While China is not an enemy of the United States, it is a potential adversary.  At the moment, history is repeating itself with the Chinese playing the role once assigned to the Russians. The United States is selling virtually whatever the Chinese want even as these sales increase Chinese military strength.

Overlooked by the American business community — that has invested over $800 billion on the Chinese mainland — are the following considerations: a military defense partnership with Russia; control of the Panama and Suez canals through a privately held Chinese company; sale of nuclear technology to rogue states; deployment of Chinese agents in Venezuela; financial support for Burma; rapid military buildup including attack subs, sealift naval crafts, and a blue water navy capable of neutralizing American forces in the Pacific. What the Chinese cannot buy, they often steal.  There is little doubt that the small nuclear bomb deployed on U.S. subs was stolen from our laboratories and installed in newly commissioned Chinese subs. It is remarkable that these developments are occurring under the radar screen.

Moreover, despite claims that items sold and money invested are not in the military sector, the Chinese do not recognize the distinction between military and non-military assets.  Holding American bonds or unloading them causing havoc in our markets is a weapon. The Chinese military puts a premium on asymmetrical warfare in which vulnerabilities in the American system are sought and inexpensive measures deployed against them.  As Sun Tsu noted centuries earlier the height of success in war is defeating an enemy without spilling blood.

In Constantine Menges’ book, China: The Gathering Threat, the argument is made that the threat to U.S. interests by China is real and growing. This is no longer a matter that can be dismissed by saying it is decades behind us.  The Chinese have eight times the number of Americans studying technical subjects.  These students aren’t interested in philosophy and literature; they are in a hurry to catch up to our technological advantage. China will soon evolve from communism into state controlled capitalism or what might be called fascism.

This description does not presuppose a day of reckoning, but it does suggest that Chinese advances and U.S. complacency could lead to “check-mate,” a moment when American interests are imperiled by Chinese military force.  In this instance, I am reminded of a line attributed to Lenin but one he probably never uttered: “the West will sell the rope used to hang its people.”

Mine is not a jeremiad suggesting war is coming.  What I intend is a recognition of a potential threat; perhaps most significantly an understanding that the technology we sell or release today could be used against us at some point in the future.  We are in a race to moderate Chinese ambitions before the day military equivalence is reached.  That challenge awaits not only the American people but perhaps the entire American experiment with liberty.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 3:02 pm and is filed under Politics, Foreign Policy .