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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| China Joins Anti-War Donks |
| 2005-09-11 |
| CHINA used the fourth anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the United States to criticise Washington's "war on terror," saying the campaign faced a "gloomy future". In a commentary issued by the official Xinhua news agency, China said although the "war on terror" helped President George W. Bush get re-elected, it had not achieved much progress. "At present, the United States is suffering a rising number of casualties and facing more problems in Iraq and Afghanistan," said the editorial. US troops were "increasingly bogged down" in the Iraqi and Afghan "quagmires" and the American people and their allies faced more threats of attacks from Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, Xinhua said. The September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States blamed on Al-Qaeda resulted in Mr Bush launching the "war on terror". In Afghanistan, the overthrown Taliban regime and Al-Qaeda were staging a comeback and recruiting worldwide, thus making it almost impossible to forestall every terrorist attack, Xinhua said. Post-Saddam Iraq was witnessing an worsening security situation, a fierce power struggle among the political parties, and a difficult start to reconstruction of the country, according to Xinhua's assessment. "After 9/11, the US government has gradually pushed ahead with a strategy characterised by unilateralism and pre-emptive strike, which has become both America's national security strategy and guidelines in the fight against terrorism," Xinhua said. "However, the strategy has proved not feasible. Although it easily toppled the Saddam Hussein regime by means of war, the US administration later stumbled in the process of helping build a 'democratic and free Iraq'." Xinhua blamed the problem on the US invading Iraq without strong support from the United Nations and the international community, or the understanding and cooperation of the Iraqi public. "All this proves that in order to win the war against terrorism, it is not enough just to hunt down the terrorists," Xinhua said. "To achieve its goal, the US administration needs to get to the root of terrorism to find the solution. "It is obvious that the war on terror can be won only by relieving poverty, eliminating the political, economic and social conditions under which terrorism and extremism breed and cooperating closely with the rest of the international community under the UN leadership," said Xinhua. Like the donks, they offer no tenable solutions themselves. |
| Posted by:Captain America |
| #8 Jackal: Boy, that sure sounds like someone else, doesn't it? These are the sentiments of big chunks of the Chinese populace. There's no real racial animus in the sense of the Nazi ideology - just an enduring sense of unavenged humiliations and a sense that these territories will be recovered when the time is ripe, at as little cost as possible. China's wars in the last 200 years have been an exception - it has used the grit of its fighting men and its numbers to make up for technological deficiencies. Prior to that, China typically had superior technology and has always been averse to losing men, for two reasons - (1) Chinese strategic thought has always emphasized economy of force, meaning victories with as few losses as possible and (2) men (typically conscripts) lost on the battlefield could have been working and generating tax revenues for the state. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-09-11 22:20 |
| #7 any territory wrested from Chinese rule during its period of weakness ... must be taken back. Boy, that sure sounds like someone else, doesn't it? |
| Posted by: Jackal 2005-09-11 22:04 |
| #6 Jackal: What about Mongolia? Is that now a dead issue, or do they want that back, too? At the popular level, they want a really large amount of territory back. Burma, Vietnam, Mongolia, Tibet and Korea used to be tributary states. Siberia used to be the domain of the Manchurian empire. Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian state, is basically the southern part of Tibet that the British empire wrested from Tibetan rule. Sikkim was a Tibetan tributary state. It's a really, really long list. When the Chinese economy and military grow strong enough - China may make its move. This isn't a top-down thing - it's a bottom-up kind of sentiment - the Chinese view is that any territory wrested from Chinese rule during its period of weakness (after a series of military defeats) must be taken back. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-09-11 20:19 |
| #5 What about Mongolia? Is that now a dead issue, or do they want that back, too? |
| Posted by: Jackal 2005-09-11 19:59 |
| #4 The Chinese perspective is that the War on Terror involves a war on Chinese separatists. Because Taiwan remains independent, the WOT is being lost. Because separatists in Tibet and Xinjiang remain active, the WOT is being lost. From the Chinese standpoint, the WOT will never be won until they get what they want from Uncle Sam - the Chinese annexation of Taiwan and the dropping of American support for Tibetan and Uighur separatism. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-09-11 17:16 |
| #3 When China becomes a "Republic of China" instead of a "People's Republic of China", I'll take her news agencies' editorials seriously. Besides, what is wrong with a "fierce power struggle among the political parties"? China would be better off for one herself. |
| Posted by: Eric Jablow 2005-09-11 16:43 |
| #2 And they're working to cut off our supply lines to Afghanistan at the same time they're saying all of this and pretending everything that's happened just happened on its own. |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2005-09-11 14:25 |
| #1 My thinking is that China believes the GWOT faces a dark future and they got millions of bucks that say it will have a gloomy future. And the Chinese are running the Kos playbook step by step. |
| Posted by: badanov 2005-09-11 13:53 |