JstSyNo! to another cold war

http://ic.voxcap.com/issues/issue402/item10370.asp Beware Another Cold War by R. Thomas Berner Monday, September 18, 2000 Just before the Democrats showed up in Los Angeles, several newspapers carried stories about a classified intelligence report that suggested how other countries might react if the United States created a missile shield. The reaction in a sound bite: an international arms race. Two countries that would respond as mightily as they could are Russia and China. There is some doubt that the Russian economy could support a massive build up, but China is another matter. It probably could afford to build a system that would thwart the U.S. missile shield, although it is difficult to imagine why the Chinese would be firing missiles at the United States in the first place. Think butter, not guns That scenario aside, we need to view China not as a future enemy but as an ally. As news accounts about the missile shield stated, if China builds its arsenal in response to what we do, India and Pakistan are sure to follow and North Korea may go it alone regardless. Rather than having China leading an arms race, we should be helping China lead a growth and prosperity race. Forget the guns of Asia; let's focus on the butter. The Chinese are a great people who are part of a re-emerging great nation -- a nation more stable today than it has been in 25 years, a nation so stable that a Muscovite who lived in our apartment complex when I taught in Beijing in 1994 expressed relief that he was in China, not Russia. And it is the Chinese people that I am worried about, for I fear that their government's missile build up will not be part of a "guns and butter" budget but just "guns." The Chinese people will suffer. Statistics gleaned from various sources, including the United Nations, speak to the economic conditions in China. China has a 32:68 ratio of urban to rural (read: poor) population, compared with our 77:23 ratio, and a per-capita income of slightly less than $1,000 to our per-capita income of more than $30,000. And while China claims to have a lower unemployment rate than ours, many of those employed hold "jobs" in uncompetitive state-owned enterprises that are slowly being phased out. Forgetting the past In other words, China does not have an economy that can support the development of the population and an arms build up. If China does react to a U.S. missile shield as predicted, it could go bankrupt and become unstable. Do we really want to bankrupt China the way we did Russia? The Russians were unrepentant communists; China is not the new evil empire. Although China will never be the democratic Christian country some in the United States would like, it is evolving, unlike Russia. Consider what China has done. During the same week the news media carried stories about the missile shield, they also reported that Japan’s foreign minister had visited Beijing and that the two countries vowed they would remain peaceful partners -- and this despite still deep-rooted anger toward Japan for not yet fully apologizing for atrocities against the Chinese in World War II. One newspaper account said the Chinese not only had not raised the subject of the atrocities but also said nothing about U.S.-Japanese plans for a regional missile shield. And the Chinese delegation that welcomed the foreign minister was high level rather than mid-level, another sign of China’s desire to forge a positive relationship. Earlier this month, furthermore, Japan asked China’s support in setting up talks with North Korea as a step toward normalizing relations. Couple that with the role China played in getting the two Koreas together and it is easy to see what constructive role China can play in Asia, if not the world. Why jeopardize that by building a missile shield of dubious need? A warning for the next president Sadly, talk of a missile shield arises during a presidential campaign, and we already know that the candidates from the major parties favor the idea, although they disagree on the degree. The fact that President Clinton postponed a decision on the shield for the next president could ratchet up the campaign rhetoric in negative and unconstructive ways. Will Gore and Bush now use China as a whipping boy to show they are tough on defense? If they do, they will be making a major mistake. The United States enters the new century from a position of technical and moral strength. But it is the moral strength by which the world will judge us. Demonizing China over a technical issue would be an immoral act. A professor of journalism and American studies at the Pennsylvania State University, R. Thomas Berner has lived in China and visited the country several times since. Should U.S. policymakers do more to make China a friend rather than a potentially threatening enemy? How have Gore and Bush handled the missile-defense issue thus far? COMMENTS 9/18/00 3:16:22 PM Kenny In my recent trip to China I saw signs that their economy will soon be booming. They had reversed a punitive fee (IIRC, aabout US $40,000) on entrepreneurs, and were hard at it upgrading their telecommunications capabilities. Every street corner had someone repairing a store front, tiling over broken concrete, painting new signs, etc. IMO, they are moving towards capitalism. That means, if I read my tea leaves correctly, that they will soon have lots more goverenment revenues, even if they never raise taxes. Even if they lower taxes. // We should try to establish good relations with China, but we also need to be clear about the lines we've drawn in the sand. that probably means, after 8 years of Clinton, that we need to revisit our philosophy about foreign policy in general, and about China specifically. If we stand firm on human rights issues, then we have to reverse our favored nation status with China. 9/18/00 4:32:24 PM Brett Bellmore bellmore@tir.com Excuse me, but WE did not bankrupt Russia, RUSSIA bankrupted Russia. It was a classic judo type move, turning their aggressive impulses against them; Had they not been so determined to retain the power to obliterate us, they could have retained their second world economy. And it certainly would be nice if China were our ally instead of our enemy, but wouldn't that require them to cease being a totalitarian state with expansionistic aims? Certainly, it would help if they refrained from threatening us with nuclear attack every time we suggest they not invade their neighbors... 9/18/00 4:51:13 PM Kenny Good point Brett. Also, I would argue we should not let the nuclear shield idea be framed as a zero-sum game. That is, if we have it, China and Russai and everyone else lose the game. We may not have been able to frame it as win-win with the USSR but WE CAN frame it that way with China and Russia. To hold to the old notions of us first and us only just might lead to another Cold War. But I don't think it needs to be that way. Not since Nixon went to China anyway, and not since the Berlin Wall came down. It is in everyone's primary interest to avoid the use of any nuclear weapon. Now the loose cannons are the Iraqs and Pakistans of the world. 9/18/00 5:27:48 PM Lich Bret: "China's expansionist aims." Taiwan you mean? Like anyone else, I wish China would recognize Taiwan as a separate country. But they don't, and few are the countries to tolerate separatist territories, as we once didn't ourselves. Has China's threats of force gone beyond Taiwan? __________________ The alternative to not having a missle defense system is to be open to missle attacks by rogue states like North Korea. Of course the liberal left would want the US to be helpless in the face of such an attack. These are the same people who thought the US should have cowered in fear and appeased the Soviets. These same numbskulls who would take away people's right to defend themselves with a firearm. Furthermore the Red Chinese leadership are the ones thinking of America as the enemy. China is going to have to realize that with power comes responsibility. And that means not engaging in aggressive behavior with its small weak neighbors just becuase they are able to do so. __________________ Quote: Originally posted by sbp Furthermore the Red Chinese leadership are the ones thinking of America as the enemy. China is going to have to realize that with power comes responsibility. And that means not engaging in aggressive behavior with its small weak neighbors just becuase they are able to do so. I agree. I would also have to say the US is going to have to realize that with power comes responsibility. And that means not engaging in aggressive behavior with its small weak neighbors just becuase they are able to do so. ;0) __________________ But-but the Canadians like being beat up all the time.