November), this is starting to become interesting:
This week in Buenos Aires, Hu announced plans by Chinese businesses to directly invest $19.7 billion over 10 years in energy production, infrastructure, and railroad expansion - agreements which would amount to the largest bilateral trade accord for Argentina since its 2001-02 economic crisis.
If all of this is over a 10 year span, that averages $7 billion per year.
$70 billion is a lot of cash for any country to commit to in foreign investments in just a few months.
Quote: $70 billion is a lot of cash for any country to commit to in foreign investments in just a few months
...just a few days production from export sales to the US
Trinidad has lots of oil, and the big asphalt lake. China...oil..hmmmmmm. Then there's Venezuela! Let's not even go there.
Not so. They invested heavily in Ecuador and Peru in the late 60's and early 70's. I was working in the region then and saw a lot of their activity then.
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