Posted on 06/16/2002 6:01:09 AM PDT by Enemy Of The State
After collapsing in the early 1990s, Russia is finally finding its peace with itself and its former enemies.
Now we see a Russia that cooperates with the US and other major powers to promote peace and stability around the world. We see a Russia that walks away from confrontations and arms races and rushes toward economic development.
The Russians have reoriented their policies toward privatization and free markets. The US does not yet call the Russian economy a free-market economy. But, given time, the Russians are getting there under a democratic system. A historic evolution of Russia is in progress, from the political, military, economic and ideological archenemy of the West for over half a century to a democratic partner.
The US has achieved one of its long-standing policy goals: to make Europe whole and free.
These developments have placed a lot of pressure on the People's Republic of China. When the Soviet Union collapsed, China's paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, was quoted as saying that the deaths of 20,000 innocent people would not be too a high a price to pay to ensure the survival of the communist regime.
Obviously the Chinese took a different approach from that adopted by the Russians to handle their domestic and foreign-policy problems. Beijing opened up its economy without carrying out any meaningful political reform. China's development was so unbalanced that the gap between the rich and the poor became one of the most extreme in the world. The communist government, which was supposed to take care of the workers and farmers, the disadvantaged class of
China, sacrificed their rights and left them impoverished in the name of better jobs and better living standards.
Even insisting that it needs a stable international environment for its economic development, China, unlike Russia, has not found peace with its own people or its neighbors.
China continues to build up its military as it pursues military modernization and to bully Japan whenever Tokyo offends Beijing.
China has vowed to swallow up Taiwan either by force or by "peaceful means" and has charged that the US is blocking Beijing's goal. China seems either blind to Taiwan's democracy or simply reluctant to face reality.
Of course, the Chinese have exploited their past humiliations and the nationalism of their people. But a regime that depends on nationalism for its survival does so at great risk of being pushed over the brink and facing a situation it may prefer to avoid.
When then US president Richard Nixon and his national security assistant Henry Kissinger seized the split between China and the Soviet Union to play the so-called "China card" to serve the interests of the US, China's Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai willingly played the "US card" to fend off Soviet aggression, while playing the "Russia card" to improve relations with the US at the expense of Taiwan.
These so-called "triangular relations" led to the normalization of relations between the US and China and detente between the US and the Soviet Union. It was credited with ending the Vietnam War. The major victim of the big powers' machinations was Taiwan, which was under Chiang Kai-shek's authoritarian rule and claimed to represent the whole of China, including Mongolia.
China, on the other hand, benefitted so much from playing the "Russia card" that it has tended to forget that that card no longer exists.
Russia is so accommodating to the needs of the US that it raised no objection to American use of military bases in former Soviet republics. Moscow became a partner of NATO in the NATO-Russia Council and is to allow NATO to expand to include former Soviet republics.
American special forces are training troops in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, a scenario that was unthinkable a few years ago. With the disappearance of the "Russia card," it is time for China to adjust and reorient its domestic and foreign policies. The government must reconcile itself with its people, begin long-overdue political reforms and respect human rights.
It should respect Taiwan's right to exist as a democratic and sovereign state if the people of Taiwan so desire.
"It's the economy, stupid," ran former US president Bill Clinton's famous campaign slogan. China's future depends on its economic development and necessary political reforms, not the acquisition of additional territories or the bullying of its neighbors.
China's persistent military build-up and threat to use force against Taiwan could only ruin whatever it has achieved on the economic front and lead China into another disaster.
James Wang is a Washington-based journalist.
The U.S.-Russia alliance promises to be one of the most important events in history.
Not only will it assure the survival of Western Civilization, it can bring peace and prosperity to the entire world.
It has also doomed Chinese and Islamic ambitions for world domination.
It will force the Chinese to cooperate peacefully with the rest of the world and will have the ultimate effect of bringing China peacefully as well as prosperously into the rest of the world.
As for the Islamic world, the best Muslims could hope for would be conversion to Christianity and joining the Western World. However, their second best hope would be a Reformation--a massive overhaul and revision of Islam to make it compatible with the rest of the world (and with truth). Otherwise, they could try isolation--but that has already proven to be unworkable. Or they could continue their self-defeating conflict with the rest of the world and see where that leads...
What Wang neglected to say was this:
The genius behind all this is George W. Bush.
The time and circumstances may be right, yes, but that was not sufficient to make it happen.
Bush has the brilliance, the vision, the leadership ability, and the greatness. He is also a profoundly good, truthful, and decent man. He promises to be one of the greatest Presidents in American history.
If Clinton, Gore, Jimmy Carter(!) or a vast number of other "leaders" had been President of the U.S., this would not have happened.
If this alliance succeeds and fulfills its promises, it will be because of one man: George W. Bush.
Bush promises to be a bigger surprise to history than Harry Truman--and an even greater leader.
Bush is demonstrating greatness everywhere. And it is probable that the best is yet to come.
The biggest mistake they would ever make. China has no dog in the Muslim fight, and by backing a lunatic fringe, they lose any moral position. Aside from sheer numbers, the Chinese don't gain anything by allying with that bunch of third world losers.
While I'm no expert on China, I can only say after 3 trips to China over the course of the last 4 years, the people of China only want a life that is peaceful and not obstructed by all of the phony claptrap being generated by the so called experts on the "Chinese problem".
The Chinese only want to raise their kids in a better world than they had.
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China has vowed to swallow up Taiwan either by force or by "peaceful means" and has charged that the US is blocking Beijing's goal. China seems either blind to Taiwan's democracy or simply reluctant to face reality.
The CCP wants to have its cake and eat it too. They literally believe one party dictatorial leadership is the only and best way to do things. Without them there is no “China”
To the average guy on the street, to some extent thats true. And in a way that is, and isn't the problem.
In and of itself, that is a good thing, to want a better life. And we want it for them. Period.
The way it is bad is that there is a government standing in between the people and those people coming to a real understanding of the world, Taiwan, and the US. What about the phony claptrap the CCP dishes out?
By the way, they don't like people talking about them, sure, I know. Many of the things said about China though are completely true.
The true aims of many of the common people do not square at all with the true aims of the Communist Party, and economics isn't the whole thing. The CCP is trying to save their own butts. Instead of being a dictatorship, they want to be a rich dictatorship.
The CCP lies, and hides, and decieves. They hide behind the face of people who know no different.
What they don't realize is, that when the time comes to step on their toes, the CCP will go around promising things to other people to inspire them "not to care"...stepped on his toes? I didn't see anything...
No more kid gloves for China if I can help it. If they point a missle at Taiwan, which the CCP has never owned, we should point a missle at Beijing. Taiwan only matters because the CCP doesn't like second opinions...
They want to bring Taiwan (and possibly the other neighbors) under the social order of "Communism with Chinese characteristics", which means 'CCP rule, and NO you can't challenge that'. What happens if we all, including Taiwan reject that?
There are competing systems, and the CCP is trying to survive and make its imposed system survive.
Its all about power.
Bully Japan ? Whenever some Japanese general or politician mouths off about all the wonderful things Japan did for China between 1937 and 1945 I don't mind one bit that the Chinese complain and force him to eat crow.
And you know this . . . how?
If you have inside information, please share it with the rest of us.
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