I've found a general lack of knowledge of global economics at FR.
And your advancing a theory of trade "entanglement" preventing Chinese aggression proves your supposedly greater understanding? I know this might be a shock to you, but have you considered the novel suggestion that economic "relations" with the U.S. are not the sole explanation, or objective, of Chinese political decisions?
I shouldn't be so stern about this, as you certainly aren't alone making the mistaken assumptions of "trade uber alles", as I will elaborate on below, showing some kindered sentiments expressed even by our President.
In presuming a liberal trade-moderated constraint on the Chinese behavior, can you point out examples where, for sure, they would have commenced war with the West but for the trade "relationship" with the U.S.? Have you read Gordon Thomas's Seeds of Fire? (2002)? Or the testimony of Harry Wu?
And have you read the information provided by Colonel Xu Junping? In January 2001 he was a well-placed Colonel in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)...but he chose to defect to the United States. Col. Xu disclosed that the Bill Clinton sanctioned assassination attempt on Osama bin Laden after the U. S. embassy destruction in Nairobi had failed due to the specific tip-off provided to bin Laden by the Chinese CSIS which facilitated bin Laden’s escape into the mountains of Afghanistan (p. 492).
It would be Colonel Xu who would also inform George Tenet and Condolezza Rice on September 11, 2001 that Osama bin Laden had made several trips to China in the preceding two years. Thomas also adds that on that same fateful Tuesday, Lieutenant General Mahood Ahmed, head of the Pakistani PIS intelligence service, met in Washington with George Tenet to provide briefing material on the relationship of China to both bin Laden and the Taliban, material which dovetailed with the information communicated by Xu Junping in his debriefing. Thomas then proceeds to relate the most ominous information of all, subsequently corroborated by the Washington Times, that on September 11th, a delegation from China comprised of senior officers of the PLA and the Chinese Bureau of State Security, along with representatives of Chinese military defense contractors Huswei Technologies and ZTE, arrived in Kabul, Afghanistan to conclude a political and military provision pact with the Taliban (p. 492), which in turn promised to employ its influence to defuse Islamic militants operating in the northwestern provinces of mainland China. What is the significance of the bin Laden visits to China in the last two years, quite subsequent to the Khobar Towers bombing in Riyadh in 1996 and the American Embassy bombings in Africa in 1998?
Does the Chinese arrival in Kabul on September 11th to consummate a deal with the Taliban suggest a wider and more newly aggressive PLA and CSIS collaboration with al-Qaeda, the PFLP, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Saddam Hussein, and the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)? And is it possible that the continued American embarrassment and consternation over the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden may have resulted in the failure to consider the possibility of the latter’s concealment with an Islamic cell group in northwestern China, with the full shield, knowledge, and concealed consent of Beijing?
The WTO meeting in Doha, Qatar, produced a major plum for the internationalists. Both the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan became members of the World Trade Organization. An interesting speech was made there by President Bush, without much enthusiasm, apparently following a Condi Rice-prepared script, repeated the tired mantra of the free-trade idolaters, expressed the hope that this latest act of appeasement of the Butchers of Beijing will somehow produce reforms in the Communist Chinese government.
"Taking these steps will introduce greater competition into [the economies of China and Taiwan], and mean that both follow the same trade rules as the United States and other trading partners," Bush's speech opined. "This, in turn, will generate greater trade and investment that will bring benefits to businesses, consumers, and workers in all our economies. . . . In the long run, an open, rules-based Chinese economy will be an important underpinning for Chinese democratic reforms."
Bush, adn Rice, unfortunately seem to have forgotten that starry-eyed prognosticators have been saying the same thing for more than 20 years, ever since Deng Xiao Ping instituted the first "democratic" reforms in Communist China in the late 70s. In the ensuing decades, China developed its program of forced abortions, maintained its Laogai system of gulags for political prisoners, massacred pro-freedom demonstrators at Tiananmen Square, stole U. S. military technology and used it to build ICBMs targeted at the U. S., and suborned and corrupted a U. S. President. Nor should we forget that the Chinese military continues its brutal occupation of Tibet and systematic destruction of Tibetan culture. Moreover, the Beijing government has threatened both to invade Taiwan and to attack the United States with nuclear weapons if we intervene to defend Free China.
And as for those long-awaited "democratic reforms," Communist China is still a one-party state, has never held free elections, and continues to persecute religious believers at least as severely as the former Soviet Union. Two decades of trade with the Chinese Communists have only given them the ability to line their own pockets and modernize their military and domestic police-state capabilities. Further economic and political entanglement, via the WTO, will only perpetuate the tragedy of Chinese Communism.
"And your advancing a theory of trade "entanglement" preventing Chinese aggression proves your supposedly greater understanding?"
Quite the ego to assume that. I'll let you be happy with it.
I agree, there is plenty of evidence that we are empowirng the ruling class to further solidify their hold on power internally and prepare to be better able to project it externally. At the same time, they are allowing a marginal increase in the conbdition of the masses (to mollify them), while rapidly increasing the wealth and prestige of the old communist party members.
Trouble is, that membership is relatively large because of the huge opverall population, sonewhere between 80 and 100 million...and 100 million rapidly advancing and wealthy Chinese can put on one heck of a show for our visiting dignitaries and corporate executives.