USA Rebukes China For Suspending Military Ties

The Statesman ^ | June 5, 2010

[Strategy]

SINGAPORE, 5 JUNE: US defence secretary Mr Robert Gates today rebuked China for suspending military ties over US arms sales to Taiwan, saying Beijing's rationale made little sense.

"Chinese officials have broken off interactions between our militaries, citing US arms sales to Taiwan as the rationale," he said.

"This makes little sense," Mr Gates said, adding that interruptions in the military exchange with China would not change the US policy toward Taiwan.

[bIlluminati]

Heard British Petroleum is coming out with a new lubricant (light brown, cleans up well) called Whiskey Delta 44.

[Fee]

However the smart Chinese leader also knows that paper can cut if not properly handled. By the way that is an old Asian adage to counter overconfidence in dealing with “paper tigers”. US is not a paper tiger that can be dealt with lightly.

[baa39]

Very astute.

[mkjessup]

When would China and America ever have a common enemy?
When Chinese communism collapses and Christiany displaces statism, and when the American Communist Federal Royalty is displaced, China and America will need to join forces against the common enemy of humanity:
Islam.

I will gladly choose Szechuan beef over halal burgers anyday.

[Soul of the South]

“Ya can always find the money to fight for your life, if you have a strong enough ‘will to live’.....”

I agree nations with a will to survive and the right leaders can find funding for a war. I the case of the USA in 2010, I question if we still have the industrial infrastructure to support a war with China. We defeated Germany and Japan in WWII because American manufacturing was converted to producing war materials. Today many industries have gone overseas and much of the manufacturing required to fight a war is now in China. We no longer have the textile and apparel factories to make clothing for our armies and our citizens. The big steel mills that produced metal for tanks and planes are gone. Many of our electronic weapons depend on chips made outside this country. Plastics, chemicals and other critical materials are now produced outside this country.

China very smartly embarked on a 30 year campaign to gut our industrial infrastructure. Today China could cut off exports to the US and we’d be on our knees within six months without China ever firing a shot.

We currently have the best armed forces money can buy. However, our military cannot sustain warfare with a major industrial power if there is no manufacturing infrastructure to support it. A service and information economy doesn’t produce the industrial goods needed to sustain lengthy military operations when sources of supply outside our borders are cut off.

Consider also the energy situation. In the 1940’s the US was a great industrial power and almost completely energy independent. We are even more energy dependent today than when we experienced the oil embargos of the 1970’s. Cut off supplies of foreign oil for a few months and our economy will crash. Certainly the Chinese know this. All they have to do is take out one or two supertankers at the beginning of a conflict and our foreign oil supplies end.

Finally, the Chinese people are used to living spartan lives with much hardship. Fighting a war with China would require the same kinds of sacrifices the civilian population accepted during WWII. How much sacrifice will the dependent class populating our inner cities be willing to accept? Will the 50% of the population that pays no taxes and lives off the other 50% sacrifice to save the nation or will it vote to submit?

The Chinese know all of this. We are a paper tiger if it ever comes to facing China in this century.

[uncommonsense]

"That said, I'm not sure what "joint military operations" with China would gain for America beyond P.R. When would China and America ever have a common enemy?"

From what I can tell, we haven't fully transferred our military secretes, technologies, and fighting strategies - begun under Nixon and exploding under Clinton. Gates hasn't fully globalized our military (er ah - implemented "diversity").

[Niuhuru]

Thanks. I wish our stupid politicians would stop treating China like an automatic enemy and more like a potential ally. We need to stop taking our superpower status for granted.

[dfwgator]

In the end, China will simply buy out Taiwan, they will gain controlling interests in their companies, and they won’t have to fire a shot.

[baa39]

“We need to stop taking our superpower status for granted.”

Especially when we may not have it much longer.

[Niuhuru]

China is determined to end up a power player, if not THE preeminent center of power and influence. They aren’t going to be politically correct and our country needs to stop licking the boots of the entertainment industry. They have the right priorities, with scientists at the top, then the soldier, then the businessman. They learned from putting the soldier at the bottom of the barrel and won’t let it happen again.

China doesn’t care about being ‘nice,’ they care about doing the right thing by their citizenry, which is to protect them and preserve the sovereignty of their nation and ensure that their manufacturing base is solid. Not about some deluded idea of there being no more nukes or no more guns. Of catering to the hysteria of a thirteen percent minority. I suppose that “Nothing But The Nation” is their motto in their dealings.

[eaglestar]

This is good news we don’t need to have military ties with China. On the other hand, this President has been so weakened by his own rhetoric that even China knows that he’s not man enough to stand up to them.