The US are stretched too thin for our current Military needs should a war break out there as well. However, if things stayed conventinal, the US Navy would be able to provide a rather formidable force to stand in the way of any Chinese invasion force, by sea or air. Our carrier forces are pretty impressive in terms of what we can put out there, and our subs are pretty damn good too. I am not saying anything will happen, but lets put this situation out there. Say Taiwan declares independance, true to their word the Chinese decide to use Military force to reunify China and Taipei. But knowing the US will intervene, China uses one of there aces, North Korea. They have NK invade SK and force the US to commit troops to those operations. China with their manpower advantage could even commit troops to help NK in their war to further force the US into commiting more troops in Korea.
This is why news is meaningless. Let's enjoy the context for the entire piece, found in the LAST SENTENCE OF IT: Gen Zhu said his views did not represent official Chinese policy and he did not anticipate war with the US. Now, what happens to the entire article when you place the above here: China is prepared to use nuclear weapons against the US if it is attacked by Washington during a confrontation over Taiwan, a Chinese general said on Thursday. Gen Zhu said his views did not represent official Chinese policy and he did not anticipate war with the US when he submitted "If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on to the target zone on China's territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons." It is much more couched in context; in addition, if it takes four people to prodcue such trash (Alexandra Harney and Richard McGregor in Beijing, and Demetri Sevastopulo and Edward Alden in Washington, we're in bigger journalistic trouble than I ever thought possible. What the ******** is it about this work that required four "reporters" on it? Context to the last, and unrepresentative provocation as "reporting," which itself is usually just stenography and megahpones for power...this doesn't even meet THAT standard... What horrible work; we know less about the Chinese position on any of this after reading that then we knew before we read it!
Does it matter what the whole Chinese nation thinks? Last I checked, China was not a democracy. Your one looney has more say than four billion Chinese combined.
You're not take this seriously enough. First, the nuclear threat was not contingent on an American nuclear attack. Second, raising the issue at all increases tensions enormously. Third, while he claimed not to represent official policy, he is surely being misleading. His role was to play bad/crazy cop. Hopefully we will get the message that the #2 superpower will not tolerate being bullied in its own backyard, but we also run the risk of China expanding its definition of backyard, Monroe style. The last thing we need is another multi-trillion dollar, risk the planet Earth Cold War.
Haven't they opened up their markets (sort of)? Doesn't that make them a Democracy? Or that just an example of extending "freedom (tm)" to their citizens?
Democracy is "government by of and for the people." The Chinese government kills 40 people a day (often publicly, in such things as their soccer/sports stadia), for capital transgressions such as forging checks and stealing gallons of gas. They are far from a government by, of and for the people.
You're being highly misleading to score a cheap political point. The Iraq war would be a pimple in comparison to any war with China. The most we can do to protect Taiwan is provide some aid and a lot of bluff.
Agreed, it would not be practical nor appropriate to try to protect Taiwan physically against China. It would lead both the US and UK (I am presuming) down a path of no return. Frankly, with the way that China have started opening up their trade (they are about to flood Europe with cheap, but well built cars) I don't see that they will do this. BUT, if they said nothing, it gives the impression that Taiwan has won. To me all this is, is political bluff that keeps the sides alert without losing face.
I wonder why Taiwan is never given the credit of being able to defend itself. Considering they have been preparing for the last 55 years or so, I think they would do very well against a conventional attack.
China is not yet a democracy. True. But its citizens do enjoy a lot more freedom than they used to let say, only 10 years ago. Just want to get that out for the benefit of the people who really don't know anything about China but in good faith would like to know. But yeah, China is not a democracy. But this has no logical relationship with your second sentence, that one looney has more say than four billion Chinese combined. Maybe one looney does have more say, maybe he doesn't. But it's got nothing to do with if China is a democracy or not, because in even the most democratic countries such as the US and the UK, leaders went ahead into a war without legitimate public debates and over the objection (and in the case of the UK, overwhelming objection) of their citizens. The way you put the two logically irrelevant sentences together is simply a Cold War idealogue's way of casting China in a bad light (ie: it's a communist country or it's not a democracy) and then proceed to make looney accusations or wild speculations. The bottom line is, this is one crazy guy, out of 4 billion private Chinese citizens (I'll check the number 4 billion later, but I trust your number for now ), who was speaking to a hypothetical as a private citizen, in the context of answering a long list of questions, making clear that he doesn't anticipate war with the US at the same time.............. but the headline comes out, instead of "Chinese general does not anticipate war with the US".............. Ayaya
I agree it's indeed a piece of sad journalistic work. But it's a brilliant kick-off of a marketing campaign, to, sell Rumsfeld's annual "massively over-exaggerated" report on the Chinese military due out in a couple of dates. It's got nothing to do with journalism, except the fact that it was written by several supposedly senior professional journalists.
Its a good thing the US are smart enough to realize bombing China isn't in the best intentions of the world.
Now now 19d you need to be careful, some people here who want to make enemies out of the US and China may read your post and run to their keyboard to start a thread titled "Retired Navy Seal says the US will send troops to fight the Chinese communists".
Ben, I'm sorry to be so blunt, but you haven't known me long enough or well enough to draw that conclusion. In fact I phrased my post as neutrally as I could manage because I didn't want to be trying for a cheap score even unintentionally. I tried to phrase it as I might if I believed in the Iraq war. It has seemed to me over the last eight or twelve weeks that the Chinese have been doing some chest pounding in the international press which they haven't done for a long long time; and it seemed natural to ask if this is because they are asking themselves if "England's trouble is Ireland's opportunity." as it were, and testing the waters. Certainly everyone on earth who gets the newspaper has percieved for 5 decades that the US is committed to defending Taiwan if the Chinese seek a military solution; but the idea is not to have a war or win a war, but to make one seem unpalatable to Beijing. We can certainly provide naval support and air support enough to make any invasion very very difficult. And the logistic difficulties of sea or airborne invasions make it likely than any substantial ground force the US could commit would be decisive if the Chinese did get boots on the ground. I wasn't really trying to speculate about relative strengths and whose prospects are better than whose, but rather to point out that this isn't an isolated event-- something's going on over there that has changed the pattern that we have become accustomed to and comfortable with. And while the issue may not be pressing yet, it also shouldn't be dismissed in the hurry to get to the sports page...
Mel, my concern was not that it was official, not even necessarily that it was "unoffical official." I was thinking more of an analogy to Admiral Sim's semi-famous speech at the Guildhall in 1910: "If ever the integrity of the British Empire should be seriously threatened by an external enemy, they migh count upon the assistance of every man, every ship, and every dollar from their kinsmen across the seas." (not the transcript-- taken from Sims letter to his wife about the incident.) It caused a tempest in a teapot even though he qualified it as personal opinion; his stature was such that it was inevitable given diplomatic weight, and some serious fence-mending had to be done in Germany. But the real point to the analogy is not that his words were taken in many quarters to be "unofficial-official" but that he knew what he was talking about. His assessment was more accurate than inaccurate, and it concerns me that this individual may know the overall sense of Chinese military feeling and opinion all to well.
I agree with much of what you've said, yet this struck me; if this is the case, then he knows what he's talking about BOTH in assertion of intent and in terms of his couching his comments in a context outside Chinese policy. We do ourselves a disservice, at this distance, to pick and choose among that for which the general is obviously competent to engage, while leaving significant additions to the side. I think that, in the end, we may find ourselves positioned similarly on this issue; you can't ignore what the man made a decision to say in terms of potential realities, and you can't ignore that he understands himself to be outside the poliy fold on this one, as well as in the realm of the hypothetical.
Precisely. I'm not at all concerned that the Chinese have abandoned statesmanship. I am concerned that their military may be promoting tactical or even strategic nukes as reasonable options, just as ours has in certain decades...
Lets settle down here and think about one thing that makes a nuke strike by China not very likely. If they nuked us, their economy goes down the tubes since they are exporting so much stuff to us. Its all just postering by the Chinees military.
Presumably if they were nuking us and willing to be nuked-- "east of Sian" was it?-- they would be analysing cost and benefit on an extra-economic basis... And the economic changes which could be expected in such a world would make "balance of trade, US" pretty irrelevant. They'd also presumably be rendering a gajillion US bonds they hold worthless too.
Well, I'm not that worried since there's no way we'll attack them - all our forces are tied up in Iraq.
And also this thread's title suggested or gave the impression that the chinese are just warming up the missile projectors RIGHT now. I don't think Chinese would be so stupid as to firing a missile this way without any serious provocation. But a good excuse to spend more money on the MDS though.
Indeed, the one who is doing the posturing is not the Chinese but the Pentagon. Rumsfeld needs new war toys. What better way to get them than to create some phantom threat and scare the already anti-China Congress into giving them to him?
Just using your post as a springboard for a thought. And a somewhat tentative thought at that... Its dangerous to look for analogies from one empire to another, as the timelines tend to be so far apart as to make both internal and external contexts very different. But it seems to this semi-educated occidental that the Chinese tend to consider things from a noticeably longer temporal perspective than the West; and that led me to consider this one... In 1781 the British were by no means out of options in America; we like to think of Yorktown as decisive, but it was well within their resources to raise another army and try again... But Suffren's operations in the Indian Ocean had endangered Britain's hold on India, and Germain concluded that while Britain could live without America she could not live without India, and needed to give all her attention to this threat, and so the peace of 1783 was signed. Are the Chinese looking at Iraq with the brand of cynicism and economic realpolitik which says "its all about oil" and thinking that the US can live without Taiwan and Korea, but not without oil? If they buy Unocal and as much of our national debt as anybody else, it might seem like an attractive thesis... Well I'm not in love with, but I did sorta like the way it walked...