The list of military "provocations" grows longer: outlandish territorial claims in the South China Sea, and vilification of Hillary Clinton who has the temerity to challenge them; installation of more than 1,000 ballistic weapons aimed at Taiwan; confrontation on the high seas with Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines; year-on-year military spending increases of 13 percent since 1989, with defense budgets now approaching at least $80 billion; production of the nation's first national aircraft carrier and development of an anti-ship missile that can strike from 900 miles away.
China's bark is worse than its bite.
The Communist Party is ramping up the country's military capabilities -- the Economist estimates that the PRC's spending will exceed America's by the middle of the next decade -- but China will never invade other countries or confront the military supremacy of the United States. Its primary concern is, and always has been, defense, an understandable one given its history. For a credible analysis of China's modern fighting force, scour Pentagon briefings. But to get a sense of the Beijing's pacifist instincts, come for a visit.
Every tourist monument built to last was built to protect. China offers little of transcendent delight. There is no Chinese Taj Mahal, no Eiffel Tower. The Great Wall was built to shield the nation from nomadic invasion. The Forbidden City, raised during the early Ming dynasty as a bulwark against the Mongols, is a fortress, replete with moats, turrets, and a labyrinthine inner structure. Beijing's magnificent Temple of Heaven was accessible only to emperors. Traditional Chinese homes ensured not only physical safety but also hierarchical and cosmological security. Southern Hakka clans constructed gigantic circular edifices that housed entire villages during attacks. Shi Huangdi, China's ruthless first emperor, carved thousands of terra cotta warriors for protection in the afterlife.
Even today, manifestations of China's protective instinct are everywhere. Thick walls topped with glass shards and barbed wires obstruct views of Shanghai's lovely French concession manors. Inside luxury apartment buildings, the front doors of individual units are double-gated. Safeguard, the leading soap brand for 25 years, is popular because of "germ protection." Engagement rings mean commitment, not romantic love. Anti-toxicity drives premium paint sales. Martial arts, a perennial passion, teach defense, not offense. Products, from bread to staplers, are sold triple-wrapped in cellophane. Taxi drivers steer from behind cages.
Chinese shield themselves from danger, real or imagined. They are not a people itching for war. They want unity. They will not support militarily aggressive governments, including their own. If Taiwan declares independence, the People's Liberation Army will invade the island. But, in Chinese eyes, this extreme act will not be perceived as aggressive -- it is being done to defend sacred borders. Will forces of paranoia trigger an act of irrational, preemptive self-defense? If an ossified Communist Party invades Taiwan as a last-ditch effort to rally a low-growth nation, things could get ugly. But given China's penchant for incremental reform, it seems unlikely. If the United States accepts the inevitability of sharing the spotlight with a resurgent China, Beijing will keep cool.
The Chinese are pragmatists. They know China's ascent will not continue without Western complicity. No matter how successful the central government is in rebalancing the economy toward domestic consumption, exports to Western markets, which have fueled more than 60 percent of economic expansion since 1990, will determine growth rates for decades to come. Importantly, China has always productively engaged with other societies from Indian Buddhism to American capital markets, absorbing new influences and applying them in Chinese contexts. It has also learned from the thirty years of economic and social disaster triggered by post-Liberation isolation that walls, at least outside cyberspace, are counterproductive. In China, there is no desire, even among reactionary military factions, to become divorced from global forces of progress. As one street-smart 60-year-old confided, "We're afraid of not having any friends."
In the end, how China behaves in the 21st century has a lot to do with the West. Many of the tensions of contemporary China -- between rich and poor, city and rural, ruler and ruled, insiders and outsiders -- are eternal. So is the country's resourcefulness. Geopolitical "harmony" is as much our choice as theirs. Given an adolescent economy and an immature body politic, China must focus on domestic imperatives. America also has work to do -- the population is aging, generational and ethnic divides are clear-cut, the economy is becoming ever more reliant on creative innovation. May both nations be blessed with leadership enlightened enough to embrace a new world order.
This essay is excerpted from my upcoming book, What Chinese Want: Culture, Communism and China's Modern Consumer, to be published by Palgrave Macmillan in May 2012.
Tom Engelhardt: Offshore Everywhere
China is heavily dependent on Natural Gas from Iran and Oil from Saudi Arabia and Iran.
US navy has moved away from south East Asia to Persian Gulf to signal to China that US seeks confrontation by controlling China indirectly. China does not like that move at all and that's why she is dumping dollar and replace it with Gold and started to deal with Iran by using Gold as exchange currency.
China will get involved in Iran/US war guaranteed.
The conflict with Iran will benefit Russia only.
Removing 15 billion barrel of Oil from market will send the Oil prices to $300 per barrel and Russia can become a financial powerhouse almost overnight at the expense of Europe.
US is almost self-sufficient and is not concerned about the Oil shortage. That's why US is not afraid to interfere in Iran and indirectly strangle China.
I am just not sure if US uses Iran as leverage to make China to change her trade policies or US is serious about making war with Iran and removing 40% of Oil Chinese need off the market.
I agree they are not going to invade America. They are planning to defend their future occupations against American involvement though.
Certainly success at trade, diplomacy and industry will beat any war any time. However: is Sinkiang 'Chinese'? Is Tibet? Mongolia? Manchuria? Hunan? Taiwan? And what about those wars with Vietnam and India and Korea? Or the proxy wars in Laos and Burma? And are we counting the demographic colonialism in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the pacific? Fact is, territorial empires like China expand DIFFERENTLY than commercial trading empires like the USA. Still, as long as the Chinese are growing, why would they wage war?
China and Russia are both profoundly continental powers. They will exert power and influence anywhere they can walk to. Both wish to extend that reach, and will when they can. Our best course (very sarcastically speaking) would be to abandon Germany and Japan, leave them to their own devices, let them re-arm (both are fully capable, if reluctant to commit any of their prosperity toward defending themselves) and then let Russia face Germany (again) and let China face Japan (again).
They say that the 50th Anniversary is the last anniversary, after that those who were there are too old to reliably gather to remember. We're past that now, so repeating history should be just around the corner. After a good part of the past 40 years spent on the China Coast, I consider this article facile and fashionable, but insubstantial.
It won't happen overnight for China, but they can be quick learners.
I am not an expert on flight deck operations, but I spent untold hours replenishing carriers while they conducted flight deck ops, and I worked with people who were experts. Merely getting an airplane aloft, and then recovering it, is only the teensy-tiny tip of the iceberg of carrier ops. By the time the Chinese master it, it will be obsolete. But they'ill certainly impress a lot of folks along the way.
I would put a 100% tariff on all incoming Chinese goods until they agree to open their economy to American goods, and open their currency up to free market trading. I would also charge them reparations for the damage done by their hackers and deduct it from the debt we owe them.
Study the books written by Dr Joseph Needahm and Dr. Lin Yutang, French historian ..About admiral Zheng He in early fifteen century before Colubus set out his journey looking for China and India. , You will all find out the truth about Chinese history and development.
If the American people paid 1/10 the attention to the reality of their own lives and national situation that they devote to sporting events like tonight's grand spectacle, they could never be so easily suckered.
None of us will live to see China become the "threat" that the Military Industrial Complex put them up to be to justify the expenditures of new submarines, aircraft carriers, F-22/F-35/V-22 aircraft to do battle with the phantom menaces we are told await us.
War with China is "just around the corner" the way "victory" in Iraq and Afghanistan have always been "just around the corner".