Rich, I don’t think you’ll get much response from the commies on this one – I’d love to be proven wrong, however.

However, on pre-emption, the United States’ strategy of containment in the latter half of the 20th century was also certainly classifiable as pre-emptive. The NSC-68 document defining this American foreign policy essentially stated that any time communism spreaded to a country it would arm or fund the opposition. The result was a Comintern / Nato engagement all over the globe all of which was essentially pre-emptive.

I don’t think this was a bad policy, in Nato’s part – or we might all be commies today.

January 30, 2006 @ 2:23 pm | Comment

Ed,

Actually I wrote this post (as Richard’s guest blogger), and I disagree with you about how you confuse pre-emption with containment.

Personally I have been privy (oh shit, I shouldn’t name-drop so much) to some correspondence from George Kennan, the American author of the original idea of “containment”. But, alas, Kennan’s ideas were misinterpreted by most of the bureaucratic “experts” in Washington thereafter.

Kennan did NOT believe in using force for pre-emption. Quite the contrary, he was a real diplomat of the Old School, who believed in showing our Russian (former) enemies where we will draw the line, so that we will NEVER NEED to use force against them.

Kennan did NOT believe in actually attacking “potential” enemies. He tried to persuade the idiot bureaucrats in Washington, to use old fashioned diplomacy, to show the Soviets where the line is.

And he partly succeeded, although some years later, the idiot bureaucrats corrupted his idea of “containtment” into the Viet Nam war – which Kennan was against.

Anyway, my Ed-Streaker, my friend, I suggest maybe you could think more about the difference between “containtment” and “pre-emption.”

January 30, 2006 @ 2:33 pm | Comment

PS, to be fair and accurate, I WILL say that the Russians were – and are – very, very different from the Islamic fanatics. (Who had very little to do with Saddam Hussein.)

Most of the regulars here, know that personally I have strong connections with Russia, and strong sympathies with Russia. And I know, that during the Cold War, America COULD deal with the Russians in old fashioned diplomatic ways – as we and the civilised world CANNOT do with the Islamic Fanatics, Osama Bin Laden etc.

And so, on the ONE hand, I am all for a ruthless fight against the Islamic fanatics – who, I know all too well, would just love to nuke New York and London and Moscow. I am all for fighting them by any means necessary.

But on the OTHER hand, the state of Iraq, under bloody Saddam, had nothing to do with any of that. And so, Bush’s “pre-emptive” war against Iraq was just a waste of good men and arms.

And finally, let me suggest to everyone here (American and European and Chinese, etc), that America and Europe and China would all be better off making a mutual alliance against the REAL enemies, the Islamic fanatics who are NOT in Iraq, but rather in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and flowing all through Central Asia where many nuclear weapons have disappeared….

…thus, in SOME ways I do believe in some kinds of “pre-emption”, but NOT as an excuse to fight wars against people who are not threatening us – and NOT as an excuse for the CCP to persecute anyone who says things that they don’t like hearing….

January 30, 2006 @ 2:41 pm | Comment

Ivan, my main point was essentially your comment regarding “SOME forms of ‘pre–emption'”, not to justify CCP persecution or the invasion of Iraq.

My goal was to point out that there are situations where going into a country is reasonable even though that country posed no immediate threat, such as a country that is getting infected by communism pushed by the soviet influence during the cold war.

Whether containment is diplomacy or “subversive invasion through funding anti-communists” is debatable, especially when the country in question does not have a clear established central government, or on the brink of civil war.

January 30, 2006 @ 3:37 pm | Comment

Skystreaker,

GOOD POINT you made!

So now let us all go on and discuss just when and how to evaluate “imminent threats” in scientific, logical ways – and let us go on to discuss how (if at all) the Communist Party can justify ever arresting anyone who has not posed any immediate threat…..

January 30, 2006 @ 4:35 pm | Comment

….meanwhile, “Math” and ChinaHand and the other CCP shills, are hiding under their desks and thinking:

“WHAT? The Party never taught us how to talk about this. What is the correct answer? Can’t we just carry on making clever quips about how America is hypocritical, and how America wants hegemony, and how America and China have “different paths”? Can’t we just leave it at that?….
……..If we say Bush is wrong in his doctrine of pre-emptive war, then we have to explain why the CCP is right to arrest people who have not harmed anyone. HOW? How can we do that? What is the correct answer? THE PARTY NEVER TOLD US THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION!!!”

Oh I just love to confuse Communists and make their brains burn out with frustration….. 🙂

What is the sound of one hand clapping? That’s the answer to the question of why the CCP has any right to arrest people who have never harmed anyone. The answer is a void, full of unreality.

A Zen smack on the head here, for any who can understand it…..

January 30, 2006 @ 5:11 pm | Comment

🙂

We might have to wait for the next CCP congress before we get some cryptic response.

January 30, 2006 @ 6:13 pm | Comment

I’ll give a very brief comment here before heading off to my “bureaucratic duties” (attending meeting). Hopefully it will start the debate:

Ivan asked: …how (if at all) the Communist Party can justify ever arresting anyone who has not posed any immediate threat…

No they can’t. But the reality is that they don’t have to. The CCP regime arrests people who don’t posed immediate threat to them because they can. They are not going to stop unless there is an effective check and balance system in place to stop this from happening.

January 30, 2006 @ 6:24 pm | Comment

I can only say that your meaning of preemption is too shallow, too naive. You are only seeing the surface phenomenon! There is difference between surface phenoemon and essential nature! This is a dialectic dual thinking that is the core of Chinese culture. Only you who cannot penetrate it! You wrote such tones like you are trying to insult, but I can only say that you are too simple and too naive. You do not understand China too much! Yes China is still not very strong right now, but the uniqueness of China is that its people will support its government! You will not hear Chinese news always criticize gov’t, but Chinese news knows how to be disciplined and knows how to channel people’s energy and emotion and use it to do big things! This is why China is getting so strong! Its gov’t is very wise and strategical to organize the people and the media to achieve big things for the country. This is called strategy.

January 30, 2006 @ 6:53 pm | Comment

hx:

You will not hear Chinese news always criticize gov’t,

Oh, really? I wonder why that is.

January 30, 2006 @ 7:05 pm | Comment

Why? It is because China is a very unified country! The Chinese gov’t is very strategic! China has 1.3 billion populaton, if you let people criticize, too many unhappy people will make the people lose confidence in gov’t and then fail China’s economy! The most important thing is for people united to the gov’t! That is why the news must be as a way to unite people! This is the strategy of management and government. If you cannot understand this, you are too simple too naive.

January 30, 2006 @ 7:10 pm | Comment

I guess it has nothing to do with the fact that the government owns and controls the media….

January 30, 2006 @ 7:18 pm | Comment

Of course the gov’t in China owns the media. This is a unique situation in China, because China is a country in development, and it cannot waste time making people ununified. I know many Westerners want China to have private media, but I’m sorry, this will only harm China very much. You may not understand, ok. But as a Chinese, I understand very much.

January 30, 2006 @ 7:22 pm | Comment

hx, you are in a class by yourself. Thanks for clarifying: Only Chinese people can understand why it’s good that the CCP controls the media, even though in most other societies the media is used to keep the government in check by questioning it and exposing its excesses. In China, watching the government and calling it on its sins is “a waste of time” that would “harm China very much.” Maybe that’s because, in your twisted vision, you don’t realize that China is more than the CCP. It’s also those 1.2 billion people they rule. It’s only because of brave renegades in the media that the CCP’s cover-up of SARS was exposed and the murder of Sun Zhigang publicized. And yet, you would rather they be muzzled so the party can continue to kill and cover up unhindered. You believe a media that questions the CCP’s divine right to rule would “harm China very much.” You are a dangerous little man who couldn’t care a whit about China, but only about the God-given right of the CCP to rule, unchallenged and unaccountable to the will of the people they are supposed to be representing.

January 30, 2006 @ 7:40 pm | Comment

Ivan is going to bed for a few hours, but meanwhile, I smack HX on the head – not for HX’s enlightenment, but for others who witness it.

Zen and the Art of Blogging.

I expect to see some satori on this thread in the long run. The old Zen koan of, “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” is another way of asking, “How can a single-party dictatorship represent 1.3 billion people?”

🙂 (“The moment of Zen comes rarely, but beautifully, and always when least expected.”)

Now let me go and get out of my Zen mode, and I’ll get some sleep so that I can make some silly comments like a clown, on some other threads here.

(PS, never underestimate a good clown, because God is the ultimate Clown….and Man was made in God’s image…..)

January 30, 2006 @ 8:14 pm | Comment

Hongxing wrote:

Why? It is because China is a very unified country!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! It must have been the 74,000 riots that took place last year in China that gave you that idea, right?

If so, then you are right. The people are unified – against the government.

January 30, 2006 @ 10:08 pm | Comment

Ya know, I’m coming around to thinking that HongXing is a satirist. There’s just no way he can be serious about the stuff he says. Like that triple part singing line…hee hee!

January 30, 2006 @ 10:15 pm | Comment

(yawn….) I just woke up to take a glass of water, and then I looked at this thread again and saw Lisa’s last comment about HongXing….

…and I agree with her.

HongXing, I want to PARTY with YOU, man! What kind of grass are you smoking? I can see it’s not that weak stuff from XinJiang. You must be smoking some ROCKET FUEL MARIJUANA from INDIA! We don’t get much of that in Moscow, so, come on, come and party with me in Moscow! And bring your drugs!

You are obviously on GOOD drugs, HongXing! Come on and visit me in Moscow, soon! Oh and of course you should remember to bring enough drugs (or money) to bribe the Chinese border guards when you cross the Russian border…

Come on HongXing, come visit me in Moscow! I want to PARTY with YOU, man, and with all of those great drugs you’re using!

(hee-hee… 🙂

January 30, 2006 @ 10:48 pm | Comment

Now, Other Lisa, while HongXing strikes me as weird on more than a few levels – is it a satire or not? why does his English level fluctuate so much? etc, etc, I just want to ask you…did you see the CCTV New Year Show? Because if you didn’t, the trio of guys singing about the sun over the prairie were pretty damn good. The chap who took the falsetto part, no idea what his name is but I do remember his face from CCTV9’s Centre Stage…anyway, his voice is out of this world.
Now I didn’t think it was the best part of the show – that was the troupe of dancing grannies (yay, grey-haired dancing ladies) – but I don’t see why you think HX is being satirical when he says he enjoyed that performance.
Must say that I personally was cringing all the way through the naming of the pandas – and when the final decision was made I turned to my friends with a, “poor Mr Chen, they really are trying to wind him up,” but anyway, just wondered why you’d decided that this was the strangest thing HX has said all day. I thought it was one of his sanest points.

January 31, 2006 @ 12:02 am | Comment

Well, Dish, maybe because i missed the CCTV show…who knew?! Thanks for your review…

But yeah…the varying English levels…the oddly humorous arguments…I think I should check HongXing’s IP address and make sure there isn’t more than one of him…

January 31, 2006 @ 1:12 am | Comment

well, I do give credit to Ivan to challenge GW’s preemptive war on Iraq. But I think we need to define ‘preemptive’ before we stretch the argument and apply it to broader topics.

“What evidence is there, that ANY person or party has any ability to predict what other people will do in the distant future? ”

Applying your logic to your argument itself. Aren’t you already predicting/claiming what other people will/can do with preemptive actions?

Secondly, I would like to consider most of laws/rules as being “preemptive” in nature. For instance, Congress pass the law to cut or increase tax in the *hope* to boost economy. Aren’t they predicting the future? We are discussing fixing the social security system. Is it collapsing now? Definitely not. Then why bother? why not wait unitl it collapses?!!!

January 31, 2006 @ 2:10 am | Comment

I agree with Dish. This time around, Hongxing is not as insane as we think he is. The twisted logic behind his nationalistic argument reminds me of Ah Q and his spiritual victory. For those of you who are not familiar with Lu Xun’s work, Ah Q is a caricature created to expose the extreme fault that Lu Xun perceived as symptomatic of the Chinese race at his time. So Hongxing is possibly a fake, a copycat, but definitely not a fool. Definitely should check out on him. But there is no need to ban.

The argument that Hongxing put forward, unfortunately, is not that uncommon among people from Chinese background, including those from communities outside of China. The reluctance to challenge authority goes very deep into the Chinese psyche. Shortly after the Tiananmen Square massacre, the school that I went to at that time organized a memorial ceremony for the victims. I and my best friend, an overseas student from Singapore, were both on the organizing committee. However, she failed to turn up on the day of the ceremony. When I confronted her for an explanation, she told me that her parents refused to let her attend. Their understanding was that those who dead at the massacre deserved what they got because they shouldn’t have acted against the government in the first place. Authority, from their point of view, had to be respected regardless. Any breach of this protocol will put social stability and prosperity in jeopardy. Does this sound familiar? …… I rest my case.

January 31, 2006 @ 2:11 am | Comment

CCP:
L´état c´est nous!

January 31, 2006 @ 5:00 am | Comment

Or should it read. ce sont nous? My French sucks.

January 31, 2006 @ 5:02 am | Comment

For once I actually see HX’s point.

Seems there is a fundamental difference between what the free world thinks, as opposed what mainland Chinese think, regarding the purpose of a nation.

If you subscribe to the idea that the country’s purpose is to provide a way of life and political principles, such as freedom, government transparancy, property rights, the freedom of speech even if you disagree, etc, then progress of a country in aggregate at the cost of these principles is self-defeating and therefore not justified. This group empathises with individials who lose their rights because the principles are applied at the individuals’ level. In the most idealistic sense, a possible goal may be a world representative government.

If you think that the purpose of a country however, is for the advancement of the Han people, or the CCP, then anything is justified, including killing people for thinking differently than the leadership. All other principles go out the window. If you ask a commmie “Well what about those people who lose their homes because of development or their lives because they like to stretch in public with friend?” All they’ll say is “well, that’s not so good,” but they won’t think beyond that, because they are incapable of doing so. In this scenario, the end goal would be either a single global oppresive empire, or a network of oppersive regimes, such as the one China is now forming with the likes of middle east and african nations.

So which of the two systems would prevail? Though most westerners think that China will sooner than later transition with a color revolution of its own, I’m not nearly as optimistic. The CCP will do anything it can to retain power, irrespective of how rich the country becomes.

From the economist:
No Questions Asked

Chinese analysts see a measure of irony in [China]’s new role. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, China was more interested in world-wide revolution, third-world solidarity and the backing of African liberation movements. Now, according to one scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China’s behaviour has more in common with that of the colonisers. “Since we are mainly there to make money and get hold of their resources,” he says, “it’s hard to see the difference.”

January 31, 2006 @ 11:55 am | Comment

I may be naive, but I believe if the China media was to have the same freedoms as the press in the U.S.A. the amount of unrest in China would become a world disaster.

January 31, 2006 @ 2:28 pm | Comment

Not according to hx and Math and CH – the people there love the CCP and are grateful for its generosity and competency. If they are wrong, and if the truth would create a major crisis, maybe that’s just what the country needs. I’m not saying I want to see anarchy and chaos, but some intensive introspection and some pressure from its people who’ve learned the truth could be very positive things.

January 31, 2006 @ 2:43 pm | Comment

I think Ivan believes He’s Anastassia

January 31, 2006 @ 2:46 pm | Comment

While I think HongXing is way too extreme in some of his statements, such as things like the media must never criticize the gov’t, etc. I do agree with what I think is his basic premise, and that is (if I didn’t misunderstand him): China and the US are two countries in different stages of development, and have a vastly different set of priorities. For the United States (or any other first world industrial power), its priorities are things such as how to handle the issue of abortion, how to more effectively fight a war on terror, etc. For China, it’s things like: how to create a competitive domestic automobitive industry, how to fix its broken banking system, how to resolve land use issues in the country side, etc. And these different priorities require different set of policies and philosophies of governing. The reason the US can have such a good judicial system, good voting system, good free media, good human rights record, etc are because the US no longer has to worry about “lower” issues such as subsistence. A Democratic System is only based on a strong economic foundation and an educated populace. China has not reached the level where it has a strong economic founcastion and educated populace to push for such drastic changes in the society, and doing so would do more harm than good.

An analogy would be if you are well-to-do middle class person having a 6 figure income. You are likely to spend time learning how to golf, getting massages in parlors, attending cocktail parties, learning how to dress yourself stylishly, etc etc. But if you are a single mom working 2 jobs and attending community college to raise 2 kids, you probably would not even think about doing those things. Can you say the single mom is a “worse person” because she doesn’t have time to attend cocktail parties and read the “Da Vinci Code”? Trust me, the single mom probably really want to do those things, but she really can’t do it until she gets her degree from her college and find a better job and put her two kids to college, which probably is 5-6 years away.

To summarize: you can only have time to think about “higher issues” when you have dealt with “lower issues” first. To give a more extreme example, if you are 5 other guys are stranded on an island with a massive forest. What do you do? Do you guys come together and write poems and start debating about the meaning of life? No, instead, you guys all agree it is wiser to start build tents and huts and try to survive by getting food in the forest, then maybe try to contact passing-by ships and airplanes for rescue. And maybe you would walk around naked and maybe even assign a leader who seems to know what he is doing…. just so you can get out of this difficult situation of being stranded on island.

January 31, 2006 @ 2:51 pm | Comment

Back to the original subject, I think that a pre-emptive strike (if not a war) could be justified. Iran’s nuclear program and the president’s repeated statements about destroying Israel, provide a pretty clear example. It’s more about defining what is a clear and present danger. it’s also about having a moral compass that can define good and evil. The show trial of a dissident is evil (the overthrow of Stalin would have been a good thing). A surgical strike on an Iranian weapons facility would be unfortunate, but it would be a better option than the destruction of Israel.

January 31, 2006 @ 8:15 pm | Comment

Fat Cat, that’s interesting, and sad. My recollection of post 6/4 is that a bunch of Chinese students, from the mainland, who were going to UCSD organized, made T-shirts, set up a collection and were very active in their protests. maybe they had more personal connections to the students in the Square.

January 31, 2006 @ 10:44 pm | Comment

Just a couple of things:

I have to disagree with China hand’s analysis. He seems to have bought into the the CCPs argument that human rights need to be supressed in order to provide the necessities and speed development. But where is it written that this is the most effective model for development? Why do they (the CCP, their supporters and dictators in general) assume that democracy equals economic chaos? India may be behind China but that’s because they’ve held on to socialist economics too long, not because they let the people choose who governs them. In fact, democracy has protected India from government made catastrophies on the scale of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Sure, countries like South Korea and Taiwan (notice I’m calling Taiwan a country, I’m sure somebody will lay into me for that) did well under dictatorships but they’ve done even better under democracy. Who’s to say that they couldn’t have done that well -or better, all along under democracy? And as for Russia, I’m no expert (maybe Ivan can address this) but I think that corruption and mismanagement and the awful decisions of past dictators have more to do with Russia’s problems. And all of those problems are easier to correct under democracy.

February 1, 2006 @ 1:38 am | Comment

I’m with myrick on the issue of pre-emptive strike. It depends on how you define imminent danger. Iran should not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons, period.

History has taught us to that guys who say they want to wipe certain countries/religions/ethnic groups off the map, generally are not kidding around. Add to this that Iran is a MAJOR supporter of terrorist groups who have beefs with the US and you’ve got a clear national interest issue.

Some people say that Iran would never allow it’s nukes into terroist hands for deployment against the US out of fear of retribution. What’s this assumption based on? Are they sure about that? I’m not. How many millions of lives are you willing to bet?

A personal anecdote: I used to be a bar bouncer and I got into a lot of scrapes. The thing is, when you’re throwing someone out, you can’t trhough the first punch. You open yourself and the bar up to an assault charge and lawsuit. You have to wait for them to through the first punch. Many black eyes and bloody noses have convinced me of the value of pre-emptive strike. In the age of suitcase sized nukes, resourceful extremists, global information warfare and GPS guided munitions, it’s not wise to wait ’til for the other guy to throw his punch.

February 1, 2006 @ 1:57 am | Comment

Iron Buddha,

To your questions about Russia:

1. The Communist Part was the most corrupt regime in all of Russian history. The main reason why Russia has a (false) REPUTATION for more corruption since the end of Communism, is simply because there is more of a free press and a more open society in Russia now, where the corruption is allowed to be exposed. (And on that note, just consider how the VISIBLE corruption in today’s China is just a tip of an iceberg. No wonder the Chinese Communists fear a free press, where all of their crimes will be exposed)

2. The Chinese Communist propaganda about how Russia “became chaotic” after the end of Communism, is a Big Lie – it’s utter nonsense. The Russian economy today is a HELL of a lot better than it was in the 1970s (0r 60s, etc etc) And MOST of all:

3. UNLIKE Communist China, Russia is NOT experiencing tens of thousands of protest riots every year.
Russia is not in chaos. China is.

February 1, 2006 @ 9:09 am | Comment

Thanks Ivan. Gotta have the picture from people on the ground from time to time.

February 2, 2006 @ 3:21 am | Comment

In the 1940s, Japan carried out a pre-emptive strike on Pearl Harbor and had more justification in doing so that America had in striking Iraq, or has in striking Iran.

It is moraly impossible for any Ameircan to justify a pre emptive action against anybody without also justifying Pearl Harbor.

February 2, 2006 @ 5:22 am | Comment

Well, I’m not in favor of a pre-emptive strike on Iran and don’t believe we’ll do it – that would mean, practically speaking, the end of any US role in Middle East affairs, and a revival of anti-US terrorism like we’ve never seen. But the comparison with Pearl Harbor is imperfect, to say the least. We have warned Iran and told them, at least obliquely, that we will strike if they don’t cease and desist. Whether that is fair or not isn’t the question, but it’s a matter of fact. If they choose to continue down their present path, they do so at their own risk. We had no such luxury in the case of Pearl Harbor, did we?

February 2, 2006 @ 10:01 am | Comment

hi,everyboby ,it is my first to come here and I am a chinese.I hope it will not become barriers for me to communicate with you because of my poor english.I want to show my point of view about chinese media.First of all you should know why should we need media which is not only tells you what happened today.The essence of the media is to correct the behavior of our people (off course esspeciallly the behavior our government),and now what I see in our media is one kind of voice which I could discribe it as overwhelming.And I think it is only an excuse to resume the anarchy and chaos if our media is like the ones of the USA.
I donnot want say too much because I am not sure if I will be tracked if I host an opposite point of view of our media .
Bless our country.

February 4, 2006 @ 5:30 am | Comment

Welcome, and please comment freely – the CCP doesn’t care much about blogs in English.

You have to consider the trade-off. A free media may bring some “chaos,” but it is also proven to be the best tool for generating reform and justice – even in China, as the famous murder of Sun Zhigang showed. This chaos is a small price to pay if it means reform of a repressive, tyrannical system that leads to systematic murder and unwarranted arrests of innocent civilians.

February 4, 2006 @ 9:36 am | Comment

thankyou ,richard.yes ,you said it .it is proven to be the best tool for generating reform and justice .I even don’t think it will pay a small price .I said it is absolutely an excuse to assume the anarchy and chaos.If it will do some ‘side-effect’ I think the only rusult will be the shakening the role of the ccp which I described as the ccp’suiside and not the life of average people .So ,do you think it will commit suiside ?I think so mang people know the answer.I used to believe that our government will become better and better.But if you ask me if I love my country I can only tell you I love the people of our country.I think there are so mang people in china share the same idea with me .But you know stability and security is more impontant than freedom.
by the way ,richard,can you tell me some information about this chat-room.I am only a pedestrian here and where are you from ?thankyou

February 6, 2006 @ 3:16 am | Comment

richard,could understand the real meaning of stability and security is more impontant than freedom.
I think you can get my point

February 6, 2006 @ 3:22 am | Comment