China is NOT an ally of any sort. The ones who bankrolled the islamic regimes, including our so-called "moderate" allies, insist that bankrolling china is going to result in the chinese becoming "nice guys" and I have seen zero evidence of this. It certainly hasn't worked with any of the islamic countries, no matter how many hundreds of billions in US dollars they have received for the oil. And it's not going to work in china either, that is going to backfire on us as well-at some time, and with much glowing radioactive dust most likely. Ya, they most likely want to kill off a lot of islamics, but then again, exactly WHO is providing these various islamic regimes with advanced weaponry? I see china as more being a behind the scenes player to instigate a war between the west and the islamics, kill both of us off.
Wheels within wheels here.
Who else would benefit?
Saddam Hussein (would invade Kuwait)
Iran (would invade small Gulf states)
China
I would say the strongest cooperation is between Osama and Saddam. They are prolly in cahoots. They have the most to gain from the US leaving Arabia. China would be the superpower that would rush into the vacuum left by any US departure from The Gulf and the Arab world. China has the weaponry to make this all stick.
Sounds about right to me, zog. I've been wondering whether PRC has been the "silent partner" behind a whole lot of "Islamic unrest" for some time now. For one thing, every time the Brits or we Americans take out one of Saddam's anti-aircraft defense sites (incorporating state-of-the-art, fiber optics technology "somehow acquired" by PRC from the United States), it goes back on-line pretty quick -- apparently thanks to PRC, which is thought to be Iraq's single-source supplier of this technology.
Speculation runs rampant.... All I really feel confident about is that China has no reason to wish the United States well, given its global ambitions. That, and China prefers to "work in the dark" wherever possible -- through surrogates, proxies, etc., etc.
But I do hope I am wrong about possible PRC involvement in the present conflict. best wishes, bb.
Wei-Chi: The Game of War
by Peter Kien-hong Yu, Visiting Associate Professor, Lingnan University, Tuen Mun, New Territories, Hongkong
As published in Proceedings, U.S. Naval Institute, March 2000.
Lieutenant Commander Capen argues that Weiqi "is central to understanding the Eastern [read: Chinese] perspective of war." For the most part such an application is structurally and logically flawed because many, if not most, Chinese Communist strategists do not play Weiqi. They strictly think and act dialectically.
Thus, Capen cannot say that "Chairman Mao Tse-Tung required all of his officers to study Wei-chi and become proficient" or that Chinese people from childhood play such a game, which, to the lieutenant commander, is an analogue of real-life. The reason is that we definitely see Maoist dialectics, not Weiqi, being taught at, for example, the National Defense University (NDU) in Beijing. Besides, most Chinese since their early days are gradually taught to associate or correlate things in terms of Yin, Yang, and the Five Elements, which is another basic version of dialectics and which is couched in terms of harmony.
We can point out some other serious problems. We must understand that most Chinese strategists, Sun Zi included, think and act dialectically. If one thinks and acts in terms of two points/concepts (or two extremes to be more specific), one would be able to understand or dissect what Sun said more deeply. All dialectical Chinese strategists make crabwise (or sideways) moves, be it in a word or an action, between the two extremes, if not at this time/space then the next time/space or, for that matter, in this model/framework or another model/framework. (In Weiqi, players cannot do that all the time. They must stick to the same 19-by-19-line grid board.) Sometimes they are closer to the left extreme at a particular time/space. At other times, they are closer to the right extreme at another time/space. Or, they could be in the middle of two extremes.
Capen wrote that Weiqi pits two opponents against one another. If he applied Weiqi between mainland China and Taiwan, for example, it is appropriate. But he also applied the same game to the complex situation in the Spratlys, which may involve the United States, because it may well be the national interest of the United States to wage an active offense in the Western Pacific.
Something is certainly wrong in this kind of application, because how can the mainland and/or Taiwan play the game against the Philippines and Vietnam at the same time in this boardgame of one against one? The only logical way is for the former to play several Weiqi games at the same time, say China versus Vietnam, China versus the Philippines, etc. But, this kind of arrangement is still flawed, because it could happen that Beijing, for example, is dealing heavy military blows to both Manila and Hanoi at the same time. Yet, in reality, a one-against-one game such as Weiqi cannot reflect this important phenomenon.
To give one concrete example, China believes that the Spratlys are historically Chinese. Yet, Capen said Beijing is interested in acquiring territories beyond its coastal waters or that Beijing is making efforts to surge into the second echelon [of countries or states]. To the dialectical Chinese, this island group has been literally encircled by several Southeast Asian claimants. In other words, China is put at a strategically disadvantageous position, at least since the late 1960s. In order to break out, China is trying to find footholds elsewhere and it is doing it by trying to enter some military relationships with some island states in the Pacific Ocean or the Indian Ocean, so as to counter the encirclement. But, because Capen perceives reality in a non-dialectical way, what Beijing is doing becomes expansionist to Capen, which may involve bloodshed in thousands of American sailors and marines.
Does that mean China wants to use these newly arranged footholds to militarily attack those Southeast Asian claimants someday? Certainly not, unless China has been fired upon first by those claimants and/or their allies. China, to Capen, is constructing power. To others, China is a potential maritime threat. But, from a dialectical point of view, the Chinese intention is peaceful or defensive. [emphasis added] As such, it is not necessary for the non-dialectical United States Navy to have a base in India, as mentioned in Capen's piece, because the Chinese only wants peace of mind [sic] , unless the United States is again thinking of breaking the Chinese planned counter-encirclement by encircling the Chinese counter-encirclement ring.
So, it is wrong for Capen to imply that, after getting back Hong Kong and Macao, the People's Republic of China -- which would likely acquire a blue-water capacity including aircraft carriers within the next generation -- will conquer the Spratly Island Group, which is part of the second echelon in the Chinese strategy. The Spratlys belong to China in the first place and, therefore, China does not have to conquer it.
[LOL, see how convenient dialectical thinking can be! Contentious international disputes involving at least four nation-states, settled by unilateral Chinese decree! Gee...if it were that simple, why would PRC need a navy at all? So sorry for the digression....]
I also agree with Capen that the Chinese plan has less to do with armed confrontation. That is because dialectics is mainly political and it can help a player to rationalize all phenomena over a long period of time [emphasis added], say five decades or centuries. Dialectics can also protect the dialectician from internal or external criticisms by saying what he or she had done is within the safety zone. [more emphasis added], which, like danger zone, should always be understood in terms of a spectrum and which is closely related to the left extreme in each model/framework, for, in dialectics, there also exists a danger zone, again closely related to the right extreme.
* * * * * * *
When I first read this article back in July 2000, I wondered whether its message was intended as a threat; or disinformation; or as a prophylactic measure designed to answer and dismiss Lt. Cdr. Capen. (Plus maybe a good joke, its author having "the last laugh" because he could put so much so plainly in sight, but thinks maybe we Americans don't know how to understand it.)
Anyone who wants to, please do flame away. I'm not DEBKA. Just someone trying to see "the Big Picture." That is, the "big wheel" that's turning all the "little wheels."
Those of you who aren't trigger happy might want to drag out the ol' World Atlas tonight and study the map of this critical theatre -- in which America is now engaged up to our eyeballs. (And we had no other realistic choice, I might add. Score a point to the other side right there?) JMHO. FWIW.
Best to you, zog -- bb.