Posted on 01/09/2003 8:59:42 PM PST by maui_hawaii
Or US complacency...
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fifty-year structures
One of the important premises on which Chinese assessments about the future security environment are based is the concept of "world structures" (zhanlue shijie geju). (134) This term is used to refer to the design of the world pattern, which, according to Chinese, generally exists for several decades before undergoing a major transformation. Each "world structure" is based on the organization and state of relations among the great nations in the world. The process by which one world strategic pattern gives away to another usually is a major war. One author writes, "A world pattern is the relatively stable international structure formed by the interrelations and interaction between the main forces in the world during a certain historical period. . . . The changes in the world pattern are based on the changes in the relations of the world's main contradictions, and they accompany international and social phenomena such as turbulence, division, alignment and crises, that result in conflicts and war." (135) The basic Chinese catechism identifies four major "world strategic patterns" during the past 200 years. One scholar at CICIR has put together a grid (table 2) illustrating characteristics of the world order in the 20th century.
(table is the link above)
The first world structure, called the "Vienna System" by the Chinese, lasted 40 to 50 years and was set up by the victorious nations who defeated Napoleon. These four powers (Russia, Austria, Prussia, and Britain) established a world structure that was centered entirely on Europe and characterized by mutual bargaining and the use of "spheres of influence" to preserve stability. The second structure, which also lasted 40 to 50 years, was created by internal events in Japan, Italy, Germany, and the United States that destroyed "the original proportions and distributions of strength" and in so doing broke out of the strategic configuration confined to Europe. (136) Although still centered on Europe, this new pattern also expanded to North America and Asia. Briefly, the major developments were the rapid advancement of capitalism in the United States after the Civil War, the Meiji Restoration in Japan, and the political unification of Italy, as well as the unification of Germany in 1870 and its defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871.
The third world structure derived from the conduct of the powers that won World War I. In a manner similar to the creation of the Vienna System Pattern, the new Versailles System was established by the strong victorious powers (the United States, Britain, France, Italy, and Japan). As had occurred with the Vienna Conference after the Napoleonic Wars, the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 "redivided the world" and laid down the rules for the next "era." However, the October Revolution established the Soviet Union in this period and Moscow participated in the Versailles System, which "broke the pattern whereby imperialism ruled the whole world." (137) When discussing this era, several Chinese authors refer to it as the Versailles-Washington System, arguing that the three major treaties signed at the Washington Conference of 1921 played a major role in shaping the world structure of the time. (138)
The fourth world structure is known in China as the Yalta System, a name derived from the Yalta Summit involving the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union in February 1945. Most Chinese claim this conference "carved out the spheres of influence in Europe and Asia for the United States and the Soviet Union." With respect to China, the Yalta Summit included Soviet recognition of "U.S. control over Japan," while the United States in turn "satisfied the Soviet Union's wishes to regain Sakhalin Island, enabled Outer Mongolia to become independent, and enlisted northeast China into the sphere of influence." (139) The Chinese state that the decline of British strength reduced its sphere of influence, so that the Yalta System actually established a world structure of two poles, Washington and Moscow, whose relationship largely determined world politics. The Yalta System endured until 1991, nearly 50 years. Because the core of the Yalta Agreement was the division of Europe and Germany into two parts, Chinese date the end of the Yalta System to the reunification of Germany in 1991. Although the Chinese say the Yalta System has "basically disintegrated," they recognize it continues in Northeast Asia in the division between North Korea and South Korea and in the unresolved territorial dispute between Moscow and Tokyo over the northern territories. There have been some Chinese references to the unresolved problem of Taiwan's sovereignty also being a part of the Yalta System because Taiwan's legal status was not resolved either at Yalta or the 1951 San Francisco Peace Conference.
Within a world structure there is also what is known as a world order (shijie zhixu), or the ways and means by which nations interact and deal with each other:
A world structure refers to a relatively stable international framework and strategic situation formed on the foundation of a certain power balance. A world order then refers to, on the basis of the world structure, the mechanisms and rules of the motion of international relations (such as handling international affairs and international contact). The two have both generalities (both take the power balance as their base) and differences (they do not adapt to one another; if the old structure collapses, the old order probably continues to exist). (140)
I would assume one scenario in the North's economic zone...It could have been not widely based enough into broad reforms. It was probably designed around a cop out, not a real economic reform and opening. Hence not good enough for the purposes of China.
If you define "China" as being larger than any political party, what is wrong with America's presence? What were we there for? Hint: It wasn't to fight Communists. That came later.
We were there fighting the Japanese.
The problem with your thinking is that it assumes that only a Communist Party Chinese is a real Chinese.
You see, the CCP only cared that THEY ruled China. Nothing else mattered/s. They could care less about Japanese. The CCP were a bunch of lying two bit propagandists who never fought the Japanese they hate so much.
They were/are defining "China" around themselves and their party. America on the other hand was not.
You would have fit in to the Red Guards just fine with that kind of thinking.
EXACTLY.
China and North Korea are not buddy buddy at all. They use each other in some respects, and struggle in others. The hand of the Chinese does not pull the string of the North Koreans, and if it did, they would have pulled back.
The sad fact of the matter is that China has lost a lot of influence over the NKs, and realize that they are playing with matches in a pool of gasoline. They'll wash their hands of them the minute things get dirty, but until then they'll try and keep them just barely afloat enough to be a thorn in our side.
No, that's just how they are different from us. America is not the Republicans or Democrats. The Republicans or Democrats are no more or less legitimate in power than out.
That is not true in China. China is the Communists, the Nationalist, the Qing, the Ming, the Manchu, the Han, whoever is running the country is the country. You can't oppose the government and not oppose the country.
I realize that sounds odd, but that's how its been for millenia.
(At this point, I jumped up and yelled 'Down with Clinton! Down with Clinton' and had them do it with me. We laughed, and I told them people do that all over America, and it's no big deal.)
I told him that the only reason our system works is that we criticize each other, or we'd have to fight about everything we disagreed upon. America may be a young nation, I pointed out, but it has one of the oldest governments on the planet, exactly because of this.
(I also pointed out subversively that their government would be as stable as ours, if they could tolerate the same dissent from their citizens that I showed earlier towards mine.)
All in all, I found them to be adequately aware and mostly supportive of how our government functions. They were very open to the idea of becoming more like us in a way that would not offend their government (good luck!) They had more knowledge of western life than I expected, but less political means to get there, too. Tiananmen really set back the democracy crowd there, and the few that will still talk about it don't know how to proceed.
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