Again, I submit that what the writer is suggesting has been shown repeatedly throughout history,particularly this past century where our economic dependence on Germany made us appease Hitler especially as we had claimed that he would serve as our bulwark against Bolshevism. And again, the inability of the world powers to impose sanctions against the Japanese in Manchuria or the Italians in Abyssinia due to self-interest after the Wall St. crash.

March 24, 2005 @ 6:50 pm | Comment

Kier

Sanctions against Japan over manchuria?

You forget your history, most of the major world powers who were in any position to level sanctions against Japan were doing pretty much the same thing as Japan.

I’d like to have seen Britain and co tell Japan not to anex portions of China with a straight face, Japan did exactly what they had done, only with a lot more casulties, at least Japan can say that its bloody reign across Asian was shorter than that of the white man.

Maybe the world should have leveled sanctions against Britain for India, Africa, Hong Kong, Burma, the list goes on.

The hypocrasy of the west is legendary. Japan was wrong to invade China, that is undeniable, yet the same countries that say this often have bloody colonial histories. How many million people died for the glory of the British empire, how many slaves were worked to death for the betterment of the US cotton industry, and where was the west when the Soviet Union was chewing Eastern Europe up?

March 24, 2005 @ 8:45 pm | Comment

I’m not entirely sure what planet some people have been living on, but from where I’m sitting I’m apparently getting a slightly different view of China’s so called military rise and the issues surrounding it.

For one thing, China is merely doing the exact same thing that the US, South Korea and Japan are all doing in the Pacific (and the world, in the case of the US). It is upgrading its military into a more mobile form that uses technology rather than massed firepower and is prepared for rapid deployment against a fast moving enemy, rather than to fight a traditional land based war with a slow moving enemy.

China is cutting troop numbers and trying to build a highly trained, well equipped core of troops who can operate more effectively against modern threats than their old infantry and artillery based force could. This isn’t the same as making a threatening build up.

The other thing is that China has never been hegemonistic, it is simply not in China’s mindset to have aspirations on its neighbors. China only wants what it considers is historically to be part of China. China wants Chinese Taiwan, some islands, and a few scraps of land around its borders which it defines as belonging to it. There will never be the day when Chinese troops, no matter how powerful they become, will be marching on Korean and Indian territory that was never historically part of China.

The only things that the world has to fear from China are low price goods coming out of China, and foreign currency flowing in to it.

I would rather see a strong China in the Pacific than a strong America. The world needs a counterbalance to US economic and military dominance, and I will support China if it means that there is a countermeasure to the US.

At least China doesn’t pretend that it speaks for everybody.

March 24, 2005 @ 8:53 pm | Comment

Thats one of the things thats always got my goat. China’s modest military modernization program to reorganize its forces along modern doctrine and up to par with world standards is seen as some sort of grand Hitlerian re-armament. Some insidious and growing Chinese threat which in reality is little more than dragging the PLA out of obsolescence. Everyone else has a modern army, why can’t China?

March 24, 2005 @ 9:14 pm | Comment

I think it’s pretty silly for the neocons in the US to worry about China’s military power. Actually I think they probably aren’t really that worried; they just need to have another enemy in line in case they run out.

What the US needs to do is get its/our economic and political house in order. If we lose out in the New World order, it will be our own damn fault – or more accurately, the fault of our leadership and those who helped put them there. We should be investing in infrastructure, in alternative energy technology, hi-tech & medical research – there are a million things we could and should be doing that would far outweigh any so-called Chinese “threat.”

I’m happy to be living in California, future Stem Cell Capital of the US….

March 24, 2005 @ 9:46 pm | Comment

It is all well and good to say China should be able to do as other nations have done about militarization, but China is an unknown factor to many countries and leaders. I think “it is better to be safe than sorry” fits here no matter what China apologists are saying above.

If China becomes the 900 lbs gorilla, who can say it will not use its strenght to gain what it wants through force, intimidation or other unaccetable means. Look at the US as you do in criticizing it; why wouldn’t China become the same or worse with overriding power. We know “power corrupts.” What says China is any better than the US.

Let China prove itself as a peaceful and benign nation over decades and have a counterbalance to it just in case. China should quit rattling its sabres over Taiwan and engage in a democratic approach to gaining control over Taiwan “because it is good for the people of Taiwan.” If the Taiwan residents do not want the CCp and BJ after the romance, then let the Taiwan people choose their own course freely.

BJ can quit spying on the US. It can quit it new policy of training children from the 1st grade through college to be “little soldiers” to militarized grown ups who will believe in the military way of life and need an “enemy” to focus on and sharpen their skills as warriors.

The first surprise I had when I started teaching English in Beijing in 1997, the first day mind you, I was told that China was in competition with the US and the Chinese people intended to become the No. 1 counrty in the world. The way the student said this left me with some willies and a memory.

If all this drive by the Chinese were to take place in a relatively short period of time, there is no doubt that there would be great conflicts along the way, military conflicts. But if this type of change were to occur as a somewhat natural process over several hundreds of years, the tensions would not likely accumulate into the worst case senario.

March 24, 2005 @ 10:22 pm | Comment

“China was in competition with the US and the Chinese people intended to become the No. 1 counrty in the world. The way the student said this left me with some willies and a memory.”

Pete,

Good point, I listened to BBC radio interview with the audience in Shanghai, I think one of the Chinese professors had answered your question. (The one who spoke horrible English =) He said China should not seek to be the No 1 country, it should be no 2 or no 3 or 4. I tend to agree with that. It is quite meaningless to be a no 1 superpower, especially like the former USSR. I hope that there won’t be another cold war or hot war in the future.

March 24, 2005 @ 11:27 pm | Comment

richard,

i often come back for the new comments added to the topic i am interested in, but after i open the comment section, they are still the old ones.

is there a way to remind readers who is the latest commentator?

thanks,

March 24, 2005 @ 11:40 pm | Comment

pete’s “I think “it is better to be safe than sorry”

WMDs… as in iraq

that line was used too many times already and caused too many innocent lives.

March 25, 2005 @ 12:16 am | Comment

Pete, I’m as astonished as you are to hear you say that China is training their children to be little soldiers. But not like you, I deplore over the misunderstanding that is bordering on absurdity.

Admittedly there are many aspects in the Chinese education system that I’d like to see changed, but I’m certainly not worried about its going to train my child to be future order-obeying emotionless cannon fodders. Yes, some 30 years ago, the school used to teach the children to harbor a dream that we’d one day surpass the U.S. But it was not in the sense that this should necessarily be done at the latter’s expense, as you made it out to be, not to mention this ideology has long been phased out of the mainstream.

I’m not questioning your expeirence in China. I’m only saying that your worries about our future generations do not reflect the general situation in this country today.

March 25, 2005 @ 12:29 am | Comment

Pete, the only ‘peaceful and benign nation’ is an impotent nation. When has there *ever* been a superpower which didn’t use economic and military might to intimidate other nations to let it have its way?

March 25, 2005 @ 12:36 am | Comment

For once I agree with Jing.

Why can’t China have the same right to an army as everybody else.

Both Germany and Japan slaughtered millions, including tens of thousends of US troops, and yet the US has actively encouraged both countries to have gigantic modern armies. Britain enslaved about 1/4 of the world yet the US teamed up with it to build nuclear weapons. China hasn’t dones anything half so bad (outside its own borders) yet America would begrudge it night vision headsets and anti-US aircraft carrie… sorry, anti ship missiles.

Pete

China is not an unknown factor, it is a very well known factor.

China’s military intentions and their limits are over a 1000 years old. China wants what it believes belongs to it, and isn’t interested in anything more.

March 25, 2005 @ 2:39 am | Comment

I think it’s pretty silly for the neocons in the US to worry about
China’s military power. Actually I think they probably aren’t really that
worried; they just need to have another enemy in line in case they run
out.

Remember, Lisa, this isn’t written by a neocon but by a liberal. That’s the only reason I posted it. Articles like this in neocon journals are a dime a dozen, but when I see the message spreading into the liberal media, I have to think it may be gaining traction.

March 25, 2005 @ 7:03 am | Comment

“by” “at”
Actually, I oppose Bush’s war and did so before the invasion. You may be misconstruing my remark, “better safe than sorry.” It is not a call to action like a preemptive strike, but one for watchful preparedness.

laoxia
The statement was made in 1997 in class. Even though the student was putting me on, I have often wondered what kind of mind set would get a student to say that stuff in front of the whole class, but then he was one of the class monitors, if you know what I mean. Yes, I was astonished to learn that BJ has a new policy on military style training for all school levels, rudimentary training I’m sure. But it is hardly absured to speculate as to BJ’s motives when the government institues that policy and it is taking place. I have seen training take place at a elementary school near where I work when I am in China. It has just recently started; forming up the class, giving marching orders and practicing formation turns. I guess the kids I saw were about 8 to 10 years old.
I hope you are right that China has no asperations to get to be king of the hill by pulling down another country.

N. Liu
Who says a peaceful and benign country is impotent. Logically, that does not follow. What great historian says that? Can you give examples of such a country?
China and the Chinese seem to want to find a sense of greatness. Why shouldn’t you aspire to something different and far greater than a country that is a warmongering bully that considers itself the center of it all.

ACB

How China will act on the world stage is a mystery to many people around the world. How it will act when, if as predicted, it achieves greater world status and economic power is truly an unknown.

Your last paragraph is not credible thinking. Who cares what the Chinese imperial military wanted over its last 900 years. From an outsider’s point of view it is irrelevant to world affairs today. What China “believes belongs to it” could change from one General Secretary to the next or when the next form of government takes its place at the head of the nation. It would be quite naive for me or any other country to accept your word for the benevolence of some future China. One example of that kind of thinking involves the South China Sea and China’s claims. How is it that China relatively recently has claimed so much of the rights in the South China Sea at hundreds of kilometers from its shores when half a dozen other countries are closer to parts if not all of the SC Sea? Is it that China believes that the oil under it belongs to it so the claim is made regardless of the interests of the other countries? Just because China believes the rights belong to it, it should prevail (because it has more guns, a navy, more nukes and more military personnel than all those other countries combined)?

March 25, 2005 @ 8:24 am | Comment

You misunderstand. I am not saying that being peaceful and benign makes a country impotent; I’m saying that only impotent countries behave in a manner that is ‘peaceful and benign’. Actually, that’s a roundabout and inaccurate way of putting it, so let me be clearer–history gives us no reason to believe that a superpower will ever be ‘peaceful and benign’.

March 25, 2005 @ 8:43 am | Comment

Pete:

Oh, now I know what you’re talking about. Yes, students do get basic military training while at school. I only didn’t know in some places it started at such early ages. It used to be for college students only. At any rate, the training hasn’t produced what you suggest it is producing. But I can understand your concern.

March 25, 2005 @ 10:36 am | Comment

Richard, I see your point. But it seems to me the author’s main conclusion is what he says in the final paragraph: “But we had better jog ourselves out of the eternal sunshine of our president’s spotless mind and start dealing with our real economic and political problems. We cannot stop China’s sun from rising, but we can keep our own from setting.” He talks quite a bit about the hollowing out of our economy and assumption of so much of our debt by China as being the real threat. And also a loss of influence in the rest of the world – these are many of the same conclusions reached by the CIA think tank’s public report on what the world of 2050 might look like.

I do believe that if the US continues on the path we’re on now that our dominance in the world will only be able to be maintained at gunpoint – and that will be a very hollow victory indeed.

March 25, 2005 @ 12:40 pm | Comment

There’s a very good book called Future Tense: The Coming World Order by Gwynne Dyer. He’s a Canadian military historian and writer. The book is an analysis of current world events such as the war in Iraq. I did a review of the book for some people. Below is a couple of paragraphs of the review.

———

If the UN collapses, Dyer predicts countries will return to the law of the jungle. He argues the UN for the last 60 years was a stabilizing force for the world preventing major wars and providing a framework of law for what countries can and cannot do. Without the UN, new alliances between countries would occur similar to the ones at the beginning of the twentieth century. The first bloc would be the American and British with smaller countries like Canada, Israel joining in. He also predicted India would join providing military manpower. The second bloc would be Eurasia with France, Germany and very likely Russia with her natural resources. Her neighbors don’t trust her so the third bloc would be the odd man out, China.

In the long term, we will see the decline of American power and influence. The population makes up only 4 percent of the world’s population and other countries are showing faster economic growth. At the end of World War II, American GDP made up half of the world’s GDP. Now because other countries have recovered, American GDP is now around 20 percent. With the continual faster growth of countries like Russia, India, and China, it will have to decrease. Eventually, America will have to recognize the fact that it’s just one of many countries, that it’s not indispensable or the only Great Power that really matters. Whether it will be recognize that fact and be a benign leader within an international framework like the UN will determine the world’s future.

March 25, 2005 @ 4:34 pm | Comment

I have seen training take place at a elementary school near where I work when I am in China. It has just recently started; forming up the class, giving marching orders and practicing formation turns. I guess the kids I saw were about 8 to 10 years old.

I think it’s obvious what’s described here are kids practicing for a parade or some ceremony which are quite common for school kids in China and are about as militaristic as American high school marching bands. It seems that many American observers on China start with the inner belief that China is an evil nation intend on world conquest and everything they see is colored by this bias. The fact is China is still many decades away from being able to militarily challenge the US in areas bordering China, not to mention througout the world. Yes, China is modernizing it’s military, but most of that consist of making the giant leap from 1940’s and 50’s equipment to 1970’s technology. China only retired its last T34 tank in the 1990’s, the same T34 tank the Russians used in WWII. China’s purchases of a handful of Su-27’s (a 1970’s era fighter plane) from Russia received much coverage in the West, but the vast majority of the Chinese airforce are still made up of J-6 and J-7 short range fighter planes that were copies of Soviet MIGs developed in the 1950’s. This is not a military that will be able to conquer the world anytime soon.

March 25, 2005 @ 11:47 pm | Comment

Would someone please challenge or verify whether BJ has recently instituted a policy to have some type of military training at pre-college school levels. I have read that ashort while ago, but can’t locate it now. The drilling I saw could be dual use, but it was clear they were not preparing for a parade or such.

Hui Mao you can try soft peddling your ideas about the military development in China, but I don’t think your statements about upgrading China’s military can be taken seriously. I have seen Chinese currently used military jets at various airports around China and I have seen an airplane museum in an underground hanger north of Beijing in Changping county. It had dozens of airplanes, most jets, mostly fighters, some were used by China in the Korean War. Those old jets cannot be compared to the newer military fighters I have seen at airports in the last 5 years. It is very strange to say China is upgrading from 1940-50s hardware to that of the 1970s. Look at the military displays on Chinese TV, rockets, fast military vehicles, tremendous artillery displays, don’t look to me to be antique military junk.

Please don’t include me in the stereotyping about outsiders view of China. I love China. My hope for China is it will take its place in the pantheon of peaceful and useful nations.

March 26, 2005 @ 3:15 am | Comment

Do the Tibetans know that China is not hegemonistic?
Japan and Germany do not have huge armies. In fact the US is pressuring Japan to increase its military to meet what it sees as a Chinese threat. China has problems with population (too many males) oil, WATER, etc etc. It will be forced to find those human and natural resources somewhere or implode.

March 26, 2005 @ 7:16 am | Comment

Pete: ‘Look at the military displays on Chinese TV, rockets, fast military vehicles, tremendous artillery displays, don’t look to me to be antique military junk.’

And you’d know a 1950s rocket or artillery piece from a state-of-the-art rocket or artillery piece. . . how? What’re you going on? Your in-depth studies of Saving Private Ryan?

Perhaps I’m being unfair; if you do, in fact, have some level of military expertise, my apologies. It certainly doesn’t sound like it to me, though.

March 26, 2005 @ 7:32 am | Comment

It would be quite naive for me or any other country to accept your word for the benevolence of some future China. One example of that kind of thinking involves the South China Sea and China’s claims. How is it that China relatively recently has claimed so much of the rights in the South China Sea at hundreds of kilometers from its shores when half a dozen other countries are closer to parts if not all of the SC Sea? Is it that China believes that the oil under it belongs to it so the claim is made regardless of the interests of the other countries? Just because China believes the rights belong to it, it should prevail (because it has more guns, a navy, more nukes and more military personnel than all those other countries combined)?

Posted by pete at March 25, 2005 08:24 AM

Pete,

The above statement shows your prejudice. If you want to know the truth and the history of the matter, China claimed the ownership of Nansha (Spratly Islands) long before any other countries did. The KMT claimed both the Paracels and the Spratlys when they ruled the mainland before and after WW2, and they maintain this claim from their base on Taiwan today.

The maps printed by other countries in the world that mark the islands on the South China Sea as part of Chinese territory include:

1. The Welt-Atlas published by the Federal Republic of Germany in 1954, 1961 and 1970 respectively;

2. World Atlas published by the Soviet Union in 1954 and 1967 respectively;

3. World Atlas published by Romania in 1957;

4. Oxford Australian Atlas and Philips Record Atlas published by Britain in 1957 and Encyclopaedia Britannica World Atlas published by Britain in 1958;

5. World Atlas drawn and printed by the mapping unit of the Headquarters of the General Staff of the People’s Army of Viet Nam in 1960;

6. Haack Welt Atlas published by German Democratic in 1968;

7. Daily Telegraph World Atlas published by Britain in 1968;

8. Atlas International Larousse published by France in 1968 and 1969 respectively;

9. World Map Ordinary published by the Institut Geographique National (IGN) of France in 1968;

10. World Atlas published by the Surveying and Mapping Bureau of the Prime Minister’s Office of Viet Nam in 1972; and

11. China Atlas published by Neibonsya of Japan in 1973.
The United States

a) Columbia Lippincott World Toponymic Dictionary published in the United States in 1961 states that the Nansha Islands on the South China Sea are part of Guangdong Province and belong to China.

b) The Worldmark Encyclopaedia of the Nations published in the United States in 1963 says that the islands of the People’s Republic extend southward to include those isles and coral reefs on the South China Sea at the north latitude 4¡ã.

c) World Administrative Divisions Encyclopaedia published in 1971 says that the People’s Republic has a number of archipelagoes, including Hainan Island near the South China Sea, which is the largest, and a few others on the South China Sea extending to as far as the north latitude 4¡ã, such as the Dongsha, Xisha, Zhongsha and Nansha Islands.

Please go to the link below
http://www.fas.org/news/china/2000/china-000600.htm

March 26, 2005 @ 9:28 am | Comment

JR
You have a good point about the KMT, but it would be nice if you have any public reference to that info.

I notice all the other references are to matters published after PRC was established and recognized as the functioning government of mainland China.

N. Liu
No I am not a military expert. But I am not blind. I have watched many hours of US, UK, Nazi Germany and USSR newsreel footage of WWII war action. There are complete and obvious differences of the military hardware from then to what China parades and uses. Answer me this, why would China be spending money on upgrading to 1970s military technology when at least some if not most is now obsolete and relatively useless against the more advanced Russian, US and EU technologies? From my point of view that does not make a lot sense

March 26, 2005 @ 5:22 pm | Comment

The question of the vintage of China’s military hardware is not one that can be resolved through logic, for god’s sake. There are actual *facts* available. Please go and get yourself some. ‘Gosh, they don’t look old to me!’ doesn’t cut it.

March 26, 2005 @ 10:36 pm | Comment

For those who say that the past is a guide that shows China in its 1000 year history (etc etc etc) only claims what is its (such as Tibet, land disputed among its neighbours, sea disputed among its neighbours including the whole of the South China sea far beyond its mainland), could the same not have been said of Japan at the turn of the century when, owing to the same pressures facing China (overpopulation, military pressure on gov’t, few resources)?

March 26, 2005 @ 11:15 pm | Comment

History serves as a template for the present, not a definitive guide. China’s political position of 2005, is leagues away from Japan’s in 1905. In the same vein, the communist party at least publically holds a firm rein on military power, unlike in Japan. Overpopulation is of course an issue, but hardly one to lead to militarism. India has a higher population density than China, yet no one is claiming they are going to wage an aggressive war for lebensraum. Besides, all of China’s immediate neighbors except those in central Asia and Russia are all densely populated as well. And if you mean to suggest that China is any day now going to invade Kazakhstan or the Russian Far East, I would recommend that you step away from your game of Risk and take a look at the real world with all its limitations. As much as everyone may rightly or wrongly trash the U.N. this is definetly one of its lasting hallmarks, the dissuasion of outright aggressionary conquest.

March 27, 2005 @ 2:35 am | Comment

Pete, there are many websites with information on the current weapons inventory of the Chinese military. You can do a easy search on google to find them. Here’s one from global security. You can also click on the links for MiG-19 and MiG-21 (which are what the J-6 and J-7’s are based on) and see when they were first developed and take a look at the information for the bombers Tu-16 and IL-28 too. BTW, parades are meant to be a show, where the best and most impressive equipment are displayed, even though most of the military don’t have them yet and if your criteria that China is a threat to world peace simply because her military has some planes better than the propeller driven planes of WWII, then I think you have just made my point.

As to the date of publication of the references JR pointed out, I hope you do know that the United States only recognized the PRC as the legitimate government of China in 1979 and the PRC was only accepted by the United Nations and most other world wide organizations as the legitimate government of China in the 1970’s (which is later than most of the references in JR’s post). Before that, the ROC in Taiwan was recognized in name as the government of all of China, and Taipei held China’s permanent seat with veto power on the UN security council as well as represented China in the Olympics until 1980.

March 27, 2005 @ 10:30 am | Comment

The important part of Tibetan history no one wants to talk about. The British followed the footsteps of Russian dividing Mongolia out of China. The whole Tibet debacle was created by the British imperialists. They knew China was weak and divided in the early part of the 20th Century. The Brits had already taken all the land on the other side of the Himalayan. There was a large population of Han Chinese in northern Burma and the Tibetans in Arunachal Pradesh which were stolen by Britain and became part of India(the whole Burma became part of India). The British imperialists attacked Lhasa in 1904 but couldn’t occupy Tibet. After the two aggressive wars, Britain found that Tibet could not be subdued by military force. It changed tactics by cultivating pro-British elements in the upper echelon of the ruling class in Tibet, with a view to controlling Tibet.

March 27, 2005 @ 10:30 am | Comment

N. Liu and Hui Mao
Thanks for pushing me to educate myself.

Actually, I don’t think I said China is a present threat to world peace and I hope it never is. And I do not think China should not have a defensive military. )I think mainland China should approach Taiwan people with appeal and persuasion, never ever threats and intimidation.)

My motivation here is to get some light on the subjects of fear and mistrust on both sides so they can be looked at in the realm of reality.

Thank you all for the input. I have long thought that the Chinese could be a help to civilization in the pursuit of peace and development because of and if the intellegence, the creativity and imagination of the masses of Chinese people were allowed to flower beyond the confines of the CCP and the fears of the hardliners in China. China needs some open and revolutionary thinking at this point.

March 27, 2005 @ 6:29 pm | Comment

Jacques Doesn’t Inhale

If you’re going to talk truth to Tokyo, you should be a noted japanophile (and sumo maniac), like France’s president, Jacques Chirac. But, even sumo wrestlers can smell a lousy dodge like this: Japan has also expressed concern, saying that …

March 28, 2005 @ 3:06 pm | Comment

dear pete, I studied elementary school in China. We did have a trainning, but it was only to train us to be disciplined. We educated to study hard so that our country would be realized “Four Modernizations” in 2000. It was like a dream to me at that time as I did not believe it. We were still using the oil lamp. Now, it became a reality. China never has an interest to invade other countries. We just do not want to be invaded by others. We just want to enjoy the wealth like others. Look at all the Chinese friends around you, do they ever threaten you? Maybe you donot have any Chinese friends.

May 1, 2005 @ 8:17 pm | Comment