Posted on 10/13/2020 10:33:30 AM PDT by Kaslin
"The Indians are seeing 60,000 Chinese soldiers on their northern border," Secretary of State Michael Pompeo ominously warned on Friday.
He spelled out what he meant to commentator Larry O'Connor:
"The Chinese have now begun to amass huge forces against India in the north. ... They absolutely need the United States to be their ally and partner in this fight."
Pompeo had just returned from a Tokyo gathering of foreign ministers from the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or "Quad," the group of four democracies -- U.S., Japan, Australia, India -- whose purpose is to discuss major Indo-Pacific geostrategic issues.
Exactly what kind of "ally and partner" the U.S. is to be "in the fight" between India and China over disputed terrain in the Himalayan Mountains was left unexplained. We have no vital interest in where the Line of Control between the most populous nations on earth should lie that would justify U.S. military involvement with a world power like China.
And the idea that Japan, whose territorial quarrel with China is over the tiny Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, thousands of miles away, would take sides in a Himalayan India-China conflict also seems ludicrous.
Yet, tensions are rising between the U.S. and China, as the list of ideological, political and economic clashes continues to lengthen.
And there is a transparent new reality: China seems in no mood to back down.
When, after a year of demonstrations for greater democracy, the Hong Kong government failed to quell the uprising, Beijing stepped in and took control. The U.S.-led democracies that had been cheering on the Hong Kong marchers and protesters did nothing, and they have done nothing since to reverse Xi Jinping's political coup but prattle on about "values."
Lately, the democracies have been protesting, and rightly so, the inhumane treatment of the Uighur peoples in Xinjiang in China's west.
Han Chinese have been moved into the region to swamp the local population of Turkic and Muslim Uighurs and Kazakhs and bring about the demographic change Beijing desires. "Reeducation camps" have been established to cleanse Uighurs of their ethnic and religious identities and convert them into loyal and reliable Chinese Communists.
In a speech in late September, Xi declared that Beijing's policy of eradicating the ethnic and religious identity of the minorities of Xinjiang through state-driven education has proven "totally correct."
He vowed to imprint a Chinese identity "deep in the soul" of the peoples living there. "Our national minority work has been a success," said Xi, "It must be held to for the long term."
Xi makes no apology for -- indeed, he is proud of -- using state power to impose the state ideology upon the peoples he rules, and he openly repudiates our democratic values as inapplicable in his country.
Our rejection of China's claims to virtually all of the reefs and atolls in the South China Sea is also being ignored. Beijing's warnings grow louder and more pointed as the U.S. continues to send warships, the latest being the USS John McCain, close to islets claimed by China.
What is our strategy here? Are we prepared for a naval and air clash in these waters? What would be the U.S. strategic goal?
The Chinese are now responding angrily and defiantly to what they see as the provocations of sending high-level U.S. officials, and selling new weapons, to Taiwan, which China regards as its lost province.
Again, what is our purpose in playing the Taiwan card now?
If it is to provoke a fight, then are we prepared for a war in the Taiwan Strait or South China Sea? Do we think the Chinese will capitulate?
Is this being done to "stand up to China" before Nov. 3?
Which is the party here that is engaged in bluster and bluff and which is the party that seems deadly serious as it views its vital interests and territorial rights as challenged?
There has been talk of the Quad evolving into an Asian NATO that embraces the major democracies in the Indo-Pacific Theater.
But the essence of NATO is Article V, where the U.S. commits itself to treat an attack on any one of some 30 nations as an attack on us.
Is there anything like this in the cards?
Australia, Japan and the U.S. are not going to war with China over its border with India, or its ethnic concentration camps in Xinjiang, or its seizing Hong Kong and atolls in the South China Sea.
When this election is over, this country has to think through what we are and are not willing to fight China for.
Xi Jinping dismisses our concerns over Hong Kong and the Uighurs, and he appears willing to fight for Taiwan and for what Beijing holds in the South China Sea, rather than see it permanently lost.
Are we?
Could care less about the Uighurs, we helped the Taliban vs the Russians and look how that turned out.
I don’t care about an Indian/China war either, except if millions of refugees decide to come here.
The Chinese are getting froggy...
Not if Biden gets in. All the Chinese have to do is given Hunter Biden $1.5 billion and Joe Biden will cave into every demand by China.
The Chinese Communist Party(there is no China) should worry about the Countries around it , they all want a piece of the action
what’s the downside to this?
Agreed. China is a rival to the USA, but am glad Uighers are their problem, not ours.
An alliance as suggested can hold China in check and prevent war. Historically, periods of Chinese expansion end up blocked as the neighbors align against Chinese imperial ambitions.
China will go total Fu Manchu on India.
China will go total Tibet on Taiwan.
China will go full Pearl Harbor on U.S. in the Pacific.
Just after, or before, Biden is sworn in as President.
Commiela, Xillary, DiFi and the Dem apparatus will advise we do nothing in response except write some stern letters of protest. Then they’ll turn around and prosecute Trump for Treason, throwing him and his family in prison.
Thus is born the New World Order.
Red Francis’s Liberation Theology wet dream come true.
We already are in one!
Wiping each other out is a bad thing?
Someone needs to wake Pat up and tell him to read his Sun Tzu. China will not go to war with us until they have won.
This may happen (eek) in late January. Hopefully not.
(Even if it does, it won’t go that way. The D’s will simply abandon Taiwan, etc. just like they did Saigon.)
If not, it will have to wait a few years.
They are patient.
Either way, anyone in that area of the world who expects the millennials to lift a finger to help them is deluded or worse. They’re on their own, and tough luck, that’s just the way it is.
But RIGHT NOW is the time to push back against Red China - kicking the can down the road (HW Bush, Clinton, W, Obama), got us nothing but deeper trouble.
What would Pat have us do? apologize to the Chicoms and ask forgiveness?
China is in serious financial straights, also - they can hardly afford a conflict right now.
Welcome to FR.
5.56mm
Quietly helping our allies behind the scenes, yes. But nothing more! The old Roman Empire simply had to be involved in everything everywhere. And we all know how that turned out for them.
“There is no China”
Taiwan might disagree with you about that...
My preference would be to do absolutely no trade with china. I'm sick of their junk. Start buying from India and other places if we can't or won't make stuff here.
Bullies always win until they are stopped by enormous pressure.
Treaties signed by liars are worthless.
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