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Jewish World Review April 5, 2001 / 12 Nissan, 5761
Michael Ledeen
This must be the starting point for any serious strategy. If
China is preparing to go into war against us, we had better be
sure we are so strong that they won't chance it. We want a
supremely powerful United States military, and a weak,
poorly equipped People's Liberation Army. For the past ten
years, our leaders have acted as if they wanted the reverse,
which is one reason the Chinese are acting so brazenly right
now. Starting with Bush the Elder, and accelerating with
disgraceful disregard for our national interest during the recent
unpleasantness, we've given China most everything they
needed to build a first-class fighting force, and we've been
extremely solicitous of their tender feelings, adopting their
language on Taiwan, bowing and scraping to their wondrous
culture, pretending they were becoming more "democratic" as
they crushed any sign of freedom outside the marketplace,
and welcoming them into the "world community" as
symbolized by the World Trade Organization.
All of this was based on a theory rooted in pidgin Marxism,
and embraced by people who should have known better. The
theory states that democracy is linked to wealth, and thus as
a people becomes richer, it automatically becomes more
democratic and freedom loving. The historical facts do not
support the theory (Imperial Rome was rich; Pericles's
Athens was poor, just for starters. And, more recently, when
we gave credits to the Soviet Union, it only made them
stronger, not more freedom-loving), but the theory lived on. If
you leaf through the literature on China, you will find no end
of self-proclaimed deep thinkers in academia, government
and business chanting this siren mantra. And yet...
And yet China has become more repressive as it has become
wealthier. And yet their political vision remains unchanged, a
vision of a proud, powerful, dominating nation imposing its
will on its neighbors, its region, and its distant American
enemy. And yet we have not come to grips with this terrible
reality, and we have not recognized the terrible blunder we
have committed, and continue to commit, by giving Beijing
the wherewithal to realize their ominous vision, a vision
dramatically clarified by their act of piracy in international air
space against an unarmed aircraft.
What else is to be learned from the events of the past few
days? The good news, paradoxically, is that the Chinese Air
Force isn't ready for the big time. That fighter pilot was
certainly not ordered to sacrifice himself. He was supposed
to intimidate our spy plane, not bring it down. He made a
fatal error. Those who know how the world really works see
that the Chinese goofed, and they are now scrambling to save
face. That is why they want us to apologize, when it is they
who should ask for forgiveness.
The good news is simultaneously bad, because it will be very
hard to get them to cooperate. They will fear that any gesture
of rational goodwill on their part will be interpreted as a
confession of error. It's not going to be easy to get our sailors
back (indeed, we may even see a replay of Khomeini's
greatest hit: a full-blown hostage crisis), and if we ever see
that plane again, it's likely to be in small pieces. The Chinese
may have blundered, but they are very happy to have had the
good luck of laying their eager hands on some top-notch
American surveillance gear. They will certainly exploit it (who
wouldn't?).
As we have just been reminded, we should be very
concerned about the kind of technology that reaches China.
The administration's reaction shows that the American people
understand this. Various military spokesmen have quickly put
out soothing statements to convince us that the crew
undoubtedly destroyed anything of real value before the
Chinese laid their hands on the aircraft (this before we could
possibly know it), which shows that we are in fact very
concerned about was has been lost to them.
If we're concerned about that technology, we should also be
concerned about all the other things we've been selling to the
Chinese. It follows that the administration should immediately
suspend all licenses for the sale of military and dual-use
technology to China, pending a serious strategic review,
which the president should order right now. He should tell
Secretary Rumsfeld to study the military consequences of our
foolish sales to China. He must know, quickly and clearly,
what kind of military-under a worst-case scenario — China
could put in the field. That review would tell us what we need
to guarantee a decisive victory in an armed conflict with
China, and it would identify what China needs to complete its
own military program. We could then build the army we
need, and withhold from the Chinese the technology they
want to do us in.
Meanwhile, what do we do if the Chinese dig in their heels
and demand our humiliation in order to hide their shameful
behavior? We have the usual diplomatic tools in the usual
fora: U.N. denunciations, recall of diplomats, perhaps the
expulsion of some of the young Chinese studying in our
universities and laboratories (both helping our research and
stealing our secrets), seizure of assets, embargoes and so
forth, all designed to brand Beijing as a pariah regime. Some
are now arguing that we should respond to the Chinese
provocation by fulfilling Taiwan's military wish list, but we
should do that in any case, and we should be at pains not to
link that proper decision to current events (even though the
Chinese have probably clinched the deal through their
ham-handed behavior. Americans don't like nasty countries
telling us how to behave). Imaginative policy makers will
undoubtedly come up with other actions, and I'm all for them.
If anyone is going to be punished for this, it must be the
Chinese.
It will be said that such measures would increase the
likelihood of war, but the opposite is true. A wise Roman
strategist put it most neatly: If you wish peace, prepare for
war. The conflict the Chinese are preparing is not inevitable;
even a national mission can be revised if circumstances
warrant it. Of late, we have served the Chinese an attractive
bounty of tasty carrots. It behooves us to combine our
largesse with a suitably menacing set of sticks. Speedily built
and wisely brandished, American power may yet compel
them to adopt an orderly and reasonable decorum. But it will
be neither quick nor easy. A decade of folly is not easily
remedied, and we are now called to account. Let's hope we
have heard that
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