2011-10-04 (China Military News cited from http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7885de20-edab-11e0-a9a9-00144feab49a.html#axzz1ZoRzUUB5">ft.com and by Gideon Rachman) -- The defining geopolitical drama of the next century will be the battle for power and influence between China and America. That emerging struggle is already posing awkward choices for Asian countries, caught between the two global giants.
On Monday the US Senate was expected to pass a bill allowing for the imposition of tariffs on Chinese goods. Even if the protectionist drive in America now pauses for a while, this confrontational mood in the US poses a dilemma for China’s neighbours. China is now the largest trading partner for Japan, India, Australia, South Korea and most of the nations of south-east Asia. But these countries still have their most important military relationship with the US. How long can their economic and strategic interests point in different directions?
Not for long, if one is to judge by an editorial in the People’s Daily last week. The official newspaper of the Chinese Communist party took aim at “certain countries” who “think as long as they can balance China with the help of US military power, they are free to do whatever they want”.
The article was probably provoked by a statement from Japan and the Philippines, the previous day, in which the two countries promised to boost naval co-operation and implicitly disputed China’s extensive territorial claims in the South China Sea. But China’s warning could equally have been aimed at Vietnam, India, South Korea, Australia or Taiwan – all of whom have moved over the past year to strengthen military ties with America.
The irony, of course, is that it is precisely Chinese sabre-rattling, exemplified by that article in the People’s Daily, that is sending its neighbours running screaming into the arms of Uncle Sam. Until recently China seemed to be playing an intelligent waiting game – relying on its growing economic strength to draw its neighbours inexorably into a Chinese sphere of influence. Now the People’s Republic risks overplaying its hand – and so creating the anti-Chinese alliance that it both fears and denounces.
A more patient policy would make sense for China because it is likely to be the world’s largest economy by 2020. The US remains the world’s dominant military power – and is even the pre-eminent military force in China’s own Pacific backyard. But since political and military power usually track economic power, American hegemony in the Pacific Ocean may ultimately be unsustainable. It is this point that the People’s Daily was alluding to, when it warned – “No country wants to give back their ticket for the high-speed train of China’s economic development.”
With the US government borrowing 40 cents of every dollar that it spends – and China the largest foreign buyer of US debt – the Chinese are indirectly funding American military dominance of the Pacific. Even as America’s allies in the region move to strengthen ties with the US, they worry that America’s money problems will force the country to scale back in the Pacific. At the same time, China is building up its own military. American planners point to the development of a new range of Chinese missiles that directly threaten the airbases and aircraft carriers on which America bases its military dominance in the Pacific.
China’s neighbours are also worried by the country’s growing muscle – and its willingness to flex it. Over the past couple of years, China’s maritime disputes with Vietnam and Japan have taken on a new bitterness – with clashes on the high seas followed by bitter diplomatic exchanges. The Indians say that China is becoming more assertive about its claims to parts of Indian territory. The South Koreans are also jumpy about China’s relationship with the North.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7885de20-edab-11e0-a9a9-00144feab49a.html#axzz1ZoRzUUB5">Original Full Article
October 4th, 2011 at 10:37 am
But China does not need to rush the choice of the other countries to opt for her or the U.S.
That decision is more than obvious and the future trend will be kept favourably to China unless the U.S. can invent a time machine and step the time back till the 80's.
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October 4th, 2011 at 9:28 pm
China is obviously the lesser evil. Any support for america would lead to regret.
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October 4th, 2011 at 9:58 pm
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October 4th, 2011 at 10:10 pm
Oh come on. You are comparing China to a country where every inch is foreign soil. How many worthless treaties did the us sign with Native Americans. Whatever faults China has, its certainly trivial to whatever faults that is the united states.
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October 5th, 2011 at 9:37 pm
I'm sure a country evolves. What you are talking about the US was 100 to 200 years ago. Let's talk about now. Even Japan was inhuman 60 to 70 years ago right Ako? Not only they were a bunch of AH but also spoiled pigs! Now they've changed their system of government and is now well behaved. But China is going the opposite after having a new found economic power. Japan was not like that when things started to boom in the 70' and 80's. Because it had a system of government that is transparent to its people and cared for the basic human rights of its people. I don't think communism allows that.
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October 5th, 2011 at 10:04 pm
Geopolitics is a constant. You are from the philippines, you should know that. Battles between american forces and Native Americans lasted from 1775 to 1918.
The war between the us and Mexico was from 1846 to 1848. This was how the us came in control of wyoming, colorado, utah, nevada, california, arizona, new mexico, and texas.
americans battled the philippines from 1899 to 1902. Then preceded to battle the Moros between 1899–1913.
http://www.newyorker.com/images/2008/02/25/p465/080225_r17107_p465.jpg
Americans used to pin philippinos down and pour water into their lungs.
Right now, at this very moment. americans are battling indigenous people in Afghanistan and Iraq. Warring with weaker countries is a common american theme.
Regardless what China does, it is very much the lesser evil of the two. Between the us and China, China is the superior choice, and the option I choose.
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October 6th, 2011 at 12:19 pm
Kampilan, didn't you read about the Fukuyama Nuclear Power Plant coverup? That's how transparent the Japanese government is! Don't
you know that today the Japanese still glorify their generals Homma and Yamashita who had massacred tens of thousands of Filipinos as national heroes? Don't you know that they have rewritten their textbooks to justify their actions in WW II? They are still not repentant of the atrocities they have committed. You should do a little more in-depth research on current affairs!
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October 6th, 2011 at 9:10 pm
Maybe you should do a little in-depth research about my new hero, Chai Ling. Check it out maybe you'll get enlightened in her new book A heart for Freedom. She was the leader in the Tian'namen Square revolution wherein tens of thousands students died but was covered up. Now she is trying to expose the over 100 million missing girls and over 400 million babies aborted as a result of China's one-child policy (babies killed in women's stomach in its third trimester). Pretty tough woman!
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October 6th, 2011 at 9:18 pm
Chai Ling is a moron.
"Some fellow students asked me what our plans are, what our demands will be in future. This made me feel sick at heart; I started out to tell them that what we were waiting for was actually the spilling of blood, for only when the government descends to the depths of depravity and decides to deal with us by slaughtering us, only when rivers of blood flow in the Square, will the eyes of our country's people truly be opened." [Cited in Han Minzhu, ed., Cries for Democracy: Writings and Speeches from the 1989 Chinese Democracy Movement (Princeton Univ. Press, 1990), p. 327.]
american soldiers killed students at kent state university. Students that I am sure had no intention to be fired upon. And they did it again at waco.
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October 6th, 2011 at 9:25 pm
Maybe you should add another hero to that list. Mr. gordon chang. The self hating half Chinese wrote an entire book describing the fall of China. Pseudo-intellectuals that have no business writing anything at all.
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October 6th, 2011 at 10:09 pm
In the movie Rapid Fire, Brandon Lee plays an "American college student and the Chinese political activists on campus try to drag him into their cause because of who his father was, but he’s not interested".
Even Brandon Lee says who cares.
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October 6th, 2011 at 10:35 pm
He refuses to join any anti-China rallies and instead spends the rest of the film fighting drug dealers.
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October 7th, 2011 at 11:09 am
OK a few people died in Kent state and a few people died at Waco,Texas. But we are talking about 10,000 + at the Square and it was covered up. What about the 100 million missing girls and the abortion? Makes the Holocaust a joke. And this is on going....... wake up......on going!!!!I can't believe that as smart as you are Tienfei you will be in denial. Are you a true Communist? You must be to be in denial. Then you've got to be worse than the Nazi. 3 of Chai Ling's babies were killed in her stomach. Wow! I can't believe your government even exist. This is what Chai's fight is.
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October 7th, 2011 at 11:23 am
There is no evidence of 10,000 and there is no evidence of 100 million missing girls. The whole premise sounds ridiculous. During the holocaust, the nazis clearly singled out everyone who wasnt german. Executing a eugenics policies that was clearly race based. Its the same policy that was practiced in america when they sterilized native americans, blacks and unintelligent whites.
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October 7th, 2011 at 11:30 am
Quite honestly, China is the superior choice. You are trying to compare China with a country who is responsible for the biggest genocide in world history. And continues to engage in wars with countries with weaker militaries every presidential term. Whatever China does would be trivial compared to any of this.
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October 7th, 2011 at 11:43 am
I have a hard time believing the us has any credibility and moral superiority over China. At the end of the day, China is the lesser evil for any rational person.
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October 7th, 2011 at 3:59 pm
I've been to China and have been to the US. I know which one will protect my right to exist and enjoy freedom afforded to anyone. There will be a lot of changes about to occur in China. For one people are looking to be free. The people's shift to Evangelical Christianity (over 100million already) is the most glaring sign of people wanting freedom. Keep up with Chai Ling. She is an awesome woman. A true leader!
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October 7th, 2011 at 5:07 pm
You keep making up this crap about christians in China, but you cant validate it. Christianity is an irrational religion. There is no proof jesus ever existed. And if he did, he would have had died 2000 yrs ago. So anyone who sings and praises some dude who died 2000 yrs ago is a nutjob. The CCP has the highest approval rating of any government in the world. Even Chinese Americans deeply approve of the CCP.
"Chinese President Hu Jintao got a 93 percent confidence ranking in the middle kingdom"
"The poll also shows that the Chinese government enjoys considerable approval among the Chinese in America. Sergio Bendixen, whose Miami-based company conducted the poll, said that such approval of communist governments was unusual.
“Only 1 to 2 percent of Cubans gave Fidel Castro a positive rating,” he said, while 62 percent of Chinese Americans gave Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao a positive rating".
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October 7th, 2011 at 5:11 pm
"Chai Ling", thats a remarkable name and what a ahame it is to be bought and used against her own country and people. Over what? A green-card? A lot of easy money? or A ticket to the dream land where money grows on trees and many good things are falling from the sky? or a place where one only have to sit around doing nothing and not being starved to death? The answers should be well-understood by people who believe in truths and hardworks-NOt laziness.
Chai Ling is peanut when campare with many others wrongfully and deceptively promoted to the rank of Chinese disidents or political activists. The stories and details fabricated by many others could easily drive most China-blind(ignorance of truths and China and have pre-existing propensity to see China negatively)individuals to believe in what ever these disidents provided.
The motives of the organizing students,the foreign involvements and fundings,and the subsequent escaping routes for those directly linked to the 1989 fiasco are unknown to many in and outside China. The stories and allegations remained to be one-sided,highly biased,un-neccessarily deceptive,and above all,too low a tactic or scheme to be conceived,oschestrated,and carried out.
The limited scale of similar schemes were used recently employed involving the Arab Spring and the going protests and attempted sanctions against Syria is a case in point. The developnments in North Africa and the Middle East is too early to determine whether they are indeed successes or failures.
The 1989 incidents in China was a huge failures to the people to tried to disrupt China's reforms policies' progress and results. On this note,the prepetrators failed miserably and so we see today's new and improved China and STILL Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.
Those who lie and deceive to the so-called free world by wrongfully deminzing China or Communism will soon have to answer to the crimes they are now being judged by the people of the free world and the final verdicts will come soone than most people would expect.
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October 7th, 2011 at 5:14 pm
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