Adam's Apple
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- Apr 25, 2004
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Get Real about China
By Frank J. Gaffney Jr., The Washington Times
November 15, 2005
Such a review is made all the more necessary insofar as the U.S.-China Commission notes the United States lacks a "coherent strategic framework... grounded in a clear-eyed understanding of how the Chinese military and political leadership leads the country, how decisions are made and how their economy works... . China is an authoritarian regime and a nonmarket command economy still controlled by the Communist Party. The central goal of its leadership is maintaining its own power, at all costs."
It flows from this basic insight that we must be concerned about such developments as:
* The persistent assertion by the Chinese leadership to their political cadre and military officers that America is the "main enemy" and that war with the United States is "inevitable."
* Official Chinese efforts to secure energy resources from all over the world to meet its yawning needs (notably for oil, coal and natural gas) in a way that seems meant to deny such resources to the U.S. and other global competitors.
* The PRC's predatory trade practices and intellectual property theft that continue in violation of past commitments and World Trade Organization obligations. In part, the result is a bilateral trade deficit that has increased "over 140 percent in only four years." The wealth thus garnered by China is used -- among other things -- to fuel the plundering of America's remaining high-technology industrial base and the utter liquidation of our manufacturing sector.
* Wealth transfers from the United States are underwriting Beijing's ominous build-up of its armed forces, as well. The commission says: "China is engaged in a major military modernization program, the motives of which are opaque and unexplained. It is building a modern navy and air force, upgrading its nuclear-armed ICBM force and beginning to operate in a power-projection mode. It has markedly expanded its information warfare operations to a level that is clearly designed to disrupt American systems."
The commission has also helpfully warned about the PRC's increasingly bringing economic dinosaurs -- its biggest "banks" and other state-owned enterprises -- to the U.S. capital markets. By so doing, it is offloading the financing of otherwise unsustainable entities onto American investors. As a result, the latter are unwittingly helping underwrite the unsavory activities of such enterprises -- including: China's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, arms build-up, environmental depredation, technology theft (including the Navy's Aegis fleet air defense system and nuclear warhead designs), espionage and slave-labor manufacturing operations, etc.
Finally, China is engaged in activities that pose a more immediate danger. Two of its nationals were recently arrested trying to sell Chinese-made QW-2 man-portable surface-to-air missiles in this country. Had they done so, the result could have given rise to a potentially grave threat to American airliners. And Chinese micro-satellites are being readied to attack our space assets as another, potentially devastating manifestation of Beijing's pursuit of what the Pentagon calls "asymmetric warfare" capabilities against the United States.
for full article:
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20051114-102617-3641r.htm
By Frank J. Gaffney Jr., The Washington Times
November 15, 2005
Such a review is made all the more necessary insofar as the U.S.-China Commission notes the United States lacks a "coherent strategic framework... grounded in a clear-eyed understanding of how the Chinese military and political leadership leads the country, how decisions are made and how their economy works... . China is an authoritarian regime and a nonmarket command economy still controlled by the Communist Party. The central goal of its leadership is maintaining its own power, at all costs."
It flows from this basic insight that we must be concerned about such developments as:
* The persistent assertion by the Chinese leadership to their political cadre and military officers that America is the "main enemy" and that war with the United States is "inevitable."
* Official Chinese efforts to secure energy resources from all over the world to meet its yawning needs (notably for oil, coal and natural gas) in a way that seems meant to deny such resources to the U.S. and other global competitors.
* The PRC's predatory trade practices and intellectual property theft that continue in violation of past commitments and World Trade Organization obligations. In part, the result is a bilateral trade deficit that has increased "over 140 percent in only four years." The wealth thus garnered by China is used -- among other things -- to fuel the plundering of America's remaining high-technology industrial base and the utter liquidation of our manufacturing sector.
* Wealth transfers from the United States are underwriting Beijing's ominous build-up of its armed forces, as well. The commission says: "China is engaged in a major military modernization program, the motives of which are opaque and unexplained. It is building a modern navy and air force, upgrading its nuclear-armed ICBM force and beginning to operate in a power-projection mode. It has markedly expanded its information warfare operations to a level that is clearly designed to disrupt American systems."
The commission has also helpfully warned about the PRC's increasingly bringing economic dinosaurs -- its biggest "banks" and other state-owned enterprises -- to the U.S. capital markets. By so doing, it is offloading the financing of otherwise unsustainable entities onto American investors. As a result, the latter are unwittingly helping underwrite the unsavory activities of such enterprises -- including: China's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, arms build-up, environmental depredation, technology theft (including the Navy's Aegis fleet air defense system and nuclear warhead designs), espionage and slave-labor manufacturing operations, etc.
Finally, China is engaged in activities that pose a more immediate danger. Two of its nationals were recently arrested trying to sell Chinese-made QW-2 man-portable surface-to-air missiles in this country. Had they done so, the result could have given rise to a potentially grave threat to American airliners. And Chinese micro-satellites are being readied to attack our space assets as another, potentially devastating manifestation of Beijing's pursuit of what the Pentagon calls "asymmetric warfare" capabilities against the United States.
for full article:
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20051114-102617-3641r.htm
