War With China
by James Kroeger
July 16th, 2005
In yesterday’s
New York Times a senior Chinese military official, Maj. Gen. Zhu
Chenghu, was quoted as saying, “If
the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on
to the target zone on China’s territory, I think we will have to
respond with nuclear weapons.” Hawks on China are
already waving this report around as ‘evidence’ that the Chinese are
some kind of great threat to America and that we need to start
preparing for war with them. This kind of talk makes me feel like
the world I’m in is truly
insane.
The revelation
that the Chinese would use nuclear weapons to defend themselves from
an attack by the United States should be a surprise to no one. The
single most important question we can ask right now is why should
Americans be stupid enough get themselves involved in another
country’s civil war? That’s precisely the mistake we made in the
1960’s, when we inserted ourselves into Viet Nam’s civil war.
Great outcome. Why
would we expect to fare any better inserting ourselves into a civil
war that happens to involve the most populous nation on the planet?
America’s
commitment to Taiwan has got to be one of the most profoundly stupid
commitments that the American people have ever been “saddled with.”
No vital American interest is served by our pledge to defend
Taiwan’s present rebel government from attempts by Beijing to impose
its sovereignty on them. We no longer have any rational reason to
fear the “spread of Communism.” After all, the People’s Republic of
China is communist in name, only. Their economy’s dynamism is driven
by free enterprise and profit incentives. They might not have
property laws that look anything like ours, but they are still free
to obtain the right to use property to make themselves rich. With
the success they’ve had with this approach, there is a zero percent
chance that they would ever decide to follow the Stalinist model of
economic organization.
Why then should
American leaders risk the lives of millions of American and
Taiwanese and Chinese citizens? To help the inhabitants of Taiwan to
avoid the nightmarish alternative of living in modern China?
Nightmarish? Precisely what kind of horror would the Taiwanese
people be subjected to if they were to simply submit to the
political authority of Beijing? None, that I can see. It is a given
that the Chinese people in Taiwan would have just as much autonomy
as Hong Kong has experienced since 2000. There is no reason to
believe that the insurrectionists in Taiwan would suffer in any
material way if they were to submit to Beijing. Besides, life in
China these days is pretty good because their economic future is
looking very, very bright. Anyone who has a decent grasp of history
should be able to see that democracy in mainland China is an
inevitability, perhaps in the next couple of decades.
Let’s just hope
that maybe with some People Power we will be able to pressure the
war-crazy lunatics in Congress to return to the realm of sanity.
More trenchant
political analysis by James Kroeger:
Hillary, Bill, & the DLC
Reclaim the Moral High Ground
Democrat Image Makeover
When
the
Republicans steal an election
Our Soldiers Are Victims
Are You Proud To Be An American?
Economic Analysis...
Unemployment: Our Greatest Enemy
Trade Policy
and Jobs
Universal
Health Care
Government
Bureaucratic Waste vs. Private Sector Efficiency
The Relationship Between Savings &
Investment
Do Tax Cuts Stimulate The Economy?
