Posted on 09/09/2001 9:30:49 PM PDT by Polonius
The Bush administration wants to give the Chinese government an advance look at plans for testing its proposed missile defense shield. It hopes to persuade Beijing we mean them no harm. To "sweeten the pot," the administration is also prepared not to object if China wishes to resume underground nuclear testing in order to "modernize" its weapons stockpiles and keep them current. The rationale is that they're going to modernize anyway, so why not try to earn their trust?
Have we so soon forgotten last spring's spy plane incident during which Beijing extracted the maximum amount of propaganda and humiliation from the United States and cared not a whit about trust, friendship, trade or even the Olympics, which it won anyway? This is the point: Chinese Communists will do what they want. Our students may not study Vladimir Lenin in school in the "post-communist" era, but I'll bet Chinese students are familiar with this quote taken from "Lenin: Selected Works": "We practice co-existence with other nations until we are strong enough to take over by world revolution...We are not pacifists. Conflict is inevitable. Great political questions can only be solved by violence...It is inconceivable that Communism and Democracy can exist side by side in the world. Inevitably, one must perish."
While few believe that communism has any hope of dominating the world, the Chinese brand can wreak a considerable amount of havoc in Asia, threatening U.S. interests there and possibly U.S. soil here. Last spring, China announced it was boosting defense spending by nearly 18 percent. At the time, Secretary of State Colin Powell said he did not view China "as an enemy" but as a "trading partner, as a regional competitor." Unclassified documents released more than two years ago indicated China had more than 29 ICBM's capable of reaching the U.S. West Coast. More are thought to be under development. Trading partners and regional competitors don't behave like this. Enemies do.
Russia and Iran are still negotiating an agreement on technical and military cooperation. Iran is one of the rogue nations to which China has been providing military assistance. If the United States shares its missile defense technology with China and Russia, what's to prevent that information from finding its way to Iran and even North Korea? These are among the nations against which a missile shield is supposed to defend America. If those states learn how we will shoot down their missiles, is not the very purpose of a missile shield defeated?
While China is not the old Soviet Union and the threats to the United States now take many forms - including attacks in cyberspace - providing information about our missile defense technology to a potential or actual enemy is neither good defense nor good political strategy. China, like Israel's enemies, has repeatedly demonstrated that it will not change its objectives based on what free nations do or do not do. China's top priority, according to 1994 remarks by Gen. Zhang Wannian, Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission, is not to repeat the "tragedy" of the Soviet Union's breakup. General Zhang said there was "a real danger of a breakup of our territory. We must pay attention to Taiwan. Compared to Tibet (whose uprising China crushed in 1959), Taiwan is far more dangerous."
Kenneth Adelman, who was President Reagan's arms control director, is correct when he tells The Washington Post of his disagreement with the notion that "if you act very sweetly toward the Chinese, the Chinese will reciprocate."
Lenin's quotation might be updated. He said the West is so corrupt that it could be counted on to sell communists the rope they would use to hang us. Substitute "missile shield" for "rope" and you do no damage to Lenin's principle.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recently announced plans to shift some troops and equipment from Europe to Asia because of what he perceives to be new challenges by China. He is right to do so. Trying to play nice with the Chinese communists is a bad idea that will benefit them but make U.S. interests and U.S. territory more vulnerable.
From "Bush plans to give missile data to Chinese; strategy aims to pacify Beijing on defense plan" from the Sept. 4 Boston Globe:
"WASHINGTON - The Bush administration will share detailed information on its missile defense program with China in hopes of convincing leaders in Beijing that the effort poses no threat to them, a White House official said yesterday.
'It's part of the president's program of outreach and consultation on missile defense,' said Sean McCormack, a spokesman for the National Security Council. 'Missile defense is not aimed at China. This is aimed at rogue nations and against accidental launches.'
The briefing could be given later this month when a high-level Chinese delegation visits Washington, or soon after that when senior administration officials visit Beijing to lay the groundwork for President Bush's summit with President Jiang Zemin in Beijing in October.
But a report that the Bush administration also would drop its objections to China's buildup of nuclear weapons drew criticism yesterday from congressmen."
And this, from the Sept. 5 Washington Post story "Beijing Open to Talks on U.S. Plan; Missile Defense Deal May Be Considered":
"In reports over the weekend, U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and other U.S. officials said the administration would intensify efforts to convince China that it would not be threatened by the missile system. They say the system is designed to protect the United States and allies from terrorists or hostile small states such as Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
Rice said the United States plans to offer China an advance look at plans for testing the system, and another administration official said the United States would signal it recognizes that both countries might want to resume nuclear weapons testing in the future. Such tests, now precluded by a voluntary worldwide moratorium, could allow China to field a new generation of mobile, multiple-warhead missiles."
This does not make me happy, not one bit. Flame away, call me an "unappeasable" if you will, but this seems like the height of stupidity. China is not our friend, and we should not set out to pacify them by giving them the information they need to easily overcome our missile defense.
Next, we'll probably read that Bush has offered the Chinese to subcontract the development of our nuclear defense shield.
I often wonder if the damage caused by ex-president Treason was so bad that we have little choice but to play wet-noodle, hoping to keep things at bay until we rebuild our strength. What we really need is the people to rise up and demand we become a strong America again. The America of yesteryear when we didn't get pushed around. When peace through strength was the prevailing theme of foreign policy.
I'm all for being good friends with any nation, including China, but America needs to be strong, respected, and -in some cases - feared. Only then will we have lasting peace and mutual prosperity.
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