Political and Military Analysis on China
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escobar
Brigadier
From U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission
Capability of the People’s Republic of China to Conduct Cyber Warfare and Computer Network Exploitation.
Research Report on Chinese Investments in the United States
Capability of the People’s Republic of China to Conduct Cyber Warfare and Computer Network Exploitation.
Research Report on Chinese Investments in the United States
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Basically it is pretty clear that it is imperative for China to effectively evict the US from Asia by whatever means necessary, given that the US intends to treat any challenge to its power as a Zero Sum game. Chinese soft power is underrated, however, and needs more development, which is something that should be improved upon by observing how the Russians are doing things.
This mention of "yellow" man in Asia is considered deregatory, unlike in the West where name-calling "White"" or Black could be acceptable (I wonder sometimes?). There are many, many "yellow" man in Asia - the Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese etc. By annoying them you will create more "enemies". So stop this "colouration" (that can be interpreted as Racist). Hope no one will name call the "Brown" men/brothers - remember the Filipinos? BTW, there are also Malays, Indonesians etc. too. The US & the West should not fall in a trap. Understand Cultures & Sensitivites in the Asian Region & History of Colonialists. Make friends NOT enemies & worse of all don't strut the Super Power status be it US or China. There should be a sensible balance of relationships - demanding to choose side would be unfortunate & detrimental.
escobar
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Frankly China has failed miserably to "create" and use soft power in asia.
They should learn from USA.
---------- Post added at 03:22 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:13 AM ----------
February 14 is Valentine's Day. Across the Pacific Ocean, Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping was meeting US President Barack Obama while in Beijing, the China-Europe Summit was getting underway. Neither the current Sino-US or Sino-Europe relationship is as intimate as that between lovers, but the complexity of strategic relations among great powers could be compared to romantic tales.
China is a newcomer on the diplomatic stage of major powers. It is still unfamiliar with how to use its power and how to deal with provocations from smaller countries. Facing giants like the US and Europe, China is accustomed to acting with care. It never stirs up trouble willingly, instead, when a crisis occurs, China's first reaction is to seek to defuse tension.
China interprets "good" foreign relations as being relations of mutual benefit and mutual respect, but it seems the US and Europe don not follow the same logic. They are pursuing a relationship with China always in their utmost interests, even at the cost of disputes with China. China highly values strategic opportunities for development. Under such conditions, reducing external interference is particularly important. But if China's development is too susceptible to external threats, the country is too fragile.
China's development should be able to face the world and brave any storm. In fact, since reform and opening-up began, the country has overcome many challenges and difficulties, from border wars to domestic chaos to Western sanctions. China should adjust its thinking on what are "good" relations. No matter whether Sino-US relations or Sino-European relations, the more favorable they are to China's national interests, the better. China's national interests include political stability, social solidarity and sustainable economic development.
China does not need to satisfy the West at the expense of its own interests. China will not provoke the US and Europe, but it has its own principles to follow. Chinese officials should take opportunities to make the world understand these. It is very difficult and challenging for Chinese diplomats and leaders to deal with the US and Europe. Pure cooperation is a utopia while overall confrontation is also undesirable.
There is a saying that diplomacy is no small matter. This saying has guided China's diplomacy for many years. But from a strategic perspective, we should also say diplomacy is no big matter. China is not a small nor a weak country. Even if diplomacy is crucial to China, it will not make or break the country.
China must be open and learn how to balance interests from all sides. When it is obstructed by any force, it should be able to dissolve it. Meanwhile, China is not a country which disguises itself. It needs to show its real face to the world.
To China, the US and Europe are important. It is the same with Russia and Japan. But China should view itself as the highest priority. This does not mean China should be arrogant, but rather ensure that it receives equal treatment from other countries through diplomacy.
Diplomacy is easier said than done. The difficulty of China's diplomacy lies in that it does not have the final say. However, it already has a certain influence. We are in a long transition period in which many global issues will take place. China will have more and more initiative
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escobar
Brigadier
Doug Guthrie, dean and professor at George Washington University's international business school, is an expert on economic reform in China, not politics.
However, he thinks US President Barack Obama missed a golden opportunity last year to stand up to Republicans and make a critical statement that could have set the agenda for future US-China relations.
In April, Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei was attempting to acquire 3Leaf Systems in the US, a server network firm. But a strongly worded letter to the White House written by six Republican congressmen caused Obama to not support the deal and Huawei wound up withdrawing its bid.
"It showed a lack of leadership in my opinion," Guthrie said. "He should have said, 'Bring it on' and that we're sick and tired of this kind of thing."
The letter begins: "We write to you about national security risks associated with the government's recent and proposed investment in broadband technology. We are concerned that these initiatives provide an opportunity for the introduction of potentially harmful technology to US broadband infrastructure."
Senators Jon Kyl (R-Ariz), Saxby Chamblis (R-Ga), Richard Burr (R-Nc), James Inhofe and Tom Coburn (R-Okla) along with Darrell Issa (R-Calif) said companies such as "Huawei and ZTE could benefit from federal investment in broadband technology (and that) these companies receive extensive support from the Chinese government."
"We should want to be affiliated with them," Guthrie said. "In my opinion, we should be encouraging all sorts of job creation. (China's) sitting on $3.2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves and Huawei invests in Africa, all over Europe, the UK. Huawei is the second-largest telecommunications equipment company behind Ericsson in the world."
The US concerns revolve around Huawei President Ren Zhengfei, who once served without rank in the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) Engineering Corps. Huawei is a private company and has consistently denied any ties to the Chinese government.
In 2010, Huawei and ZTE attempted to acquire Sprint Nextel, which could have infused between $5 billion and $7 billion into the company. But that bid was also rejected because of US government concerns over national security.
Guthrie said he thinks the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which reviews acquisitions by foreign companies that would result in national security implications, has become a barrier to investment in the US.
"It's not very transparent. It just kills deals. They just say we can't tell you what happened, but it's bad," Guthrie said.
The dean has been extremely outspoken about the currency exchange rate issue, saying forcing China to raise the appreciation of the yuan through legislation or other means will not bring jobs back to America. He said the jobs will just flee to other emerging markets, such as Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia, which can offer cheaper wages.
Guthrie explained that there's a misconception, particularly among politicians, about how to bring jobs currently outsourced by US companies back home.
"For many in the United States, the common assumption is that greater protectionism is the easiest way to create American jobs," Guthrie said.
"Unfortunately, the logic of offshore manufacturing is so much more complicated today than it was when the practice was pioneered in the 1960s and 1970s. Today it is not just a matter of finding the cheapest labor; it is also a matter of balancing the access to internal markets, access to skilled labor, balances of trade and internal politics," Guthrie explained.
The Senate passed a bill in October - clearly targeted at China - that would have imposed tariffs on countries that undervalued their currency, but the House and Obama dismissed it. Guthrie does not support legislation that would punish China over its currency.
"If we are going to be successful in getting the US economy back on track, foreign direct investment in the United States will be a necessary part of this. And our most important partner in this endeavor will be China," said Guthrie. "At this point, we need China more than it needs us. Yet, instead of focusing on how to rebuild skilled labor, how to foster competitive business environments, and how to attract capital back to the United States, we obsess over issues like China's currency manipulation as the source of our problems."
The focus, Guthrie contends, is to find a way to create a "business-friendly environment" in which the $3.2 trillion in US currency that China is looking to invest abroad can return to the US. "By some estimates, China would be willing and ready to invest $200 billion a year in the US economy. But we are so skeptical and apprehensive about China's motives that we would rather reject these overtures and risk the future of the US economy than figure out how to work with our largest trading partner," Guthrie said.
"Our politicians are sadly cynical about it," he said. "I don't think they care about creating jobs. It's a bizarre debate. It's easier to blame our ills on China than to do something to solve them ourselves."
Guthrie has two main solutions: to invest heavily in improving vocational education and to develop what he terms "cross-industry strategies".
"We need to talk about difficult issues. (China) has better skilled labor, and better subsidies than we do. We're not getting enough government development in our economy. From China through Singapore, the government tries to help to develop the economy," Guthrie said.
"The ultimate irony is that the largest communist polity in the world is much more hospitable to business than the world's largest capitalist economy," Guthrie added.
America is just as racist as any other country (if not more so in some cases). The term I used in my statement is meant as derogatory. If you look at US history racism has always been a factor. Japan (which gained alot of territory in East Asia) was pretty much forced to attack the USA in `42 due to US Oil embargos. Even further back the US has always been wary of Non-white migrants. "Yellow Peril". The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. From the Wiki: The Chinese Exclusion Act was the only U.S. law ever to prevent immigration and naturalization on the basis of race. This remember was at a time when hndreds of thousands of Europeans where encouraged to immigrate to the USA which was at the early stages of growth and needed a steady influx of ppl.
escobar
Brigadier
MITT ROMNEY: How I'll Respond to China's Rising Power
Should the 21st century be an American century? To answer, it is only necessary to contemplate the alternatives.
One much bruited these days is that of a Chinese century. With China's billion-plus population, its 10% annual average growth rates, and its burgeoning military power, a China that comes to dominate Asia and much of the globe is increasingly becoming thinkable. The character of the Chinese government—one that marries aspects of the free market with suppression of political and personal freedom—would become a widespread and disquieting norm.
But the dawn of a Chinese century—and the end of an American one—is not inevitable. America possesses inherent strengths that grant us a competitive advantage over China and the rest of the world. We must, however, restore those strengths.
That means shoring up our fiscal and economic standing, rebuilding our military, and renewing faith in our values. We must apply these strengths in our policy toward China to make its path to regional hegemony far more costly than the alternative path of becoming a responsible partner in the international system.
Barack Obama is moving in precisely the wrong direction. The shining accomplishment of the meetings in Washington this week with Xi Jinping—China's vice president and likely future leader—was empty pomp and ceremony.
President Obama came into office as a near supplicant to Beijing, almost begging it to continue buying American debt so as to finance his profligate spending here at home. His administration demurred from raising issues of human rights for fear it would compromise agreement on the global economic crisis or even "the global climate-change crisis." Such weakness has only encouraged Chinese assertiveness and made our allies question our staying power in East Asia.
Now, three years into his term, the president has belatedly responded with a much-ballyhooed "pivot" to Asia, a phrase that may prove to be as gimmicky and vacuous as his "reset" with Russia. The supposed pivot has been oversold and carries with it an unintended consequence: It has left our allies with the worrying impression that we left the region and might do so again.
The pivot is also vastly under-resourced. Despite his big talk about bolstering our military position in Asia, President Obama's actions will inevitably weaken it. He plans to cut back on naval shipbuilding, shrink our Air Force, and slash our ground forces. Because of his policies and failed leadership, our military is facing nearly $1 trillion in cuts over the next decade.
We must change course.
In the economic arena, we must directly counter abusive Chinese practices in the areas of trade, intellectual property, and currency valuation. While I am prepared to work with Chinese leaders to ensure that our countries both benefit from trade, I will not continue an economic relationship that rewards China's cheating and penalizes American companies and workers.
Unless China changes its ways, on day one of my presidency I will designate it a currency manipulator and take appropriate counteraction. A trade war with China is the last thing I want, but I cannot tolerate our current trade surrender.
We must also maintain military forces commensurate to the long-term challenge posed by China's build-up. For more than a decade now we have witnessed double-digit increases in China's officially reported military spending. And even that does not capture the full extent of its spending on defense. Nor do the gross numbers tell us anything about the most troubling aspects of China's strategy, which is designed to exert pressure on China's neighbors and blunt the ability of the United States to project power into the Pacific and keep the peace from which China itself has benefited.
To preserve our military presence in Asia, I am determined to reverse the Obama administration's defense cuts and maintain a strong military presence in the Pacific. This is not an invitation to conflict. Instead, this policy is a guarantee that the region remains open for cooperative trade, and that economic opportunity and democratic freedom continue to flourish across East Asia.
We must also forthrightly confront the fact that the Chinese government continues to deny its people basic political freedoms and human rights. If the U.S. fails to support dissidents out of fear of offending the Chinese government, if we fail to speak out against the barbaric practices entailed by China's compulsory one-child policy, we will merely embolden China's leaders at the expense of greater liberty.
A nation that represses its own people cannot ultimately be a trusted partner in an international system based on economic and political freedom. While it is obvious that any lasting democratic reform in China cannot be imposed from the outside, it is equally obvious that the Chinese people currently do not yet enjoy the requisite civil and political rights to turn internal dissent into effective reform.
I will never flinch from ensuring that our country is secure. And security in the Pacific means a world in which our economic and military power is second to none. It also means a world in which American values—the values of liberty and opportunity—continue to prevail over those of oppression and authoritarianism.
The sum total of my approach will ensure that this is an American, not a Chinese century. We have much to gain from close relations with a China that is prosperous and free. But we should not fail to recognize that a China that is a prosperous tyranny will increasingly pose problems for us, for its neighbors, and for the entire world.
Should the 21st century be an American century? To answer, it is only necessary to contemplate the alternatives.
One much bruited these days is that of a Chinese century. With China's billion-plus population, its 10% annual average growth rates, and its burgeoning military power, a China that comes to dominate Asia and much of the globe is increasingly becoming thinkable. The character of the Chinese government—one that marries aspects of the free market with suppression of political and personal freedom—would become a widespread and disquieting norm.
But the dawn of a Chinese century—and the end of an American one—is not inevitable. America possesses inherent strengths that grant us a competitive advantage over China and the rest of the world. We must, however, restore those strengths.
That means shoring up our fiscal and economic standing, rebuilding our military, and renewing faith in our values. We must apply these strengths in our policy toward China to make its path to regional hegemony far more costly than the alternative path of becoming a responsible partner in the international system.
Barack Obama is moving in precisely the wrong direction. The shining accomplishment of the meetings in Washington this week with Xi Jinping—China's vice president and likely future leader—was empty pomp and ceremony.
President Obama came into office as a near supplicant to Beijing, almost begging it to continue buying American debt so as to finance his profligate spending here at home. His administration demurred from raising issues of human rights for fear it would compromise agreement on the global economic crisis or even "the global climate-change crisis." Such weakness has only encouraged Chinese assertiveness and made our allies question our staying power in East Asia.
Now, three years into his term, the president has belatedly responded with a much-ballyhooed "pivot" to Asia, a phrase that may prove to be as gimmicky and vacuous as his "reset" with Russia. The supposed pivot has been oversold and carries with it an unintended consequence: It has left our allies with the worrying impression that we left the region and might do so again.
The pivot is also vastly under-resourced. Despite his big talk about bolstering our military position in Asia, President Obama's actions will inevitably weaken it. He plans to cut back on naval shipbuilding, shrink our Air Force, and slash our ground forces. Because of his policies and failed leadership, our military is facing nearly $1 trillion in cuts over the next decade.
We must change course.
In the economic arena, we must directly counter abusive Chinese practices in the areas of trade, intellectual property, and currency valuation. While I am prepared to work with Chinese leaders to ensure that our countries both benefit from trade, I will not continue an economic relationship that rewards China's cheating and penalizes American companies and workers.
Unless China changes its ways, on day one of my presidency I will designate it a currency manipulator and take appropriate counteraction. A trade war with China is the last thing I want, but I cannot tolerate our current trade surrender.
We must also maintain military forces commensurate to the long-term challenge posed by China's build-up. For more than a decade now we have witnessed double-digit increases in China's officially reported military spending. And even that does not capture the full extent of its spending on defense. Nor do the gross numbers tell us anything about the most troubling aspects of China's strategy, which is designed to exert pressure on China's neighbors and blunt the ability of the United States to project power into the Pacific and keep the peace from which China itself has benefited.
To preserve our military presence in Asia, I am determined to reverse the Obama administration's defense cuts and maintain a strong military presence in the Pacific. This is not an invitation to conflict. Instead, this policy is a guarantee that the region remains open for cooperative trade, and that economic opportunity and democratic freedom continue to flourish across East Asia.
We must also forthrightly confront the fact that the Chinese government continues to deny its people basic political freedoms and human rights. If the U.S. fails to support dissidents out of fear of offending the Chinese government, if we fail to speak out against the barbaric practices entailed by China's compulsory one-child policy, we will merely embolden China's leaders at the expense of greater liberty.
A nation that represses its own people cannot ultimately be a trusted partner in an international system based on economic and political freedom. While it is obvious that any lasting democratic reform in China cannot be imposed from the outside, it is equally obvious that the Chinese people currently do not yet enjoy the requisite civil and political rights to turn internal dissent into effective reform.
I will never flinch from ensuring that our country is secure. And security in the Pacific means a world in which our economic and military power is second to none. It also means a world in which American values—the values of liberty and opportunity—continue to prevail over those of oppression and authoritarianism.
The sum total of my approach will ensure that this is an American, not a Chinese century. We have much to gain from close relations with a China that is prosperous and free. But we should not fail to recognize that a China that is a prosperous tyranny will increasingly pose problems for us, for its neighbors, and for the entire world.
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escobar
Brigadier
Three Big Myths About China
This week many Americans are getting their first introduction to Xi Jinping, the presumed next president of China, as he spends five days touring America. It is an important visit that will help set the course of U.S.-China relations, which are already tense, for the next several years.
Unfortunately, most of America’s conventional view of China is outdated or based on inaccurate information. America’s foreign policy establishment needs to rethink common myths about that nation or else risk following the wrong strategies for dealing with China’s rise.
Myth No. 1: China is primed for an Arab spring. When Americans see Xi Jinping hobnob with the political and business elite or catch a basketball game, they needs to realize they are not seeing a man who is about to seize power over a tottering country and an officialdom ready to implode. There is no Arab Spring on the horizon, as Senator John McCain declared last week. No, Xi Jinping is about to preside over a self-satisfied—perhaps overly smug—bureaucracy and a relatively happy population.
The major difference between China’s government and regimes like Mubarak’s in Egypt or Qaddafi’s in Libya is that there is far more diffusion of power than many Western observers realize. Unlike in Middle Eastern nations that have seen turmoil where despots clung to power for decades, buttressed by corrupt family members enriching themselves from the country’s coffers, China has mandatory retirement ages for even its most powerful political leaders.
The offspring of the nation’s leaders tend to go into the private sector to make fortunes, and there the Communist Party does not control most aspects of their lives. Moreover, senior leaders, once they retire, are not allowed to publish memoirs freely, take jobs in private industry, or travel abroad in a private capacity. And with more than 60 million party members, nearly every Chinese has a family member or close friend who is part of the system. Even if anger arises, there is no single unifying person or family for people to aim at to topple.
Myth No. 2: China is stealing American jobs by manipulating its currency. Many Americans believe the old line trotted out by analysts like Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman that China is stealing American jobs by artificially keeping its currency, the yuan, low. In reality those arguments don’t hold up to even basic scrutiny. True, China has pegged the yuan to the U.S. dollar, which is a form of manipulation, but the low exchange rate is not the real reason why China is outcompeting America for manufacturing jobs. Quite simply, China has become the world’s manufacturing hub because of efficient labor forces and superior infrastructure.
After all, Indonesia and Vietnam have millions of workers toiling for a quarter of the typical Chinese wage. Yet those nations have not been able to attract much manufacturing aside from light industry like clothing and shoe production, because their labor pools are unproductive and untrained. Even with China’s labor supply getting far more expensive—21 of China’s 31 provinces increased their minimum wage by an average of 22% in 2011—it is unlikely that lower wages in other countries will offset the benefits of China’s productivity and infrastructure anytime soon.
Instead of blaming China’s currency policies for America’s unemployment situation, the U.S. needs to cut red tape so that American companies can stop outsourcing so many jobs and start attracting more foreign investment. After all, Chinese businesses invested only $1.13 billion in the U.S. in 2011, versus $4.6 billion in Europe, according to China’s Ministry of Commerce.
Myth No. 3: China is trying to upend the world order. Despite its increasing military budgets, the Chinese government still spends more on its internal security than on its military. Historically, the country has rarely strayed far beyond its borders, or what it has considered its borders, including Taiwan and Tibet. In military ventures it has nothing like the U.S.’s Christian missionary-like zeal.
In fact, China prefers to downplay its power. It would rather take a free ride as America serves as the policeman of the world. It is far more likely to use aggressive words to balance American power than to actually use military force. It leaders are far more interested in making money and creating jobs than in spending the vast resources it would take to be the dominant power in international affairs.
This week many Americans are getting their first introduction to Xi Jinping, the presumed next president of China, as he spends five days touring America. It is an important visit that will help set the course of U.S.-China relations, which are already tense, for the next several years.
Unfortunately, most of America’s conventional view of China is outdated or based on inaccurate information. America’s foreign policy establishment needs to rethink common myths about that nation or else risk following the wrong strategies for dealing with China’s rise.
Myth No. 1: China is primed for an Arab spring. When Americans see Xi Jinping hobnob with the political and business elite or catch a basketball game, they needs to realize they are not seeing a man who is about to seize power over a tottering country and an officialdom ready to implode. There is no Arab Spring on the horizon, as Senator John McCain declared last week. No, Xi Jinping is about to preside over a self-satisfied—perhaps overly smug—bureaucracy and a relatively happy population.
The major difference between China’s government and regimes like Mubarak’s in Egypt or Qaddafi’s in Libya is that there is far more diffusion of power than many Western observers realize. Unlike in Middle Eastern nations that have seen turmoil where despots clung to power for decades, buttressed by corrupt family members enriching themselves from the country’s coffers, China has mandatory retirement ages for even its most powerful political leaders.
The offspring of the nation’s leaders tend to go into the private sector to make fortunes, and there the Communist Party does not control most aspects of their lives. Moreover, senior leaders, once they retire, are not allowed to publish memoirs freely, take jobs in private industry, or travel abroad in a private capacity. And with more than 60 million party members, nearly every Chinese has a family member or close friend who is part of the system. Even if anger arises, there is no single unifying person or family for people to aim at to topple.
Myth No. 2: China is stealing American jobs by manipulating its currency. Many Americans believe the old line trotted out by analysts like Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman that China is stealing American jobs by artificially keeping its currency, the yuan, low. In reality those arguments don’t hold up to even basic scrutiny. True, China has pegged the yuan to the U.S. dollar, which is a form of manipulation, but the low exchange rate is not the real reason why China is outcompeting America for manufacturing jobs. Quite simply, China has become the world’s manufacturing hub because of efficient labor forces and superior infrastructure.
After all, Indonesia and Vietnam have millions of workers toiling for a quarter of the typical Chinese wage. Yet those nations have not been able to attract much manufacturing aside from light industry like clothing and shoe production, because their labor pools are unproductive and untrained. Even with China’s labor supply getting far more expensive—21 of China’s 31 provinces increased their minimum wage by an average of 22% in 2011—it is unlikely that lower wages in other countries will offset the benefits of China’s productivity and infrastructure anytime soon.
Instead of blaming China’s currency policies for America’s unemployment situation, the U.S. needs to cut red tape so that American companies can stop outsourcing so many jobs and start attracting more foreign investment. After all, Chinese businesses invested only $1.13 billion in the U.S. in 2011, versus $4.6 billion in Europe, according to China’s Ministry of Commerce.
Myth No. 3: China is trying to upend the world order. Despite its increasing military budgets, the Chinese government still spends more on its internal security than on its military. Historically, the country has rarely strayed far beyond its borders, or what it has considered its borders, including Taiwan and Tibet. In military ventures it has nothing like the U.S.’s Christian missionary-like zeal.
In fact, China prefers to downplay its power. It would rather take a free ride as America serves as the policeman of the world. It is far more likely to use aggressive words to balance American power than to actually use military force. It leaders are far more interested in making money and creating jobs than in spending the vast resources it would take to be the dominant power in international affairs.
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