China

[RC]

OK, I posted my personal opinion regarding US strategy for the future on another thread and it included comments about a possible tangle with China.

Spurred by the election results, I hadn't realized that I apparently am not alone in my thinking.

Here are some articles to consider:

Channel News Asia Washington Times
Taiwan News

In addition, according to an NPR report I heard this morning, a poll of Chinese citizens showed that an overwhelming majority would have prefered Kerry because they find Bush threatening.

[OperaTenor]

Oh RC, there you go panicking again. Nothing to worry about. Whenever we cross the 38th parallel again to take action against North Korea, the Chinese will be there to welcome us with open arms...

[haggis]

I used to travel and live in Asia for business. My company made me attend a cultural awareness class that taught us all the things we should do to avoid offending our Asian hosts.

When I was in China, one of the Chinese managers was re-assigned to the U.S. for a year. When I asked if he had a similar type of training he said “No, we don’t care if we offend Americans”

It’s been my experience that Americans in general have two conflicting desires and beliefs.

One is we are desperate for everyone in the world to like us and the other is, paradoxically, we feels the rest of the world is taking advantage of the United States.

Go back and read news accounts of how most Americans viewed WWI and the vast amount of opposition Wilson had to overcome to get involved.

Prior to Pearl Harbor in WWII the same revulsion against all things European pretty much limited FDR’s options. It wasn’t until Pearl Harbor that Americans were willing to go to war. Remember how we responded to the Japanese attacks in the Pacific? We invaded Algeria.

Now I believe another emotion has enter into the national psyche. The rest of the world is with us or against us. I know that absolute grates on many nerves but I believe that our way of life has attracted an enemy that must be hunted down and killed. That belief is why I voted for Bush. He wants to hunt them down and kill then and Kerry (and Europe) believe terrorism was manageable, like organized crime.

Europe has already adopted an attitude that “some terrorism” is inevitable, like earthquakes and tornados and I believe that Kerry was of a like mind.

That is unacceptable to me.

I know its no secret that I (and 58 million other voters?) haven’t cared what the world thinks of us after 9/11 (and I didn’t care that much about them prior to 9/11, to be honest)

Prior to 9/11, I have lived in Korea, Germany (twice) England (twice) France (only once, thank God) Saudi Arabia and Thailand, as well as visited almost every country in Europe, the Middle East and most countries in Africa.

I can’t say I ever noticed any attitude towards the U.S. except envy, jealousy and disdain. That why I was always amused when Kerry bemoaned the U.S. “wasting” the World’s “goodwill.” I’ve never seen any evidence that there was ever any goodwill to begin with.

Only England and Australia demonstrates any affection for the U.S. and even that is variable.

So I guess this is a long-winded way of saying I really don’t give a damn who the Chinese prefer to be president, and I am apparently not alone

[RC]

You continually mistake a concern about our standing in the world as some kind of emotional thing. We've talked about this before.

I really don't give a hoot about how China or anyone else perceives my life and culture in the United States.

What DOES matter is wether or not we are viewed as a threat. Like Churchill convincing the allies that Germany was a threat, I can easily envision China deciding our intentions are imperialistic. Who cares? Well, who cared about Hitler? The UK could not have handled it on their own but the collective allies certainly took care of him. So you think we could never be on the opposite end of such a coalition?

I know you're a military man so you should have an idea of just how strong we are. We run a real risk of putting ourselves in a precarious defensive position while spread very thinly. No draft? hmmmm maybe, maybe not.

And indeed, that is very near what is evidenced over and over again in our administration.

You have the draft Defense Guidance followed by the PNAC and the Bush Doctrine all closely aligned. Then, an attack on an oil rich nation that turns out NOT to be the threat we portended to the world.

Wherever do you think some foreign power might get an idea we could be dangerous. ALL of our future military actions will be extremely closely monitored.

Especially by China!

[OperaTenor]

RC, don't worry about China. They're just the fifth largest nuclear power and the largest communist nation around....

[haggis]

Here's an interesting article that seems to disprove much of my complaints against "Old Europe."

"Schroeder has been trying hard to compensate for the crass opportunism he showed in 2003 over the liberation of Iraq. He has sent more troops to Afghanistan to help relieve American forces there, and has assumed a major role in training Iraq's new security forces with help from other NATO allies.

The new Spanish government, too, has tried to modify its initial anti-American posture by sending troops to a number of places, including Haiti, to relieve the Americans. Within the European Union only France, Belgium and Greece had been active on the anti-American front , at least until Tuesday's election.

All three governments had made a strategic choice of systematically opposing Bush policies in the hope that a Kerry administration would adopt substantial parts of their foreign policies. Yesterday, however, all three were making noises about working with the new Bush administration."

This is one time I would like to be proven wrong.

[piqaboo]

Haggis,why didnt you like living in France, particularly?

I dont care if China likes who we elect. They didnt ask us if we wanted Hu to be premier/president (I forget the title even tho I was in china during the national congress that named him top dog- <blush>).
Any US president will have to deal with them. They boycotted us in '91-'92 (wouldnt sell us stuff), and we survived. They need us as a market, and they still dont hesitate to throw their weight around to get what they want.

I didnt want Bush, Im sad he won. The wilderness areas will never recover. Abortion is a lousy firstline form of birthcontrol but should be legal and safely available. Pretending to be a good old boy doesnt change the fact he's a rich white man who went to Yale, but he seemsto have fooled a lot of folks just because he uses an accent and stumbles in his speech. he will try to put a constituitional amendment thru banning the use of the word marriage except betwee man/woman. This word will not be denied those on their 7th union following their 6th divorce. perhas wrong thread - am navigatingwith one hand.

<small>[ 11-09-2004, 08:52 AM: Message edited by: piqaboo ]</small>

[BigJon]

Piq needs voice recognition software!



BigJon

[haggis]

Piq,
”Haggis,why didnt you like living in France, particularly?”

My father was station there in 1965 and I was in High School in 1966 when the French (De Gaulle) ordered the U.S. to pull all the military forces out.

We lived in a rental house off base and the landlord somehow got the notion that the Americans were just going to leave with nothing more than the clothes on our backs and offered my father the equivalent of $26 dollars for all our belongings and demanded the two years of rent that we would have paid if we were going to stay.

And he wasn’t an isolated case, with few exceptions (usually the older folks) most French disliked the fact the U.S. was there and were very glad to see us thrown out.

The only thing that I derived any pleasure from was when the the locals realized that almost every town near a U.S. base (4? 5? Can’t recall) depended almost entirely on the U.S. payroll. As we started to pull out, that fact (as is happening in Germany now that the U.S. has announced it’s withdrawal) hit home hard and some towns even protested the pull out and asked the French government if they would just allow the one base at their town to remain.

In 1966, after Charles de Gaulle instructed President Lyndon Johnson that he wanted American troops withdrawn from his country, Johnson ordered Secretary of State Dean Rusk to fly back to Paris with a follow-up question: "Does your order include the bodies of American soldiers in France's cemeteries?"

I don't think Rusk actually asked it, but I wish he had.

Nothing in my life since then has given me any reason to change my opinion of the French.

[OperaTenor]

That took a lot of gall for De Gaulle to do that...

That's a bit of history I wasn't aware of, thanks. I wish Rusk had asked that as well. How very amnesiatic(you can substitute idiotic if you like) of De Gaulle, of all people!

Perhaps next time we liberate France we should just keep it?

[haggis]

"Perhaps next time we liberate France we should just keep it?"

Collin Powell said a few months back that when the U.S. goes to war the only land we ask for is the land to bury our dead.

And we maintain all those cemeteries, not one country contributes a nickel to the maintenance or upkeep.

To the best of my knowledge the Belgian people (not government) are the only people to have built a monument to the U.S. and paid for it themselves; it’s at Bastonge.

Off to Miami on a business trip, hopefully the last one of the year.

[OperaTenor]

Safe travels.

[dai bread]

These comments remind me of Winston Churchill's remark apropos de Gaulle: "The hardest cross I have to bear is the Cross of Lorraine".

[shostakovich]

De Gaulle was an egotist beyond all justification by his abilities. Our personal feelings about the French (or any group) is largely influenced by the limited personal experiences we have with members of the group. Sorry yours was a bummer, Haggis. And it WAS a bummer. Mine have been more recent and better.
Shos

[OperaTenor]

Like I said, it took a lot of gall for De Gaulle to do that....


Jim "second try" B.

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Originally posted by OperaTenor:
... took a lot of gall ....

<holding nose icon> we're ignoring the stinky pun.

[Haggis@wk]

America, We Will Hurt You

Senior Chinese officers, on the other hand, have no trouble telling us how they really feel.
In February, Colonel Meng Xianging promised a “hand-to-hand fight with the U.S.” sometime within the next 10 years “when we’re strong enough.” “We must make them hurt,” said Major-General Yang Yi this year, referring to the United States…
… “China is the only large power in the world preparing to shoot Americans.”

American military flag officers have been “perplexed” and “befuddled” by Beijing’s intentions. I don’t think there is any doubt that China is preparing to confront the U.S. militarily on their terms. I suspect it will be China’s navy that will threaten ours and try to forces U.S. naval forces out of Asian waters, especially the Formosa Strait.

I think China’s taken the measure of this president and has concluded that he will not react militarily to a provocation at sea. He’s already demonstrated that he’s willing to abandon our friends. I can’t see that he has any fonder feeling for Taiwan than say Israel.

[dai bread]

It's only a matter of time before Taiwan re-joins China without a shot being fired. Some 80% of their trade is with China. They won't want that wrecked by a war.

I'm surprised at the Chinese general's comments. I think he was just sabre-rattling. All the same, Americans (and the rest of us) need to keep their powder dry. Chinese expansion is by legal means so far, but that may change as more of us dig our toes in and refuse to sell them land. That particular flag has already been run up our flagpole in connection with some dairy farms that are legitimately for sale. The Chinese happen to have shot themselves in the feet by employing a front-woman whose business history here is dodgy, so we may be lucky this time.

[Giant Communist Robot]

It's only a matter of time before Taiwan re-joins China without a shot being fired.

None of the Chinese I know from the PRC nor Taiwan consider these as two separate countries.

I'm surprised at the Chinese general's comments. I think he was just sabre-rattling.

You can find people like that anywhere. I remember lots of dangerous sounding rhetoric from the cold war.

[Haggis@wk]

It's only a matter of time before Taiwan re-joins China without a shot being fired.

None of the Chinese I know from the PRC nor Taiwan consider these as two separate countries.

I'm surprised at the Chinese general's comments. I think he was just sabre-rattling.

You can find people like that anywhere. I remember lots of dangerous sounding rhetoric from the cold war.

We must know separate people. I never met anyone from Taiwan who wanted to be a province of China and they take great pains to inform me that Taiwan was never considered part of China. Even the island folks fought the KMT when Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists took over in 1945 and the KMT had to kill off 28,000 Taiwanese before they could consolidate their power.