ONE MORE FOR THE ASH HEAP

U.S. Policy Change Toward Beijing (J. Michael Waller, June 26, 2003, Insight)

The People's Republic of China (PRC) is losing its hard-won image as a force for stability in Asia as key thinkers in and around the Bush administration are beginning to view it as a dangerous and often reckless power that is fomenting fear and instability. If this change sweeps through the government leadership like other recent paradigm shifts - for instance, the quickly spreading view that Saudi Arabia no longer is a stable force in the Middle East but a corrupt and unpopular financier of terrorism - Sino-American relations will be headed for the rocks. That's bad news for the Chinese Communist Party leadership and the U.S. and other companies that have built their fortunes on it. [...]

The Chinese leadership has used its "partner" status in the world war on terrorism to crack down even further on religious, political and social movements. According to Al Santoli, editor of the American Foreign Policy Council's China Reform Monitor, "Beijing is using the war on terror as an excuse to imprison and execute political opponents and religious leaders," including underground Roman Catholic clergy, democracy activists and the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual movement.

Even the State Department responded to this, at least expressing "deep concern" over the life sentence imposed on Wang Bingzhang last February, stressing that "the war on terrorism must not be misused to repress legitimate political grievances or dissent."

The sheer volume of evidence presents a damning indictment of the PRC as a fomenter of instability and fear, a purveyor of weapons of mass destruction to the world's most dangerous state-sponsors of terrorism, a supplier of nuclear-missile technology to the planet's most tense hot spots and a unilateral force committed to changing the world's political map. Analysts see Beijing pursuing a two-track strategy of sustained, low-level military pressure with positive inducements of trade, loans, development assistance and even security cooperation - which combined create a sense of fear and dependency on the part of China's neighbors. [...]

Beijing's "long-term strategic objective is to drive American bases and influence out of the Pacific region and to exercise hegemony over it," according to Australia-based sinologist Peter Zhang. "I wrote those words nearly four years ago," he said in a recent essay for the New Australian. "Since then events in the region have only strengthened my assessment."

They're not a threat to us in the short or long term, but they aren't a partner in any way either. We should bring America's full rhetorical pressure to bear on them--"the PRC is one of the most murderous regimes in human history, remains repressive, and is incapable of satisfying the demands for freedom and prosperity of its people"--and base our military-space program on destroying their satellite and missile capability. This latter will be useful even as and after China disintegrates, because it will give us the capability to destroy missiles in other lesser nations. Prepare for China and the Saddams and Kim Jong-Ils are a snap. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 28, 2003 10:52 PM