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USA and China - war?

 

 

“America and China –War? How ludicrous!” You may scoff- and in so doing, you could comfortably consider yourself a member of the vast majority …today.

 

In recent modern history however, on no less than a diplomatic level, China actually threatened to unleash an ICBM with multiple warheads now targeted on Los Angeles, if the U.S. was ever to militarily interfere with any military move China deems necessary in the long-term repatriation process with her “renegade province”, Taiwan.

 

This Examiner asks you to consider the verity of the phrase “past is prelude”. While history may not repeat itself with precision, it often seems to have had a cold tendency to rhyme. We can not help but reflect upon a few historical torch passings of global power, as it has moved from Athens to Rome, on to London and from there to Washington D.C. Today, all appears to be moving toward Beijing.

 

Here is the central dilemma we, as United Stators in 2009 now face:

 

Back in the world as it was in 1955, the U.S. signed a mutual security treaty with Taiwan, pledging to come to her defense in case of an attack from mainland China. Full, formal diplomatic relations were established and Taiwan, not Beijing, was given a highly coveted permanent seat with veto power on the United Nations Security Council.

 

Then known as Formosa, the island to which the 1949 vanquished-by-Communists retreated (capital Taipei), became  the embodiment of what the diplomatic (UN) world recognized as China via the UN Security Council. Taiwan, island of the non-communist “nationalists” led by Chiang Kai Shek was a bargaining chip seemingly sold down the river by Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon, just to rock old arch-nemesis USSR back on its heels. Many saw it as a brilliant stroke of real-politik during that stage of the Vietnam War (1971), that is, an effective means by which to drive a wedge between China and the USSR.

 

As events in the early 1970’s transpired, Taiwan was summarily dropped from the all-powerful five-member permanent UN Security Council and Beijing, -Communist China- was formally recognized. This both horrified and frustrated Moscow. Mao was suddenly cleaved from the Marxist-Leninist fold and offered both international prestige/recognition as well as what since, has proven to be a revolutionary explosion in her materialist ascension  towards the Western Way(from factory, to skyscraper and back to McDonalds*).   

 

In exchange, Taiwan got a winky-winky from D.C. and to Beijing’s horror and frustration, has ever since, been the recipient of $$$ billions in sophisticated, state-of-the-art military equipment and training. From F-16 jets to destroyers, submarines, helicopters, missiles, and more, the U.S. has hammered home General Douglas MacArthur’s observation of Taiwan as "An unsinkable aircraft carrier". The possible U.S. sale to Taiwan of Aegis weapons systems (ship-mounted systems that include an advanced radar capable of detecting, tracking and destroying more than 100 possible targets at once) has Beijing quietly mounting a First Class US-level military. Aegis's computer-based command and control component can provide guidance to direct weapons against threats in the air, underwater, or on the surface and now,  Beijing is responding with her tremendous $$$ war chest to counter this island threat, far closer to her, than say, Cuba, is to America.              

 

It is hardly reassuring that along the way, Communist Beijing China successfully stole plans for the U.S. enhanced radiation or "neutron" bomb. This tool-of- horror leaves buildings and infrastructure intact, instantly killing all life, whether we're talking about "a mere" seven or eight thousand in a U.S. 7th Fleet aircraft carrier battle group, or the entire population of the Los Angeles basin, -as we were “diplomatically” notified.

 

Internally divided, China presents the US with something of an enigma between its more moderate governmental arm overseeing trade and economics, The People’s Republic of China (PRC) and her version of all things D.o.D. / Pentagon, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Those two opposing camps balance each other while lording over one billion-five-hundred-million souls. While we have our far simpler Donkey vs. Elephant disputes over budget allocations and the social engineering of our three hundred million souls.

 

A staunch member of the PLA once gave us this gem to ponder;

 

 

 

 

Before moving forward to discuss the current state of affairs (both economically and militarily) and at the risk of spraying atomized nitromethane onto the spark here, perhaps we might pause to consider the oft-quoted and oft forgotten words of Mao Zedong. Like many major figures throughout history, his attributed quotes have undergone a hackjob. It passes as a given that somewhere, to someone Mao once intoned that China could ‘lose a billion people and continue to fight…’ the closest reliable quote I ever found along those lines is this;

 

 

 

This Examiner has never quite been able to dismiss the profundity of that general message, particularly since one must take into account these facts;

 

 

·        China’s entire military infrastructure is largely unknown, modern and built deeply into her mountains –like North Vietnam and North Korea. (Witness CIA “Slam Dunk” advice to Bush Jr. and where that led us…) Russia’s intelligence network might have more accurate knowledge, but neither Britain’s MI6 nor our governmental intelligence services have proven themselves aces -any better than the SEC watching Wall Street -but I digress…

 

·        Regarding his fellow Communist Mao’s comment cited above, this Examiner  acknowledges, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev’s oft-quoted (and now laughable) gushing;

 

 

 

·        Still, China is not the old USSR who, like the USA, has everything military and satellite observable, up, out and in the open –Fort this, Camp that… (SIGNIFICANT exception, nuclear submarine forces).     

 

While the current U.S. sub-prime-mortgage-induced global economic “slowdown” has infected the world with shrinking GDP’s, (recession by definition), China is merely suffering a reduction in fantastic growth to more moderate levels. Despite today’s global recession, China continues to adhere to her enormous jump in spending on defense budgets from 10% to 18% of GDP. As historical parallels go, Germany in the in the 1930's can not be overlooked at this point—even though then, she was, along with the USA, in terrible financial condition. Not so with China -today.

 

It is sheer coincidence, but as of this writing, the estimates on just how much of America’s wealth has evaporated in the current banking-crises-cum-recession, is a staggering sum of $2 trillion (housing values plus equity market losses). That also happens to be the number many economists have come to think it will ultimately take to capital infuse U.S. banks back to some sense of pre-collapse in lending faith! The real coincidence however,  is that $2 trillion also happens to be the amount China’s government has in reserves, making her the worlds #1 economy not in terms of the standard measure GDP, but the now-envious and meaningful measure: liquidity.

 

Accordingly, it comes as no surprise that China’s next “Giant Leap” consists of her having announced that she is about to embark on the coup de grace of modern military achievement: The production of her first nuclear aircraft carrier- long the defense industry’s ultimate symbol of raw global power projection. As a former U.S. Naval Officer and Aviator, this Examiner can emphatically state with somber recognition, when it comes to all things military, there can be no more grave threat to the current Western world order than the prospect of that template being followed by a WWII-era Kaiser ship-like building program. It may come across as somewhat Churchillian, but this Examiner expects no less of China…              

    

An old Latin adage runs Si vis pacem, para bellum: ‘If you wish peace, prepare for war’. Many historians have noted that had London and Paris heeded this lesson, a brief pre-emption toward Hitler in 1938 might well have saved Europe from the hell that broke out in 1939.

 

At this point, I ask my reader not to race ahead, pre-concluding that I’m some hard core right wing chicken hawk with an Israeli-type “first strike” agenda toward The People’s Republic of China. Far from it. We must however, open ourselves to the consideration of flexible policy adjustments while remaining as militarily strong as we have ever been.

 

That does not equate to Neville Chamberlain-like “appeasement”, rather, the United States will need to engage the Peoples Republic of China on a policy level in a progressively thoughtful manner. In the not-too-terribly-distant future, the importance of U.S. demand for China’s exports will give way to that of her own far more numerous peoples. When questioned, the reason given by “Washington” as to why the Japan would never attack the U.S. was “trade- they have too much to lose”. Then came Sunday December 7, 1941. It turned out that sanctions Washington imposed against Japan in retribution for making war against China (and in particular, U.K. and French imperial holdings), set Japan off against the U.S. They gambled that a “blitzkrieg” against our largest Pacific Naval base would hobble us for years to come.

 

Today, not sanctions, but protectionist trade sentiment looms as a possibility between China and the U.S. A trade war is the last thing the world needs and could ultimately lead to unforeseen consequences, as China grows ever stronger militarily.    

 

Not so very long ago, China was an economic collection of dust. Today, she is undergoing ignition and fast becoming a central star. The UK has been there and so has the USA. This revolution is Copernican. Indeed, as China’s middle class consumption society grows, the world will come to see that the USA is no longer at the center of things. To avoid horrors worse than seen in the last century, this transition must be peaceful and executed with honor, by the wisest of men and women.

 

 

Golden Arches Theory