Chinese Dragon Stokes its Fire

Confucius say, MAN WHO PLAY WITH FIRE EATING, BREATHING DRAGON GET BURNED.

The NYT reported, "The Obama administration notified Congress on Friday of its plans to proceed with five arms sales transactions with Taiwan worth a total of $6.4 billion. The arms deals include 60 Black Hawk helicopters, Patriot interceptor missiles, advanced Harpoon missiles that can be used against land or ship targets and two refurbished minesweepers." There were other reports that included communications gear and air defense components. This sale was to be the first installment on an 11 billion dollar military sales package that was negotiated by the GWB administration.

The Red Chinese government flew into a diplomatic tizzy, much like a Chinese opera over the planned sale; their actions had all the bongs, gongs, fire crackers and sing-song Chinese high-pitched screeching associated with their opera performances. They called in the US Ambassador to Peking, curtailed Sino/American military exchanges and promised to retaliate against US corporations that provided the military hardware to Taiwan.

You can bet your favorite ivory chopsticks that the Chinese will slow walk and undermine any support for US policies in Iran and North Korea as well as tighten the screws in Latin America.

Except for the Harpoon missiles, there is almost no threat to the Chinese mainland from these weapons systems. The sale is well within US law, so despite the fact that that US trade regrettably depends on extensive military sales, the world now knows that the US will take any risk to maintain its top rank, world role as a military merchant – it is a clear hard signal.

Chinese retaliation is not without risk to them. In May 2009, the US owed China $772 billion. The Chinese have used this surplus to outbid the US in competition for world natural resources and leasing of strategic installations such as the Panama Canal. They have even regularly outbid the US for oil concessions in Iraq. This money was borrowed from them to fuel Neocon/GWB wars during the last eight years of Republican misrule.

There is an inverted imperialistic advantage the US maintains: it could devaluate its currency, making the Chinese holdings worth much less. Such a step, some would argue, would wreck the US economy also; but others contend it is already wrecked, so what the hell? Anyway there is other US leverage: who would buy Chinese junk such as alarm clocks, fans that fall apart right after sale... or buy baby cribs and toys that kill or are toxic to humans and poisoned dog food and drugs?

The foreign affairs in the USA in are dominated by American Jews such as Gelb and Haas out of NYC as well as AIPAC lobbyists in congress. These advocates are not only Middle East firsters, but Israeli firsters and as a result an important country like China gets less attention than Iran in American diplomatic circles; this is because of Israeli hysteria over Iran. China has nuclear weapons, but so far has limited capability to project them to the US. Iran is not a threat to US unless its fleet remains a sitting duck in the Persian Gulf as it is today. For example, a Jihadist-class rowboat nearly sunk the USS Cole and killed over 20 of our sailors.

One can wonder how the Tea Baggers attack Obama as a Bolshevik when they are silent on Communist China that is a growing military and economic threat. War with Red China is a better than even possibility in the next decade.

My view on the Taiwan military package is that the US at last is pursuing its own national interests toward China. After GWB surrendered on the forced downed US Navy re-con aircraft to China early in his first term, there has been little to curb Red Chinese arrogance. Time will tell whether President Obama holds to the course or rolls over, especially when the Ding Hao Chinese Red Dragon Lobby goes to work. Watch as the billion dollar Chicom reserves go to work on our money-hungry congress. Colonel Robert E Bartos USA Ret