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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| Chinese defector says West wrong to step up investments to China |
| 2005-10-24 |
| Posted by:ed |
| #3 I think we should stay engaged as well. Also staying 'engaged' with the old Soviet Union helped with their reform (such as it is...). Otherwise we may end up with another North Korea... ... with a nuclear stockpile and a 1.5 giga-comrads military. (Poorly armed and trained perhaps but they could probably do a good swarm....). |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2005-10-24 22:14 |
| #2 A cardinal rule of diplomacy ("War by other means"), is that engagement is always more productive than disengagement. In this case, let us accept the axiom that China's government is unstable. "And then what happens?..." becomes the critical question. China is a mess in many, many ways. Demographically, environmentally, economically, socially. Anyone who leads China will have to do things the Chinese way, which is pretty much how the communists do things. It is overpopulated, and the majority of its people are ignorant peasants. By rights, the country should have several governments. One for the rural peasants, one for the urban coasts, probably a third just for Beijing. It is obviously headed for disasters of incredible scale--disasters that cannot be avoided. So what should the US do about it? First of all, the US needs to know what is really going on. We can do that much better if we are engaged. Second, we can support sane, reasonable leaders, and withdraw support from unstable, violent and aggressive ones. We can work to, if not alleviate the disasters they face, then to keep them from spreading outside of China. There are always possibilities. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-10-24 20:55 |
| #1 You don't have to be a defector to agree. Just a lover of freedom with an ounce of common sense. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2005-10-24 20:20 |