Those who hope for McCain, China-as-enemy

ARTICLE: Beijing Embraces Classical Fascism, By Michael A. Ledeen, AEI, May 6, 2008

Some truly unhelpful--even dangerous--name-calling from a pro-capitalist organization than should know better. Bad history, but Robert Kagan pushing it too in his new book. Clearly, the neocons are re-engaging in demonizing China--just too tempting a target and it's just so easy to bandwagon in anticipation of a McCain presidency. Remember what they wanted and pursued before 9/11 interrupted their focus.

You want WWIII or IV (I lose count), these gentlemen are your posse.

Honestly, Ledeen uses such self-serving terms, definitions and diagnoses that I could replace "China" and the "Chinese Communist Party" and substitute "America" and the "Bush-Cheney regime" and actually get through all the way through without laughing.

So truly misguided to be throwing such bricks from their glass fort.

Comments

[Galrahn]

Those guys are preparing for the wrong war. Kagan is supposed to be smarter than this.

[stuart abrams]

Fascinating. The Far Right has even embraced the same epithet - "corporatist" - that the Far Left likes to use against the Bush Administration. The Right and the Left are truly united in their hatred (fear) of globalization. Fortunately, we have a far more powerful force - business- pushing in the opposite direction.

[Wiredman]

China as a Fascist state is a plausible future for China. Is it provable? I don't know. Hope not.

It seems like so many people are ready to get rid of Bush, that they are willing to take very large risks with Obama. (I would feel more comfortable with Obama with a classic Republican congress, circa 1994. But instead I believe we will get an Obama with a classic Democratic congress, circa 2007. It will be payback time. Or pay-up time if you will.)

[Mike Frager]

I hope people will see how dangerous McCain would be:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtZlR3zp4c

[Ted O'Connor]

Remember what Pogo said. "We have met the enemy, and it is us." Well, it is not us yet, but it could be.

Perhaps what is most frightening to the China foes is the thougt that China might end up another United States. Big, powerful, arrogant, and quick on the trigger. How many years do we have before the Chinese have a Pacific fleet that matches ours in size and capability? Are we willing to "step back" in the Pacific, or are we going to make the Chinese "push us back?"

In my conversations with retired military (mostly navy) out here in San Diego I notice an interesting contradiction. If I ask "Should we go to war with China?" the answer will usually be "No" or "I hope not". However if I ask "Is war with China inevitable?" the answer is almost always "Yes."

The coverage of the earthquake disaster shows that China is full of...can it be?.....human beings. Mothers crying over the bodies of dead children, soldiers and civilians tearing at rubble with their bare hands, cheering and joy when someone is pulled from the wreckage alive. What a tragedy it would be, if we cannot find a way to make this emerging nation an ally instead of an enemy.

The flash point need not be in the Pacific. We hear Mrs. Clinton promise to anihilate Iran if nuclear weapons are used against Israel. We don't hear anyone saying that they will anihilate Israel if Iran is attacked with nuclear weapons. Not yet. But down the road...who knows? The Soviet Union proved to be nothing more than a "coat holder" in the previous conflicts in the Mideast. China and India are the new players. Neither country has any reason to support Israel. What will happen if China or India decides to support Iran? I mean really support it, not just the usual UN charade, but actually pledging military action?

I hope that Mrs. Clinton's tough girl, sabre rattle was just part of her desperate late in the game fund raising. I suspect that it was nothing more than that. But the rest of the world is left shaking it's head, wondering who will see the Cruise Missles next.

[Robert Jordan Prescott]

Casting the PRC as classically fascist is overkill but isn't there some room for even discussing China as challenge akin to Wilhelmine Germany? Imperial Germany was certainly integrated in the global economy during its time, but the concentration of authority in the hands of an illiberal elite precluded any progressive evolution, no matter how many elections the Social Democrats won. See Spring 2001 International Security (link below) - "the more power is concentrated in the hands of an individual(s), the greater the influence of the leader's(s') preferences. When one considers how opaque the mechanics of the PRC government is, especially on security affairs (see ASAT test), then the some observers can be rightfully skeptical in discounting the votes of hundreds of millions of emerging Chinese capitalists.

http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/bymanetalvol25no4.pdf

[William R. Cumming.]

I keep wondering how the links of the present to the past of the "Who Lost China" debate seems to still be forged in the neo-cons thinking and ignore everything that has occurred after the Nixon/Kissinger opening to China. No relationship between any two sovereign nations has ever been as complex as that between the US and China. Interesting that FDR insisted on China having a seat on the UN Security Council. I still think that is THE critical foreign policy relationship for the US for the 21st Century. What is the old saw "Nations have interests not allies."

[Jack]

For all their baloney, the academic left (think Decontructionists, Post-Colonialists, et al) may have a point when they claim that people - and nations - define themselves against the "Other", whomever that may be.

We seem to have an almost pathological need to have an enemy we can define ourselves against. If it's not Islamofascists and Jihadists, then it's the big, bad Chinese. And if, perchance, the Chinese are not big enough or bad enough, then they can be made to seem that way...

This is not to say that China is our pal; it is not, at least not yet. And of course we ought to watch our backs. But there seems something akin to glee in the rush to find a new enemy, instead of scoping out the potential for increased cooperation.

[kev]

That was hardly a call to arms. It was simply analysis... considering the implications and remediations of a possible historic parallel.

[Jarrod Myrick]

Every average joe I talk to says war w/China is a certainty: opinion as fact. It's become a self-fulfilling prophecy like run-up to Iraq invasion ona slower course. Let's do it. Why not? Yao will play very dirty against Duncan.