Then There Is China

When neo-liberal Bill Clinton "opened" the door to China, the Geek went into one of his here-there-be-tygers moods.  Contrary to the peace, love, and flower power words of the Arkansas Terror, the Geek viewed the normalization of trade and financial relations with the "Central Empire" (to use the most accurate translation of the ancient Chinese term for their country) as a severe self-inflicted injury to the US and its national interests.

The Geek made a set of fearless predictions in those bygone days to assorted military and foreign policy audiences.  Among those were a massive hemorrhage of dollars and jobs to the benefit of the Trolls of Beijing.  He also warned that the self-same Trolls would use their bushels of bucks to do the following: massively ramp up their military capacities, purchase allies wherever possible, seek exploitable fossil fuels particularly oil and national gas, seek to immunize themselves against crop failures, and, lastly but most importantly, undertake all measures possible to become both the regional  hegemon of Asia and a Great Power able to limit the ability of the US to operate on the world stage.

The Geek's credible imitation of Cassandra was pooh-poohed by many who were in the audiences but the Geek serenely assured all, "Just wait fifteen years or so."  Well within the time limit, all the dreary forecasts have proven correct as well as other, equally dismal, events not foreseen by the Geek.  The Geek missed, for example, the Chinese scarfing up of Uncle Sam's IOU's  to say nothing of the extent of the debt which was to come.  He also failed to see that the Trolls would pursue crop failure immunization by purchasing farmlands in Africa by the multiples of square miles.  He also overlooked Chinese ventures in strategic metals.  But, overall he did get the picture correct.

In return for the loss of jobs--even entire industries and cargo ships filled with bucks--the American public got mounds of non-essential but inexpensive consumer expendables courtesy of the big boxes with Walmart at the forefront.  More than the biblical character, We the People sold out our heritage for a mess of potage--shoddy pottage at that.

The Han Chinese, courtesy of the differing ideological imperatives of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush abetted by the sheer greed of the American consumer and the bottomline fixation of American businesses, have become the largest, most coherent, and self-confident tribe on the planet's surface.  The combination of economic success, personal enrichment, an ever more powerful military, a very self-assured and authoritarian leadership have given the Han tribe both the political will and material capacity to treat the rest of the world, the barbarians, as a pseudo-colonial environment upon which to work their will.

The Central Empire has returned--on steroids.

The Chief Troll, President Hu Jintao, is soon to arrive for a state visit with President Obama.  While President Hu is arguably the weakest chief of state since Mao declared the revolution to have succeeded over sixty years ago, his coming to Washington is an imperial procession, the Emperor meets the Chief Barbarian.  It will be interesting to see the optics of the visit, to see if the given-to-fawning American president bows and kowtows in appropriately servile fashion.

It is commonplace to assert that the current relations of the US with China are "troubled" or passing through a period of "difficulties."  This sort of terminology not only belabors the obvious but masks the fundamental reality.

The ground truth is that the US and China are rivals in a zero sum game.  Insofar as the Trolls gain an advantage diplomatically, economically, or militarily the US loses.  Insofar as the US can maintain the status quo, the Trolls lose.  And, should the US miraculously reverse the negative trend of the past decade and more, the Trolls lose big time.

These considerations as well as the nature of the specific game of nations now being played by the US and China imply that the upcoming Hu-Obama confab has powerful subtexts at work below the facade of ruffles, flourishes, and banquets.  The stakes are very high.  One can be sure President Hu knows this.  One cannot be so sure that Mr Obama does.

The reason for uncertainty regarding President Obama stems from the fact that while the Trolls practice a realpolitik of remorseless and ruthless sort, the American does not.  Neither Mr Obama nor some senior members of his administration--think Secretary of State Clinton--are given to realpolitik other than on an episodic basis.  This puts the Americans at a profound disadvantage when facing men who pursue the national and strategic interests of China all the time.

The American president has shown that he has no clue regarding the essential nature of national interest.  He appears unaware that national and strategic interests are both subjective and defined only by the government and associate elite in any given nation-state.  He also shows no sensitivity to the role played by history, both objective and subjective, in the formation and pursuit of national interest based goals. This means that Mr Obama and other key players on his "foreign policy team" are both blind and deaf in comparison with their Chinese interlocutors.

Given the profoundly different historical predicates of contemporary national interests as well as the zero sum nature of the game being played, it is arguable that the US and China have very few, if any, coinciding national interests.  The gulf between the world views and perceived interests of both countries may be greater than that which existed between the US and the Soviet Union in the Fifties and Sixties.

A good illustration of the differences between the Cold War on the one hand and today's zero sum game with China is seen in the very conservatism of the Soviet leadership.  The Soviets never sought to extend their influence as broadly and blatantly as have the Trolls in places far removed from the homeland.  China has shown a capacity for "adventurism" in Africa, for example, far surpassing even the most ambitious aspirations of the Soviets during the post-Vietnam decade.

China's lack of cooperation on Iran or North Korea also has been emblematic of the gulf in national interests between the US and Beijing.  Quite simply, the Trolls see little if anything threatening about the Iranian nuclear quest.  Their intelligence and diplomatic establishments have discounted (correctly) any negatives emerging from the Iranian quarter.  They have no interests directly involved in the Gulf states or the Mideast generally.  The Chinese interest in Iran is limited to oil and money.  As a consequence, leaning in the direction of Tehran suits the Trolls perfectly.  The collateral benefit of the Iranian contretemps fostering division and diversion in the West is just a bit of frosting on the cake.

Maintaining the status quo in North Korea is what Beijing focuses on.  The matters of nuclear weapons research and development or companion work on missiles is of no interest to the Chinese as the Trolls have the means and will to assure no threats come their way.  The Trolls are rightly worried about a disastrous miscalculation in Pyongyang and will take the minimum necessary steps to reduce that potential.  They will and are doing the same in the event of governmental collapse in the Hermit Kingdom.

The game moves from non-cooperation to direct confrontation in Southeast Asia.  The Trolls are of the view that they are the regional hegemon by right.  In short, the Trolls have picked up the mantel once worn by the Imperial Japanese.  As a consequence, the countries of Southeast Asia have cozied up to the US.  This gravitational movement has set the stage for direct confrontation between the US and China.

In Southeast Asia and the western Pacific littoral, the confrontation must be direct.  Unlike the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the Trolls have no credible local proxies to wage the war on their behalf.  The various and sundry proxy wars of the Seventies and Eighties gave the US and the Soviet Union an automatic firebreak and thus precluded escalation which, once started, must eventually run the risk of crossing the nuclear threshold.  With the possible exception of Burma--a proxy of a proxy--China has no straw men to set up to do their dirty work in the region.

The Chinese awareness of the direct nature of the potential confrontation has been made manifest in their new weaponry and doctrine.  The ballistic missile powered "spike from space" is directed against the floating sovereignty of an American aircraft carrier.  The recently test flown J-20 is anti-US in its missions.  Cyberwar is the hottest game in China--with the US as the main target.

Against this the US is operating in a--to put it mildly--budget constrained environment.  The US will be cutting its defense establishment as the Chinese continue to develop theirs.  While the Americans enjoy some technological advantages as with the next generation of remotely operated and autonomous unmanned platforms, we should not overvalue the advantages this confers.  Nor is the US well advised to do in the future what it has done so often in the past, undervalue the capacities of an Asian adversary.

The Trolls do, fortunately, face some very real challenges at home.  Inflation is growing and this may succeed where American importuning has failed, cause the Trolls to appreciate the value of their currency.  China is also facing twin crises of farmland degradation and decline in the agricultural water supply.  This will put a very real squeeze on the Trolls just as the majority of their citizens have come to appreciate a Western style diet.  With the explosive growth in personal motor vehicle ownership, China will need ever greater amounts of oil at a low price lest the population suffer a crisis of rising expectations.

In addition, the Han tribe faces challenges from the ten percent of the population which is non-Han.  The inevitable requirement will be for more and more repression.  Ramping up repression will cause collateral and potentially destabilizing effects on members of the Han tribe.  Balancing the needs for repression of the minority while assuring a minimal but growing amount of freedom for the educated youth of the Han tribe will prove to be a non-trivial problem for the Trolls of Beijing.

Recent polls have shown a disturbing acceptance of American decline and Chinese ascendancy on the part of a large segment of We the People.  There is no need for this sort of bland indifference, for this meek agreement to an evermore constricted global role for the US.  The worst need not come to pass if the present administration as well as what and whoever comes to the Oval in 2013 plays a realistic game of pursuing American national interest.

It is to be hoped that Obama 2.0 contains a backbone as well as an eye for American supremacy.  The test comes off camera during the state visit.  It comes not with respect to any American hectoring over Chinese respect for human rights but rather in the blunt or soft speaking on matters military and diplomatic.  The test comes with President Obama either saying or avoiding saying, "Here I stand.  I can do no other."