Hello FreepForever. What an outstanding discussion this has been so far. I've particularly enjoyed the information and perspective you've brought to bear on this topic. Some of us here have suspected PRC as the "silent partner" behind the current world war, whose opening shot was the attack on the WTC -- if not directly, then indirectly, through giving aid and comfort and technology to terrorist groups, and then just "stirring the pot" til the inevitable outbreak of hostilities would occur.
And I agree with you and zog, that PRC must "expand" (i.e., via "theft" -- i.e., conquest) in order to stay in power. What is news to me is that there are pockets of resistence within Chinese society that make the CCP uncomfortable -- and thus dangerous. I knew about the Falun Gong, anti-Christian, and other persecutions of course. But I didn't realize the extent to which CCP has gone to propagandize its own people against the United States over the past several years. I do see the dangerous necessity from CCP's point of view of identifying "external threats" in order to distract attention from critical domestic problems inside China.
As you say, no way is PRC a "strategic partner" of the United States -- or of anybody else, for that matter. The regime survives by craftiness and expediency, not by what we in the West might call civilized principles. To me, the biggest mystery of all is that there are American multinational corporations who are so deluded as to think it is possible to do business with PRC.
First of all, this potentially "vast consumer market" seems to be a total mirage. It may be vast, but there's little money there for Western goods (with the exception, as you note, of agricultural products -- the necessities of life). What good is it if there are lots of people with no money to spend? And if you're going there for "cheap labor" -- to pay cheap wages -- they still don't have much money to spend.
A second point is, if any of these multinationals had any sense of history, they should know that confiscations and nationalizations of Western investments have occurred in the past, and could occur again.
There is a third point: if these multinationals continue to work against the national interests of the countries in which they are domiciled, then it seems to me that they ought to be regarded as plainly treasonous -- and prosecutable at law. (Bernie Schwartz from Loral Corp. comes to mind as a recent example; Henry Kissinger possibly might fit the bill also.)
These multinationals have the protection of U.S. law -- contractual, copyright, patent and other (none of which means a thing inside China today) -- which makes it possible for them to do business in the first place. And then they seek to undermine the nation that upholds and defends the very law that protects their interests -- for some perceived benefit that is more illusion than real? This is the part I don't "get."
If U.S.-based multinationals do not feel they have a duty of loyalty to their own country, then maybe they should consider doing business elsewhere. If they think PRC is such a good place, well -- may they relocate there and good luck to them. All their "stuff" would likely end up in the hands of PLA and other elites inside Chinese society in due course, and they'd be given the boot -- or worse.
In the final analysis, there is nothing in Communism that respects the necessary conditions of real economic development: free markets, individual initiative and creativity, the right of private property, the right of contract, etc. Which is why China remains a third-world, economic basket case to this day; and why the Soviet Union finally simply gave up the ghost. And the system cannot be "fixed" as long as the CCP continues to deny the sanctity of the individual. (I'd argue the latter is fundamentally what has made America great.)
Thank you for your excellent contributions, FreepForever. I hope you'll write again, whenever the spirit moves you. Best wishes -- bb.
Allow me to comment on several points. Please understand that these comments are dealing with subtle concepts in relation to the general points made.
To me there appears to be a sudden lack of awareness as to what is going on above this conflict and behind the scenes of what the general public is aware.
When one is in contact with or reading remarks from major multinational leaders of industry, commerce and finance, one hears them using the term 'stable' or seeking 'stability' in the markets they are in or desire to enter. They don't use the term peace or peaceful.
Stability means 'state control of the people'.
Peaceful means 'people controlling themselves'.
The comments from these leaders is that they don't mind who or what controls the people as long as it is stable.
When these leaders try to work in China they are informed that to do business in China they must lobby the USA government to certain situations that are of concern to the Chinese.
The multinationals DO NOT feel any loyalty to the USA over anyother nation. They say they have a loyalty to their shareholders. That money has no morality or ethics.
This was the very reason Kruschev stated that the USA was only concerned about selling things and the USSR would sell the rope to the USA to let the USA hang itsself and 'then we will bury you'.
We the People of the USA hopefully will become aware of how we are being preempted on all sides. This ain't no easy one day conundrum. Pleasure was our state, Blindness was our condition.
We maymake headway on one front, then we have 10 or 12 other fronts on which to work. It is problematic as to how we will be able to work on all fronts at the same time.
Do we even know we have such a problem?
if these multinationals continue to work against the national interests of the countries in which they are domiciled, then it seems to me that they ought to be regarded as plainly treasonous -- and prosecutable at law. (Bernie Schwartz from Loral Corp. comes to mind as a recent example; Henry Kissinger possibly might fit the bill also.)
As you may know, I spent many years within the middle ranks at the headquarters of several multinational corporations and experienced first hand the sense that there were national security and other lines that simply were not crossed juxtaposed with the intense and intensifying drive to grow revenues and profit.
It was a deep and infuriating shock to me when it became known that Loral and others had sold our national security to the Chinese with the complicity of the Clinton Administration, for it was confirmation of the decline of our national moral sense. I had been proud to be a "member" of the U.S. multinational business community.
The glossing over of this most fundamental issue of our national security by our politicians, multinational business community, academia and "media elite" with a voice of unanimous silence is a dereliction of duty so deep as to be inconceivable to me a short few decades ago, and where we find ourselves in this relentless process of degradation is well-described by Paul Craig Roberts in his Washington Times Column. We have been in the process of selling our National Soul. The rot is now pervasive.
In times past, it was nigh on impossible to hold a prominent position without at least being a churchgoer, and that was a suitable salute to the Christian morality -- hard work and honest dealing -- that was, and is, at the root of our prosperity. This last point is so simple and fundamental, and yet we seem so culturally blind to it. Where there is corruption, you will not find prosperity. Pick any nation in Latin America. And resources are not the key. Japan is bereft of resources and Brazil has more natural resources than the United States. And our "leadership" is becoming more corrupt, or at least less courageous and honest, by the year.