That refrain is very familiar to my ears. I remember going through a used book store in the early nineties and I found a book (I should have bought it for the laughs); a book written in the mid-eighties. The book was about military policy and tghe premise was that the West was going to be destroyed by the Soviets because the West's military equipment was to expensive, and fragile and the Soviets were going to win because their equipment was much simpler and rugged. I remember thinking that the Gulf War and the Soviet collapse made that book a bit dated - and laughable.

This foreign policy analysis was likely from the same group of people that produced the military policy book. The premise is the same - the U.S. can do nothing right, its enemies can do nothing wrong.

Agreed. China can't really get itself in a position where it's effectively the puppet-master of the region because it sees itself as inherently superior to all other cultures. This makes China so inflexible that it's unable to adapt to and understand other cultures. China isn't really even INTERESTED in understanding other cultures; they're inferior and unworthy of notice.

On the other hand, if China had gotten a lot more of its population killed in stalemated wars, I'd think it was a sign of intelligent population control and perfectly consistent with the POV of the Chinese government: peasants are expendable. China may have claimed to adopt a communist government, but the same old aristocratic/authoritarian rules are in place. Just the faces are different.

Good stuff, Stephen.

Despite holding the title of largest remaining communist country, China is the very definition of a fascist state.

I once talked to someone who works at the war college at Maxwell AFB about this issue, his answer " Yes, China has a big military, made up of millions of troops, but the problem is you have to feed and clothe every one of them the minute you take them away from home. Yes, China is a threat, but only to places where her troops can walk. "

Not to mention China's fixation upon Taiwan. The Taiwanese government no longer hold any pretension of being the legitimate government of the mainland, they even dismantled the old provincial government (which existed side-by-side with the national government). Yet, the Chinese military is obsessed with Taiwan, and the government plays a weird game with every little shit-knuckle country over who recognizes who. Ultimately, this does nothing to negate the reality of Taiwan's situation. Is this the policy of some superior chess playing dimplomacy? No, it's the obsesive ravings of beauracracy that hasn't come up with anything original in twenty years.

It's also worth keeping in mind that China's "superiority" in foreign affairs occurred when it was clearly superior (technologically as well as population-wise) to every one of its neighbors. Who were China's competitors in the 900s (during, iirc, the Tang Dynasty)?

Today, Japan is technologically superior, South Korea is a source of investment, Singapore and Southeast Asia are hardly push-overs. These are hardly states that are EAGER to be under Chinese suzerainty.

Frankly, I think China's foreign policy right now is the same as it's been for thousands of years: control/intimidate the nations immediately adjacent to China.

That puts China in a long-term collision course with such players as Russia, India, and Japan. The U.S. is important relative to it's alliance with Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan -- and the possibility of alliance with Russian and India.

That's a nasty strategic situation. And if we were to withdraw from east Asia tomorrow it would still be a nasty situation. A strategic focus primarily on the U.S. would be a big mistake by China.

Ditto what David Peron said, the biggest threat to China today is China itself, and the inflexibility of their culture (today) is what makes them weak, not strong.

I would be more worried about the regional fallout from a disintegrating China than an imperialistic China marching across asia...

Other fun facts….

The Chinese banking system has been called by some “an Eron/Worldcom at 100 times the scale”. Do not rule out major financial upheaval possibly followed by political upheaval.

And, here’s one to think about at night. China’s “One Child” policy has resulted in millions of forced abortions and millions of selected abortions, that is, ones that favor boys over girls, possibly as much as 55% to 58% overall. As a result, it is thought that by 2015 or 2020, there will be on the order of 5% to 10% more young men than young women. For those counting at home, that is say, 100 million unattached young males with little hope of ever becoming attached.

So, anyone concerned about a nation of a billion and a half or more that just happens to have, oh, say 100 million expendable and unhappy 20 year old males laying around the house? Wonder how they can keep them occupied, and most importantly, if they are angry, make sure that they are angry at something OTHER than the central government.

I dunno. Should this make me uneasy at all? Just wondering.

The problem with China from a military standpoint is their armies are so huge and so crude - I liked that line about "anywhere they can walk" - that the only workable response to a major attack involving millions of the is essentially the flamethrower-fireant scenario. The way you stop a million-man human wave attack is by nuking it.

Bill,

First, your image of the PLA is about thirty years out of date. The Chinese themselves haven't talked about human wave attacks since about the late 1970s, and their experience in Vietnam (in the 1979 war) clearly disabused them of the utility of such attacks.

Second, as the joke went in Korea, "How many Chinese does it take to make up a horde?" Not all the Chinese attacks, even there, were "hordes" or "human waves," although sure enough, plenty were. Ditto in Vietnam---while the French often complained about "human wave attacks," against fortified bases it was as likely infiltration, sappers, RPGs as super-satchel charges and grenade launchers as it was screaming hordes of VC/NVA.

Finally, looking at Korea when there were human wave attacks, fortifications, clear fields of fire, and plentiful artillery and air support seem to have obviated the requirement for NUCLEAR fire support. Something tells me that Daisy Cutters and AC-130s (in a permissive air environment) would do even better today IF we were to be faced w/ such charges (which, frankly, I doubt).

Regarding the notion that thinking far ahead is always better than short-term thinking, the chess great Emmanual Lasker was asked how many moves ahead he thought:

"Only one," he replied. "But it's always the best move."

The important thing to remember is that China isn't a unitary entity, and that most of their foreign policy is a completely incidental result of internal jockeying.

This is especially true now, during a generational turnover in the leadership cabal and the resulting internal struggles. Given that and their financial issues, the real danger in the intermediate term would seem to be a wag-the-dog scenario with China going after Taiwan for purely internal political reasons.

Ah fuck, I said this over in the other post and meant to say it here. To sum up: Just because China isn't thinking long term doesn't mean we shouldn't be.

Damn, but this turned out to be an interesting thread. Lots of thought provoking responses to my original comment - which I'll admit represented 1" wide and 0.5" deep analysis, two hours after I should have been in bed. Interesting times, these...

And, just for the record, yeah, I'm suffering from a little bit of cranial swelling after not only getting a mention from VP, but also an indirect link from the Instantman himself :-D

Re: The Sarge's post:

Ja da! Certainly we should always devote some attention to the long view. And I certainly didn't mean to imply that China didn't have a long-term plan; just that they're not as smart as some think they are. Certainly Hitler was no rocket scientist, and look at the damage he did before the two-front war finally did him in.

http://pub15.ezboard.com/fthefinalphasefrm18.showMessage?topicID=346.topic