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Jinping Takes Up the US Challenge
[TownHall] - Is the U.S. up for a second Cold War -- this time with China?
What makes the question newly relevant is that Xi Jinping's China suddenly appears eager for a showdown with the United States for long-term supremacy in the Asia-Pacific and the world.
With the U.S. consumed by the coronavirus pandemic
| ...we’re already returning to work, play, and school as our hospitals clear the remaining patients in their beds ... |
that has killed 100,000 Americans and crashed our economy to depths not seen since the Great Depression,
| ...yes, but the Great Depression did not have stimulus bills with checks to individuals and loans to businesses on top of the usual unemployment benefits to help many of those going without an income for these three months or so... |
China's dictator seems to be making his move.
| Possibly he will look back on this as his greatest error. Possibly he will decide that letting this virus escape beyond China’s borders was actually the ur-mistake. |
At the Communist Party conclave this May, China announced that it was seizing control of Hong Kong's security. From now on, subversion, sedition, secession and foreign meddling within the city will be crushed.
Whatever sanctions the U.S. and its allies impose, there will be no free and independent Hong Kong.
| Before placing any bets on that, best to define how far ahead we’re talking about, just in case. |
"For an Ascendant China, Reining in Hong Kong Is Just the Start," is the headline over The New York Times story on China's new assertiveness.
| Someone needs to check the dictionary definition of ascendant... |
"China's move to strip away another layer of Hong Kong's autonomy was not a rash impulse. It was a deliberate act, months in the making," writes reporter Steven Lee Myers. "It took into account the risks of international umbrage and reached the reasonable assumption that there would not be a significant geopolitical price to pay. ...
| We’ve seen recently the problems caused by poor modelling. It really doesn’t do to believe the pronouncements of the New York Times crowd — that’s a map with no resemblance to the actual territory, sad to say. |
"With the world distracted by the pandemic's devastating toll, China has taken a series of aggressive steps in recent weeks to flex its economic, diplomatic and military muscle across the region.
| And the world has flexed back, because everything comes down to physics — equal and opposite reactions in this case, and wave propagation from pebbles dropped ponds... and of course that charming butterfly wing. At any rate, those jobs and industries will never return to China, while the American and Japanese governments are already financing homegrown substitutes. Others will follow, as they work to become more resilient at China’s expense. |
...Consider the list of nations with which China has territorial quarrels that have lately produced military clashes.
Beijing claims Indian lands China has occupied since their 1962 war.
China claims virtually all the islets and reefs in the South China Sea and now uses naval vessels to deal with the rival claimants of Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Beijing asserts that Taiwan and all of its offshore islands in the East China Sea belong to China. While the Senkaku Islands have long been controlled by Japan, China claims these islands as well.
...So, again, the question: If China is prepared for a Cold War II with the United States to establish its predominance, what are we prepared to do should China absorb Hong Kong and convert it into a second Shanghai?
| Don’t forget that we won the last cold war by forcing the Soviet Union to spend beyond their means. This time China’s piggybank is already bursting with IOUs. |
What are we prepared to do if China puts new pressure on Taiwan and seizes offshore islands in the East China Sea, as she did in the South China Sea? Sanctions against Vladimir Putin's Russia to compel it to return Crimea and vacate eastern Ukraine have conspicuously failed.
| Putin could sell oil. China has flipflops and whatever aspirin is made of. |
Are we prepared to fight for any of the islands, none of which we claim and many of which we agree ultimately belong to Beijing?
The Chinese have stolen our intellectual property, coerced technology transfers from our businesses and sent spies posing as students into our universities to thieve our secrets.
| We’ve started clearing out the spies, which should be an accelerating process... |
Meanwhile, we allowed ourselves to become dependent on China for medicines and drugs vital to the health and the survival of millions of Americans.
| *Shrug* And now we’re reversing the process. |
Who did this to us? We did it to ourselves.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-05-27 |
