Posted on 11/20/2004 11:08:02 PM PST by tallhappy
Why would you think that is the only other alternative?
My comment about China was about dealing with North Korea.
But you would have have to trace back a couple of posts to see that. (no flame intended...just information.)
China IS crucial for dealing with N. Korea.
If China could do that, or more likely had the interest in doing it, it would not have been a problem in the first place.
Thinking the only person who can close the barn door is the person who let it be opened, or actually opened it, in the first place makes no sense.
Many have stated this, or similar comments.
That, though true or debatable, has no bearing on whether it is truly sickening or not.
It is sickening to see the top official of a despotic dictatorial regime standing as equal to the President of the United States, the leader of the free world.
That is true even if the meeting somehow magically would solve any and every problem facing us.
The second is Taiwan. No Chinese Imperial dynasty paid the least attention to Taiwan, or bothered to claim it. The Manchus did, though, in 1683, and ruled it in a desultory way, as a prefecture of Fujian Province, until 1887, when it was upgraded to a province in its own right. Eight years later it was ceded to Japan, whose property it remained until 1945. In its entire history, it has been ruled by Chinese people seated in China's capital for less than four years. China's current attitudes to Taiwan are, I think, pretty well known.
And the third stumbling block to the restoration of China's greatness is…….the United States. To the modern Chinese way of thinking, China's proper sphere of influence encompasses all of East Asia and the western Pacific. This does not mean that they necessarily want to invade and subjugate all the nations of that region, though they certainly do want to do just that to Taiwan and some groups of smaller islands. For Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Micronesia, etc., the old imperial-suzerainty model would do well enough, at least in the short term. These places could conduct their own internal affairs, so long as they acknowledged the overlordship of Beijing, and, above all, did not enter into alliances, nor even close friendships, with other powers.
Which, of course, too many of them have done, the competitor power in every case being the U.S. It is impossible to overstate how angry it makes the Chinese to think about all those American troops in Japan, Korea, and Guam, together with the U.S. Seventh Fleet steaming up and down in "Chinese" waters, and electronic reconnaissance planes like the EP-3 brought down on April 1 operating within listening distance of the mainland. If you tackle Chinese people on this, they usually say: "How would you feel if there were Chinese troops in Mexico and Jamaica, and Chinese planes flying up and down your coasts?" Leaving aside the fact that front companies for the Beijing regime now control both ends of the Panama Canal, as well as Freeport in the Bahamas, the answer is that the United States is a democracy of free people, whose government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, so that the wider America's influence spreads, the better for humanity: while China is a corrupt, brutish, and lawless despotism, the close containment of which is a pressing interest for the whole human race. One cannot, of course, expect Chinese people to be very receptive to this answer.
Or, indeed, to anything much we have to say on the subject of their increasing militant and assertive nationalism. We simply have no leverage here. It is no use trying to pretend that this is the face-saving ideology of a small leadership group, forced on an unwilling populace at gunpoint. The Chinese people respond eagerly to these ultra-nationalist appeals: That is precisely why the leadership makes them. Resentment of the U.S., and a determination to enforce Chinese hegemony in Asia, are well-nigh universal among modern mainland Chinese. These emotions trump any desire for constitutional government, however much people dislike the current regime for its corruption and incompetence. Find a mainlander, preferably one under the age of thirty, and ask him which of the following he would prefer: for the Communists to stay in power indefinitely, unreformed, but in full control of the "three T's" (Tibet, Turkestan, Taiwan); or a democratic, constitutional government without the three T's. His answer will depress you. You can even try this unhappy little experiment with dissidents: same answer.
Is there anything we can do about all this? One thing only. We must understand clearly that there will be lasting peace in East Asia when, and only when, China abandons her atavistic fantasies of imperial hegemony, withdraws her armies from the 2 million square miles of other people's territory they currently occupy, and gets herself a democratic government under a rule of law. Until that day comes, if it ever does, the danger of war will be a constant in relations between China and the world beyond the Wall, as recent events in the South China Sea have illustrated. Free nations, under the indispensable leadership of the United States, must in the meantime struggle to maintain peace, using the one, single, and only method that wretched humanity, in all its millennia of experience, has so far been able to devise for that purpose: Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum.***
Sorry. I'm an idiot. I've also been ready an unhealthy amount of economics. Apologies to all.
ready = reading
That heart surgery surely has made Clinton look feeble.
ASS SOL !!!
I have experienced this directly. It is no lie.
Do you expect our President to simply blow off a government official? Even Ronald Reagan shook hands with Gorbachev.
I am currently an English teacher in southern China. Over the course of a year, I have learned some things about these people. Sometimes you have to play good cop-bad cop with them. That is precisely what Dubya is doing here. After the spy plane collision in 2001, the Chinese snivelers demanded an apology. Dubya told them to go jump in the Yangtze. Likewise, he said the USA would do everything necessary to protect Taiwan. Now, he is taking a more conciliatory tone. Without a doubt, he will take another "bad cop" stance in the future, given the nature of the Satanic regime that controls the 1.3 billion people here.
Ronald Reagan viewed the Soviet Union as the Evil Empire, yet even he was sometimes willing to take the "good cop" position when it was expedient to do so. I'm sure he cordially shook hands with Gorbachev shortly before he walked out of the 1986 conference in Iceland. Politics sometimes dictate that you swallow your enmity for a few minutes to engage in basic pleasantries. That's the only reason the Beltway is more civilized than the West Bank. Don't assume that Dubya is suddenly an aficionado of Mao & Company.
No one loves China here, but face it, China is the biggest kid in that neighborhood and their pressure on them is helpful.
The more pressure the better.
Haven't you been paying attention for the past year?
But you still haven't explained the other comment to me. Why did you say that?
Then he "blew him out of the water" with Star Wars (USSR went bankrupt trying to compete) as the Pope John Paul's visibility and oil prices tagged teamed with Reagan to bring about the demise of the USSR.
No need to apologize. I was worried about my post sounding tacky, that's why I said no flame intended.
To think we were talking about economics is perfectly reasonable considering the actual purpose of the conference. :)
okey-dokey...I still believe these guys (china) are a force in the world, whether we like it or not. So we better get used to dealing with them in a reasonable manner.
Exactly. Why schmooze with the ChiCom elite? They are superfluous and bothersome. They should be marginalized, not allowed to ride on Bush's coattails.
Do you expect our President to simply blow off a government official?
In this case, a staunch Yes.
Even Ronald Reagan shook hands with Gorbachev.
Yes, he did and this is a perfect example of what is wrong with this picture.
The Bush Hu picture provides one thing and one thing only -- a boost for Hu and the legitimacy for his regime. That picture will be beamed all over China and the world. Anyone with aspirations for something better for China will be dismayed and disheartened. If the President of the United States is supporting that tyrant, how can there be much hope.
Reagan, on the otherhand, explicitly claled the Soviet Union an Evil Empire. He was outspoken and clear in his condemnation of their political system. He never took it back or backed down.
Yet Gorbacev went and net him. To a Soviet citizen of the time the message was, Reagan can say these things and our leader cannot stand up to him and makes nice to him.
In the present case the exact oppositie dynamic is taking place. China slams the US and Bush's administration itself all over the media there yet here is Bush with their leader despite all of that.
I should let all of you guys know that NO ONE hates the government in Beijing more than the businessmen of the Pearl River Delta. They tell me, however, that traditional Chinese respect for authority, as well as the fact that so many in the rural areas are dependent on the state, imperil reform.
You catch more flies with honey than with vinigar.
What? Do you want him to flip him the bird or something?
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