-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a prelude to war! The American Legion Magazine Are the United States and China on a collision course? By FRANK J. GAFFNEY, JR. March Issue, Vol. 148, No. 3 The single-most important strategic question of the coming decade is likely to be: Is Communist China determined to harm the United States or its vital interests? The second-most important question is: If so, can conflict between our nations be avoided on terms that are consistent with the American people's security and liberties? Before examining these important issues, consider this observation about forecasts: There are few inevitabilities in the course of human conduct. Decisions taken - or not taken - at various points along the road can and do shape history. In hindsight, events may appear to be inevitable. But they rarely are. The trouble is that, when living through a transitional period, we often are unaware of the turning points, of the choices being made. For example, take the period that led up to World War II. Today we can clearly see evidence that the Nazis and Japanese were pursuing courses that would bring them into conflict with the United States and other Western democracies. We can also see the missed opportunities during the 1930s when different policies on the part of this country, Britain and France might have spared the world the conflagration that followed. Yet at the time, the democracies were lulled into inaction by the seductive appeal of those who claimed that engaging with the thugs running Germany and Japan on their terms - a practice that came to be known as "appeasement" - would spare the West the tragic costs of another conflict. This approach was tried again and again in the face of what proved to be insatiable demands by members of the fascist Axis. Feeding the tiger only made it come back for more. Despite the fact that Great Britain and Nazi Germany were each other's largest trading partners, the war came when it suited Hitler. What Beijing Wants. Unfortunately, I believe there is increasing evidence that a new conflict with an authoritarian regime is in prospect, this time with Communist China. As in the 1930s, this evidence is somewhat obscured by other information - what intelligence experts call "noise." Some of it is genuine. Some of it is misinformation. The difficulty of understanding which is greatly compounded by the efforts of those, like their counterparts of 60 years ago, who tell us that engagement will prevent conflict, that expanding trade and accommodation of China's demands will ensure that peaceful relations between our two countries are preserved. In fact, trade and accommodation will not necessarily prevent conflict with the People's Republic of China any more than it caused Hitler to refrain from attacking Britain's allies and, in due course, England herself. China is, after all, not the United States' "strategic partner." As in the 1930s, we ignore evidence of a coming struggle with China at our peril. If anything will make that conflict inevitable, it will be our failure to address what the PRC is up to and the strategic implications of that behavior and policies that guide it for our vital interests and those of our allies in Asia. Ominous Trends. Consider the following illustrative list of China's ominous activities. Motivation and likely repercussions of these activities must be separate from the "noise" and addressed effectively. The PRC's ambitious military modernization program: The Communist Chinese are engaged in what Mao might have called a "Great Leap Forward" in the lethality and power projection capabilities of their armed forces. The purpose of this effort is clear to those guiding the PRC's People's Liberation Army: to neutralize (preferably without a war) and, if necessary, defeat what the PLA's political commissars constantly refer to as "the main enemy" - the United States. Importantly, this effort is guided by a strategy of Sun Tzu, ancient China's most famous warrior-philosopher. It is not meant to replicate America's mighty military. Rather, it is being guided by a desire to find "asymmetric" means of exploiting our vulnerabilities. These have been identified as including: the United States' dependence on space for communications, navigation and reconnaissance; the susceptibility of our advanced electronic equipment to devastating electromagnetic pulse weapons; the current inability of the U.S. Navy to stop the sort of supersonic, anti-ship missiles China is now acquiring from Russia; and the absence of American defenses against ballistic missiles. Particularly worrisome is the fact that China is acquiring the capability to exploit these vulnerabilities. Worse yet, this is being done, in no small measure, via technology acquired legally or illegally from the United States as well as through a growing strategic alliance with Russia. Dividing and intimidating U.S. allies in the region: The Chinese are shrewdly exploiting their North Korean clients' ballistic missile programs (as well as brandishing the PRC's own inventory of offensive missiles). A principal goal is to convince Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines and South Korea that their ally, the United States, is a declining power incapable of defending them, making accommodation with Beijing the only option for containing the threat. China's president, Jiang Zemin, has made the point directly and bluntly in announcing that "Asian values" (code words for authoritarian subordination of the rights of the individual to the good of the masses) are a basis for a "new world order." China's espionage: In the wake of the still-unfolding spy scandal at Los Alamos, there is a growing awareness of the unprecedented magnitude of PRC efforts to collect classified and other sensitive information in the United States. Notably, Paul Moore, who for many years served as the FBI's top counterintelligence expert for China, has described this effort as massive, comprehensive, patient and deadly. It differs dramatically from the problem posed by Soviet moles and other agents during the Cold War. By exploiting the family ties and sentimental attachment to the motherland of many overseas Chinese, the pool of individuals who can be induced or compelled to gather even seemingly inconsequential data makes the challenge of tracking, to say nothing of counteracting, PRC espionage stupifyingly difficult. China's penetration of our hemisphere: From Canada to Brazil, Beijing is making steady inroads into the Western hemisphere. Its operations include: drug, alien and arms smuggling operations; replacing the Soviet Union as Cuba's principal international patron; developing military ties with America's friends like Ecuador and Paraguay; militarily relevant space cooperation with Brazil; introducing PLA combat engineer brigades into Latin America in the name of assisting in infrastructure development; and securing, via a Chinese company with close ties to the PRC's military and intelligence services, effective control of the Panama Canal. The PRC's increasing assertiveness around the Pacific Rim and Asia: In Pakistan and Myanmar, in Malaysia and waters claimed by the Philippines, Beijing is establishing relationships, bases and intelligence collection facilities that offer China unprecedented opportunities to project its power and influence. Chinese proliferation: The PRC sees its trade in weapons technology as a powerful vehicle for winning friends and influence with useful rogue states such as Libya, Syria, Iraq, Iran and North Korea. By so doing, the Chinese are greatly exacerbating the power of anti-U.S. forces. Penetration of the U.S. capital markets by PLA and Chinese government-affiliated entities: These entities are raising billions of dollars from largely unsuspecting American investors via debt and equity offerings. The effect is a "two-fer" for Beijing: It can simultaneously secure vast new quantities of largely non-transparent, undisciplined funds while giving potentially millions of our countrymen a vested interest in the appeasement of China lest their pension funds, life insurance portfolios, mutual funds or other investments be jeopardized. China's penetration of the U.S. political system: Finally, there is the appearance that illegal Chinese campaign contributions may have shaped the Clinton-Gore administration's policies toward China. Affected areas appear to include: presidential decisions about the transfers of satellite and missile technology; the sale of hugely powerful supercomputers; distancing the United States from its long-time ally, Taiwan; looking the other way on China's human rights violations; and the PRC's accession to the World Trade Organization on terms favorable to Beijing. This behavior is all the more worrisome when it comes against the backdrop of significant internal unrest in China. Will Beijing use external aggression as a pretext for imposing greater control at home and diverting public anger from the government to foreign "barbarians" - a technique known as "social imperialism" often exploited by authoritarian regimes in trouble? What Can and Should We Do? If we have the wit to understand these policies for what they are - actual or potential threats to our security and vital interests - there are several things we can do to mitigate, if not eliminate, the danger they pose. The first would be to adopt a new policy of engagement. This would involve a concerted effort to resist the communist regime and work on bringing about its downfall as Ronald Reagan worked to destroy an earlier "Evil Empire." Such a policy would brook no further trade subsidies for China and intensify outreach efforts, through Radio Free Asia and other means, to those inside the PRC anxious to bring about its complete transformation to a democratic nation. The United States should also be focusing on rebuilding our allies' confidence in American power and security guarantees, something sorely lacking today and critically needed if we are to reinvigorate and expand our relations with other democracies in Asia. A second initiative would reinforce the first by sharing critical defensive capabilities with those in Asia with whom we share democratic values. A top priority, in light of the growing threat posed by Chinese and others' long-range missiles, would be for the United States to build and deploy effective anti-missile defenses for both our forces and allies overseas and for the American people here at home. The way to acquire this capability fastest, most effectively and least expensively is from the sea, by giving the Navy's AEGIS fleet air defense system the ability to shoot down ballistic missiles. Finally, we must preserve the ultimate guarantor of our security, and that of our allies: America's nuclear deterrent. The Senate's recent rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty - which would have denied us the one proven means of assuring the safety, reliability and effectiveness of our arsenal - was a step in the right direction. We must now act to assure those criteria are satisfied for the foreseeable future by conducting periodic underground nuclear tests and taking sensible steps to upgrade our current nuclear inventory. By making prudent choices, we may not be able to prevent an ultimate conflict with Communist China. But we will be acting to minimize that horrible prospect and to put ourselves in the strongest possible position to deal with it in the event the collision proves unavoidable. **COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soap-boxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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