Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

China Weapons Test Shakes Up World View
Las Vegas Sun ^ | January 23, 2007 at 11:55:13 PST | CHRISTOPHER BODEEN ASSOCIATED PRESS

Posted on 01/23/2007 12:07:39 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-57 last
To: sam_paine

Bookmarking for later. Celestia objects to be made ....


41 posted on 01/23/2007 5:08:18 PM PST by Centurion2000 (If you're not being shot at, it's not a high stress job.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: sarasota
A talking head recently declared that China is well on its way to replacing the US as the #1 superpower.

That's an old talking point used by the same type of people who said the Soviet Union was going to win the Cold War.

42 posted on 01/23/2007 5:19:52 PM PST by Moonman62 (The issue of whether cheap labor makes America great should have been settled by the Civil War.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Paul Ross

I'm not talking about incremental change. Radical change has occured in China in the past ten years. In Beijing in 2003 I was able to buy western books, newspapers, and news magazines. I watched MSNBC on cable--not in a hotel, in a private home. I visited two separate art gallaries displaying pro-freedom exhibits. I saw shopping malls and supermarkets filled with western goods and foods. Beijing and Singapore are both vibrant cities--more like Chicago or New York than one would ever believe.

Are there Marxist dinosaurs remaining in the government? Sure. But China today is no more a Marxist nation than Canada. Does the government remain authoritarian? Sure, but considering the nations diverse and massive population, this is no surprise.

China is not going anywhere and war with her is unthinkable and unnecessary. So, "here's to" a future of positive Sino-American relations.


43 posted on 01/23/2007 5:41:12 PM PST by zook (America going insane - "Do you read Sutter Caine?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]

To: cripplecreek

You'll get none of that here. Doesn't mean I don't think that a manned mission to Mars is basically a waste of time and government money, especially if it diverts resources from space-based defense programs.


44 posted on 01/23/2007 7:33:45 PM PST by dr_who_2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: zook
In Beijing in 2003 I was able to buy western books, newspapers, and news magazines.

Pre-censored "Asian" versions. The MSM is a willing accomplice to this. So don't tell us anything has changed...if anything, it proves that their communist encroachments on our liberties are growing.

I watched MSNBC on cable--not in a hotel, in a private home.

??? Soooooo? As shown here, the Chi-Comms needn't censor their own henchmen already running that outfit, to wit:


45 posted on 01/24/2007 10:03:55 AM PST by Paul Ross (Ronald Reagan-1987:"We are always willing to be trade partners but never trade patsies.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: zook
Their rising tide will lift all boats.

Nope. Their slaves are kept in the mud. Only the Chi-Comm princelings are rising.

46 posted on 01/24/2007 10:05:53 AM PST by Paul Ross (Ronald Reagan-1987:"We are always willing to be trade partners but never trade patsies.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]

To: Paul Ross

If you don't think the changes I cited in Chinese society are significant, then there's simply no basis for further discussion. Of course censorship is used in China, but far far less than in earlier decades. My goodness, Canada even censors its news media and restricts its citizens access to various types of books.




47 posted on 01/24/2007 10:21:18 AM PST by zook (America going insane - "Do you read Sutter Caine?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies]

To: Paul Ross

"Nope. Their slaves are kept in the mud. Only the Chi-Comm princelings are rising."

You really don't know what you're talking about, do you?

Have you been to China? Do you know any Chinese people? Do you know that unlike 30 years ago, Chinese citizens are free to leave the country? Travel where they like? Do you know that during the first weeks of the Iraq war, Chinese citizens could turn on their TVs and hear western journalists--and President Bush himself--outline the reasons for the war?

As I've said, China is not a democratic utopia, but it is a great place for those with a reasonable education to work and live. Considering the tremendous poverty that still exists there, the country is making great strides.













48 posted on 01/24/2007 10:27:35 AM PST by zook (America going insane - "Do you read Sutter Caine?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 46 | View Replies]

To: zook
China is not going anywhere and war with her is unthinkable and unnecessary

Again devoid of reality. They have declared us the "Main Enemy" and are gearing up to attack us.

Your wishful thinking is Liberal Apeasement to the hilt.

Nobody who believes in Communist appeasement the way you do...denying their communist nature (80% of the populace is still in the "old economy") can claim to be serious. Read their constitution sometime: It is not debatable what they really are. And you are off base about their intentions. Get serious about China's Rising Military. Don't be easily duped by the Panda-Hugger lobby.

I strongly suggest you listen to better conservatives and supporters of liberty:

The late Constantine Menges, for example, in China: The Rising Threat. (2005) lays out the stubborn facts you fail to comprehend.

Constantine Menges, in his book "China: the Gathering Threat," warned that China is pursuing a stealthy, systematic strategy to obtain geopolitical and economic dominance and that America could be embroiled in a showdown with China in this decade. Menges, as a special assistant to President Reagan, played a key role in the downfall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.

Dr. Menges told us that China has been and remains, along with Russia, the leading supplier of weapons of mass destruction to North Korea, Iran, Syria, Libya and Cuba. In his book, Menges tells us that China is capable of launching nuclear missiles in thirty minutes that can kill Americans. He tells us, "The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) defines the U.S. as the main enemy."

And what about the Cox Report? Has the Administration forgotten or bothered to read this report that unanimously found that the PRC has stolen design information on our most advanced thermonuclear weapons, that the next generation of such weapons will exploit elements and that their penetration of our national labs spans several decades and most certainly continues today?

In a foreword to the Cox Report, Former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, a patriot to the core, wrote the following: "Communist China's long march against the U.S. is as tenacious as it is diverse – from campaign contributions used to influence in the White House, purchasing an interest in American corporations, hi-tech spying, to old-fashioned military buildup threats."

Weinberger recalls the words of Chinese General Xiong Guangkai, who in 1995 told an American official that the PRC would call the shots in the Asian theater "because in the end the U.S. cares a lot more about Los Angeles than it does about Taipei."

The Cox Report uncovered espionage by agents of the PRC that Weinberger charges is "the most serious breach of national security since Julius and Ethel Rosenberg betrayed our atomic secrets to the Soviet Union and Aldridge Ames sold us out." The Rosenbergs paid with their lives. The crimes uncovered by the Cox Report have yet to be redressed.

Constantine Menges, now deceased, offered these recommendations on how to confront China's gathering threat. In his book he adheres to what President Reagan, with Dr. Menges advising him, used as a guiding strategy to bring down the Soviet Union. The U.S., says Dr. Menges, should:

1. "Start telling the truth about Communist China;

2. maintain Cold War alliances both economic and strategic, and seek a new defensive alliance with India and its population of 1.1 billion;

3. shift trade opportunities in Asia from China to American allies and security partners;

4. and most urgent: the U.S. [should] move from intention to actual deployment of national and regional missile defenses."

Most Americans don't know we are unprotected from the growing threat of a missile attack. The fallout from this delay in preparedness could be an enormous loss of life.

Additionally, we must maintain the integrity and control over classified information within the U.S. government and among all contractors with sensitive military technology information, significantly improve and expand our U.S. counterintelligence, and expel from the U.S. companies that function as fronts for any military or intelligence-related entities in China, Russia, or any other non-allied state.

Wes Vernon, brilliant Washington-based writer and veteran broadcast journalist, has brought our attention to Dr. Constantine Menges' documents. Vernon tells us, "China's potential to do harm to the U.S. is in a category all by itself if for no other reason than it has neutralized so much of America's business and policymaking sectors."

Wes Vernon told Weinberger, "The Clinton administration perpetrated some of the worst, most damaging national security decisions of the 20th century."

And now Hillary Clinton wants us to believe that cozying up to Red China is a new phenomenon that just emerged since her husband departed the White House. She recently warned: "We are giving up our fiscal sovereignty to China. How do you get tough with your banker?" This, after the Clinton regime gave the Chinese the political and economic keys to the White House and accepted campaign money from Communist Chinese sources.

The warnings are here, spoken from the grave by Dr. Constantine Menges. Think again before claiming that China is not a military threat to the U.S


49 posted on 01/24/2007 10:39:03 AM PST by Paul Ross (Ronald Reagan-1987:"We are always willing to be trade partners but never trade patsies.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: Paul Ross

So all the social, political, and economic liberalization going on in China is "just clever trick! Fool White Devil!"

You seem to only be able to respond with cold war propaganda. Certainly someone in China can find similarly threatening words written by some American military thinkers.

China does not wish to rule the world or even to spread "communism." China, I assume, does wish to have a sphere of influence in Asia and wishes the US to desist from challenging that sphere. This kind of clash can certainly be handled diplomatically over time and I look forward to the day when China-US relationships are not so unlike those we maintain with most of the world's other republics.

As I said before, war with China is unthinkable and unwinnable. Fortunately, most American leaders now realize this.


50 posted on 01/24/2007 11:07:10 AM PST by zook (America going insane - "Do you read Sutter Caine?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 49 | View Replies]

To: zook
You really don't know what you're talking about, do you?

Talking about yourself I see.

Have you been to China?

No. But I know many who have. And I have close friends there right now. And they have apparently dug deeper...and more skeptically... than you did

Do you know any Chinese people?

Yes. Many. The issue is, do you? Do you know how you are being played for a sap? Do you ever get a way from your "handlers"? I doubt it. You're still driven everywhere you go by a native.

Do you know that unlike 30 years ago, Chinese citizens are free to leave the country? Travel where they like?

Misrepresentation.

80% need political permission from their "work unit"... they aren't in those cities. Nor can thy move to them. Still. The ones who made it out are a select bunch. The PLA, "students" (spies) and New Economy bunches. Things have been made "easier" FOR THEM...but that is not the equivalent of "freedom" for all Chinese to leave or go where they like. The Ministry of Public Security amended their rules so that by 2005:

Chinese citizens in large and medium-sized cities who want to go abroad [forget the 80% of the populace] will be able to get a passport merely by presenting their identity cards and household registration documents to the proper authorities.

While currently, a Chinese citizen must go through complicated formalities when applying for a passport, including getting approval from his or her work unit, and producing household registration documents and other identification materials.

Since the vast majority of Chinese are still in the rural "Old Economy" zones, these rules remain very much in force against them.
51 posted on 01/24/2007 11:13:45 AM PST by Paul Ross (Ronald Reagan-1987:"We are always willing to be trade partners but never trade patsies.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 48 | View Replies]

To: zook
Have you been to China? Do you know any Chinese people? Do you know that unlike 30 years ago, Chinese citizens are free to leave the country?

Is the Roman Catholic Church allowed to exist there yet?

52 posted on 01/24/2007 12:38:27 PM PST by jmc813 (Please check out www.marrow.org and consider becoming a donor. You may save a life.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 48 | View Replies]

To: zook
As I said before, war with China is unthinkable and unwinnable

You think the ChiComs would defeat our military?

53 posted on 01/24/2007 12:40:21 PM PST by jmc813 (Please check out www.marrow.org and consider becoming a donor. You may save a life.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: zook
So all the social, political, and economic liberalization going on in China is "just clever trick! Fool White Devil!"

You said it, I didn't.

You seem to only be able to respond with cold war propaganda.

Not propaganda. Facts. Facts that undoes your little spiel.

Certainly someone in China can find similarly threatening words written by some American military thinkers.

Nuts. This wasn't a mere military thinker. This was their equivalent of "king of the mountain".

China does not wish to rule the world or even to spread "communism."

B.S. Chavez and Castro are pretty happy with Communist China's faithfulness to its ideology...which is apparently more nuanced than you can quite discern.

China, I assume, does wish to have a sphere of influence in Asia and wishes the US to desist from challenging that sphere.

Yup. Stay out of our "lebensraum".

Not quite so innocuous or non-threatening as you imply. Your escalating shrillness to apologize for their Chi-Comm regimes implies that you have been coopted.

This kind of clash can certainly be handled diplomatically over time and I look forward to the day when China-US relationships are not so unlike those we maintain with most of the world's other republics.

Dream on. So long as the Chi-Comms are not toppled, it will never be a safe or normal "relationship".

As I said before, war with China is unthinkable and unwinnable.

Except and unless the Chinese think they can win. Then its okay, eh?

Fortunately, most American leaders now realize this.

Oh, so now you are advocating American "acceptance of the inevitable"? Thus, you migrate from being appeasement advocate to an outright collaborator.

Pardon me if we reject your policy advice on China and the condition of thinking of most "American" leaders...and you seem to forget who really runs this country. And it isn't those "leaders". Its the People. And they apparently have more gut-sense what is going on than the ivory-tower dupes who get fat teaching contracts in Communist China.

I will leave you with a pertinent conservative lesson on our Constitutional Government framework, which you apparently never learned, and given by the best teacher we have had in my lifetime:

Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the course of government, and with three little words: "We the people." "We the people" tell the government what to do, it doesn't tell us. "We the people" are the driver, the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. Almost all the world's constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which "We the people" tell the government what it is allowed to do. "We the people" are free. This belief has been the underlying basis for everything I've tried to do these past eight years.
Ronald Reagan, Farewell Address, January 11, 1989

54 posted on 01/24/2007 1:15:48 PM PST by Paul Ross (Ronald Reagan-1987:"We are always willing to be trade partners but never trade patsies.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: Paul Ross

Your posts are total bullsh*t and, though easily refutable (for example, Castro, I'm sure, is also quite satisfied with Canadian socialism), it would take too much of my valuable time to respond further to your paranoia.

But just to rub it in, I'll finish by saying that China is a great nation and it's in both our nations' interests to live in peaceful partnership.


55 posted on 01/24/2007 3:12:58 PM PST by zook (America going insane - "Do you read Sutter Caine?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 54 | View Replies]

To: zook
Zook's: China is a great nation and it's in both our nations' interests to live in peaceful partnership.

If they were in fact peaceful. And in fact a "partnership."

But the "relationship" you are shrilly defending is manifestly one-sided and a sham.

As admitted here by Former Defense Minister Chi Haotian:

One time, some Americans came to visit and tried to convince us that the relationship between China and United States is one of interdependence. Comrade Xiaoping replied in a polite manner: “Go tell your government, China and the United States do not have such a relationship that is interdependent and mutually reliant.” Actually, Comrade Xiaoping was being too polite, he could have been more frank, “The relationship between China and United States is one of a life-and-death struggle.” Of course, right now it is not the time to openly break up with them yet.

...We also must never forget what Comrade Xiaoping emphasized “refrain from revealing the ambitions and put others off the track.” The hidden message is: we must put up with America; we must conceal our ultimate goals, hide our capabilities and await the opportunity. In this way, our mind is clear.

And methinks like Lady MacBeth...you doth protest too much with your "paranoia" claims... further confirming my claim:

"Not quite so innocuous or non-threatening as you imply. Your escalating shrillness to apologize for the Chi-Comm regime implies that you have been coopted."

Anytime the Appeasers reach for the aspersion "paranoid" to attack American defenders...you know precisely who and what they are. And they are quick to equate the U.S. and Chinese government positions, claiming moral relativism. As you did, e.g.,

Certainly someone in China can find similarly threatening words written by some American military thinkers.

Blame America first. Your real creed.

56 posted on 01/25/2007 10:29:02 AM PST by Paul Ross (Ronald Reagan-1987:"We are always willing to be trade partners but never trade patsies.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 55 | View Replies]

To: Brilliant
I believe it the first strike against unrestricted surveillance of a country. Who said that every country should have unrestricted access of the space above a country. We often get mad when another country show the slightest bit of military capability. China from time to time going to have success and failures on its road to military parity. We as America just want to rule all battle spaces unchecked. China is still along ways from this parity, so stop being chicken little America and causing the very arms race you are trying to prevent.
57 posted on 01/25/2007 11:30:54 AM PST by Kuehn12 (Kuehn12)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-57 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson