DRAGON, MEET ANACONDA:

Part 1: Dragon seizes market share (Macabe Keliher, 2/10/04, Asia Times)

Whether China has dropped the illusion of the US in decline remains in debate, in both Washington and Beijing. "China is driven by a grand strategy, in which it is continually looking for ways to undermine the US," says Ross H Munro, director of Asian studies at the Center for Security Studies in Washington, DC. Munro believes that China's rise as an economic and political power is a calculated effort to "create a modern version of the [ancient] Tributary State System - unchallenged Chinese domination of all of East Asia".

Economically, it is true, China is gaining at the expense of the United States. China has replaced the US as the largest export market for much of Asia. For example, almost all of the export growth in Taiwan, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Australia last year came from Chinese demand. "The US is still a much bigger market for Asia, but in 10 years China will be close," says Anderson at UBS.

Chinese opposition to the US in Asia has appeared militarily in recent years, to be sure. The spy-plane incident in the South China Sea in April 2001 and a naval challenge to the USS Kitty Hawk in international waters in the Yellow Sea are examples. And the missile buildup and military exercises on the coast opposite Taiwan do not present the view of a benevolent China. In fact, editorials and commentators in China frequently espouse such anti-US views, especially within the military. The Liberation Army Daily, for example, ran an article in early 2002 stating that "hegemonism and power politics will still be the source of turbulence and instability in the world" and saying, "Establishing a new international order will be the focus of international relations." [...]

"There will be a conflict between the US and China. The only question is whether it will be a hot one or a cold one," [M D Nalapat, who holds the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Peace Chair] predicts - a battle not between cultures but over real interests."

It need not be a hot war because China's internal weaknesses--political, economic, environmental, demographic, geographical, etc.--are so pronounced that we can destabilize them without firing a shot. The keys are to keep up the pressure by emphasizing human rights (especially for the burgeoning Christian population) and the right of self-determination of various peoples and regions, while at the same time forging a more explicitly anti-China coalition that includes India, Russia, Taiwan, Japan, and Australia.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 9, 2004 8:57 AM