INDCJournal: More China

June 27, 2005

More China

Posted by Bill

Another story by Bill Gertz adds an exclamation point to my analysis of China's methodology and goal of strategic dominance:

China's communist leaders view the United States as their main enemy and are working in Asia and around the world to undermine U.S. alliances, said a former Chinese diplomat.
Chen Yonglin, until recently a senior political officer at the Chinese Consulate in Sydney, Australia, said in an interview that China also is engaged in large-scale intelligence-gathering activities in the United States that, in the past, netted large amounts of confidential U.S. government documents from agents.

"The United States is considered by the Chinese Communist Party as the largest enemy, the major strategic rival," Mr. Chen told The Washington Times in a telephone interview from Australia, where he is in hiding after breaking with Beijing in May.

This has special implications for any US goal that ostensibly requires the cooperation of the United Nations Security Council, of course. Also notable is Chen's opinion on Taiwan:

On China's military buildup, Mr. Chen said Beijing is following the strategy of former leader Deng Xiaoping, who urged China to "bide our time, build our capabilities" -- military as well as economic and political. "What that means is that when the day is mature, the Chinese government will strike back," he said. Mr. Chen said the danger of a war over Taiwan is growing.
"That is possible as Chinese society is getting more unstable," he said. "Once any serious civil disobedience occurs, the government may call for a war across the Taiwan Strait to gather [political] strength from people."

Posted by Bill at June 27, 2005 12:29 PM | TrackBack (0)

Comments

I agree with your analysis is the previous post, and this as well. I would think anyone that's paying attention would see that China would view us as their major rival to dominance on the world stage.

While I worry about the Taiwan issue, I'm inclined to think we've still got a few years. I don't think they'll create a huge international crisis until after they've shown the world how great they are when they host the '08 Olympics. They will push the fact of thousands of years of Culture and fire up the nationalistic homefires... and then we will have to see how it goes.

Not, that things couldn't go south before then with some unforeseen crisis...(internal or external)

The spying thing is what really concerns me at the moment. I hope our counter-espionage people are paying attention.

Posted by: Jack Grey at June 27, 2005 06:41 PM

The spying thing is what really concerns me at the moment. I hope our counter-espionage people are paying attention.

Hope you're not counting on that.

Anyway, China has supported Saddam and lets Kim Jong-Il scamper around without tightening his leash. These are Cold War tactics that even we used to practice. Yet because of Greed and denial many people are blind to what is happening.

Posted by: John at June 27, 2005 09:19 PM

I would think anyone that's paying attention would see that China would view us as their major rival to dominance on the world stage.

Well, we are everbody's major rival to dominance on the world stage. Competition is inevitable, and not necessarily bad for us, as long as it's peaceful. Do you really think we're going to live in a world that consists of the U.S. and a bunch of Canadians?

Posted by: MichaelM at June 27, 2005 10:39 PM

Do you really think we're going to live in a world that consists of the U.S. and a bunch of Canadians?

God, I hope not.

Posted by: Bill from INDC at June 27, 2005 10:45 PM

IMHO, a war with Taiwan will likely result in a democratic revolution in China.

Posted by: TallDave at June 29, 2005 12:01 PM