Neocons Say, Beware of China
By Jason Sigger Tuesday Nov 10, 2009 6:00pmSHORTER Bob Kagan: "Obama's being a pussy about confronting China's massive military build-up."
China's defense budget in 2008 was $57 billion, or just under one-tenth of the US defense budget. In 2009, China will spend around $70 billion - or just over one-tenth of the US defense budget. It's a funny thing, Bob - when nation-states have a booming economy and a large geographical area with lots of well-armed neighbors, they tend to buy more weapon systems (the US government being the exception, we buy more weapons whether or not the economy is good). Neocons view this as "threatening" and want to negotiate over the barrel of a gun. Realists understand it as a natural progression of an evolving superpower and want to negotiate as a potential partner.
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When Clinton left office we had no expensive unnecessary wars going on and a record budget surplus. Bush and the neocons got one hand tied behind our backs now in dealing with China.
It's smaller than China, so they'll slip that one in at the last minute so we'll think we "dodged a bullet."I see a pattern here, Kristol and the rest of you smirking twats.
Just what company or personal has ties or in partnership with China by the policies we have created for their benefit..
The problem with our county and government is that they have let these corporation in our country become monopolies which we at one time had laws to STOP>
But now everything is given a nice sounding name to made it sound important and different..like Global...
Global has replaced the word of Monopoly and that is suppose to make everything OK when we get screwed>.
Just look at all these corporations which have become Global and placed most of their wealth , manufacturing plants , jobs and headquarters OVERSEAS>. The banking disaster should be one of the main factor which shows that creating the Global Empires is the worst policy we have ever done in our history..
What policy have you seen in the past 9 years have been for the benefit of the American citizen.
This d... free trade bill was one of the greatest deceitful actions ever pull on the workers of this country..
Of course all other countries do not want to renegotiate the free trade bills... US is the only one which is losing their jobs , plants , economy and a.. over it...
Has anyone BEEN to China? I have. The LAST thing they want is a military confrontation with us. That would eff up their gravy train. Everywhere you go there are western stores, products, and ads, and everyone in the cities speaks some sort of english, it seems. They don't want an arms race with us, and we don't need one with them.
I think it's the Chinese who have the control over our gravy train.
If they do it is because the US overspends and needs to borrow money. It's not some nefarious plot by the Chinese.
exactly.
Did not force us to illegal invade Iraq and wage war on them for their oil...
Guess what after we kill our soldiers and spent trillions of dollars , guess who has so far pick up the oil contracts for Iraq...
China and UK>>>
Obama just increase the soldiers in Afganistan from March to now by 74,000 soldiers at around $750,000 a year for "ONE" soldiers..
Just look at the waste of lives and money this government is during in the last 8 years and increasing as time goes by and our economy falls farther in the Dump...
If you've ever been to Asia, the Asian nations are not about war, they just want to attain a good standard of living for their people. For decades the West has had it, now they want it too. Nothing wrong with that.
North Korea please.
N. Korea is an exception and on its own. It does not represent most of Asia. I was speaking in general terms.
But NK is part of Asia....everyone has their bad eggs.
Physically it is, but not mentally. Most countries are tired of N. Korea, but what do you do? (More war??)
I have a feeling N. Korea will die a natural death if just left alone long enough, It's an unworkable system.
Dying a natural death will be what most of the civilian population of NK will do also.
They probably would without aid. It's not a pleasant place.
You have _______ (insert your preferred state here. I was gonna put one from the south half of the country, but... )
(Hint: It wasn't *North* Carolina.)
China is just reclaiming it's rightful place as the most powerful country in the word after 300-400 years of being screwed by the western powers (Since Marco Polo, not just the US). You squandered it, and China will let you fall, and continue on it's 3000+ years as a country.
It's just 'getting back to normal'.
The Chinese need us and we need them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKv6RcXa2UI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bwppplxq0yo
They're not going to bomb Wal-Mart land!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHkXFsK6UUg
they send over here, there's nothing to worry about.
beware of the neocons
they are the bastards that
keep pushing our jobs overseas
and allowed the hugh deficit
we have with china......f#ck them.
"Realists understand it as a natural progression of an evolving superpower and want to negotiate as a potential partner."
Shorter Jason Sigger: Yay, we can sell China weapons!
If the US starts a war with China, then the US can renege on the debt owed. Like printing money??
It's JAPAN not China the Biggest Money lender for American wars according to Larry Wilkerson:
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com...
Interesting?
Warning: Most of Asia regards China far more highly than they do the USA. That's billions of people.
and now they want us to fight with the chinese, and I mean literally fight, to get them back?
WTF?
...and explains the (not-so)subtle push on the US population to purchase firearms.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brj2UkUPjCI
The neocons want us to commit one of the classic blunders!
NOW they want to push us back to the late 19th/early 20th century with the "yellow peril" crapola.
How far back do the Rethugs want to go?
The Big Bang?
The world was started 6000 or 7000 years ago, you know. It's all in yer babble. Ali Opp saddled dinosaurs, and put them on Noah's ark. Too bad they refused to wear life preservers, on the grounds that they didn't need no guvmint regulations from no durn nanny state! So, that's why there's no dinosaurs today. Either that or God's testing our faith by putting fake dinosaur bones in the ground, so the poorly committed can go straight to hell for all eternity, HA HA HA! I'm sorry, what were we talking about?
...the stockpile of fireworks in China could blow the world up 3 times.
A fire in a toy factory might do the trick too.
They effin OWN us - they don't need a military to effect policy at the highest levels in our government.
Not to mention the GAP is opening a store in China, historically no country with a GAP store has ever attacked another country with a GAP store.
It's unheard of.
:)
Can we retroactively build stores in Iraq and Afghanistan?
to ALWAYS shop at The Gap:
AFA calls for Gap boycott
The whining never stops with these people.
because Abramoff lobbied for them to get stuff made in US (Saipan) by abused guest workers in Chinese owned factories, but with a 'Made in the USA' label. More heinous than the AFA calling for a Christmas boycott because they won't say 'Christmas.' They're slave labour assholes.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/moyersonamerica/pri...
then blow them up.
to piss off the AFA.
You're no fun anymore.....
;)
you found yourself a nice man to marry, that would make their heads explode
:D
as long as he and I are exploding, I couldn't care less about them.
Alas......
Poor losers, ha ha ha! They own a bunch of worthless mortgages, for which they traded valuable plastic crap that we bought at Wal-Mart.
Who gives a flying flip what any neocon thinks?
They are mostly all chickenhawks.
OK neocon tough guys , how about we draft all of you , the military will make a whole new category of special forces units solely made up of neocons , we'll call them the chicken hawk berets , we'll send you to China , how's that ? Damn ! These lunatics never cease to amaze me .
from an old SNL episode...
Someone should smack across the side of the head the old, male, white/yellow/brown(and any other color) failed elites of all societies whose predecessors were responsible for the deaths of approximately 120 MILLION of our species (leave aside for the moment the many millions who were wounded/traumatized/broken) euphemistically referred to as "collateral damage" during the 20th century.
The ideological arguments for matching armaments is inarguably bogus.
They want to be treated with the respect they feel they deserve and to protect their sovereignty.
They have a lot of neighbors that make them a little nervous. They see India as a rising threat and don't completely trust the Russians. They see the U.S. as a potential partner but also as a potential adversary. Mostly because of Taiwan. They want it back very badly and have been gearing their miltary buildup to fight for it. Their "sizzlers" are of grave concern and yet most Americans have never heard of them. Guaranteed they are for our carrier groups if we go to war over Taiwan.
They also want to be a position to do something about it if other countries keep fucking with them. They are still fuming over our bombing of their embassy in Serbia as well as other past "humiliations." And to add insult to injury, there was nothing they could do about any of it. To them, gaining Great Power Status would mean no longer having to take it.
If the world treats them with respect and leaves their country to them to govern, there won't be much trouble. They just want a big stick so they can speak softly.
"They are still fuming over our bombing of their embassy in Serbia as well as other past "humiliations.""
Kinda like Tibetans and Uighurs feel about the Chinese, only with way more reason? If it weren't for the US, China would be kowtowing to Japanese masters today. We shot ourselves in the foot, again!
You are half right and half wrong, in my view.
China has no intention of attacking Taiwan, to think otherwise is to think like a neocon (i.e. someone who doesn't understand human nature whatsoever). China would have much more trouble with a post-invasion Taiwan than they do now.
The Taiwanese need China, all their investment has gone into the Mainland, those small (arrogant pricks, as we say over here) bosses all have first and second wives, families on the Mainland...
If they are fuming about Yugoslavia, well that's because it is beyond the pale to believe the US military was 'using old maps'. What I heard was the Chinese were rebroadcasting partisan content from the embassy, so someone in the US decided to commit war crimes. Par for the course if you know the history of the US.
So far China has not acted aggressively at all, and indeed is still de-militarizing to some extent. But they certainly will act more strongly in the future if they are marginalized.
We should be happy that the Chinese actually have respect for international agreements and laws. Yes, its not perfect, but then again, how often (and how horribly) have we violated international law over the past 20 years?
Anyway, after all that, I think your last two sentences are basically right on. They have enough problems domestically as it is. The mantle of GPS as you term it is still new and not yet to be taken for granted.
before coming here with that crap. Nothing you say is correct. I'd prove it but what's the point? You'd never know I was right.
And if you knew anything about the Power Transition Theory (PTT), you'd know that the term "Great Power Status" is not mine. If you don't know anything about the PTT, you don't belong in this conversation.
.
Seems cruel.
Ironic than cruel.
I'm torn in cases like this on the punishment.
beck would have been drooling all over himself in misplaced self-importance.
Keeping him in suspense for years during appeals, now that's cruel. A lot of people have died for much less reason. Let's worry about poor Tibetan nuns instead, or people who weren't caught red handed and who might be innocent.
.... for former military veterans whose PTSD and neurological impairments contribute to a subsequent killing rampage. Death rows are chalked full of vets.
are the neocons gonna bedwet themselves over that big wall they built over there, too?
spring for it.
will all the oil here we could afford it.
too.
who probably spent a lot of time alone in his room as a kid fantasizing about war, made a career out of being some kind of military historian (read:neocon shill), but for all his obsession with war, endless love of trying to instigate wars and obsessive love of all things military, he never actually joined the military and served......
go figure.
Like I said ....weirdo freak.
It's all fantasy to him.
April 11, 2001: China Returns Crew of Downed US Spy Plane, Keeps Plane
And he wore cowboy boots and spoke like an idgit while being a pussy, so his swagger meter stayed around Orange and Red, even though he was best suited for Yellow.
I know that if it hadn't been for China we wouldn't have been able to finance bush's wonderful war in Iraq, and without China where would we get all that cheap-ass shit that doesn't work? But, dammit, not until China produces a rock band that's worth a shit will I consider them as having arrived in the world.
That's what we should base our affairs with China on -- no rock band, fuck em.
someone needs to tell China that Kung Fu and vampires do not belong in the same movie.
Someone needs to tell the US that-
-Not all "sitcom" children should get recording contracts!
-Car crashes and scowling do not a movie make.
-All Muslims are not our enemy, but making them so will serve only a self-fulfilling prophesy.
.
Whatever happened to R rated movies with titles like, Naughty Nuns in Nevada?
"someone needs to tell China that Kung Fu and vampires do not belong in the same movie" Hollywood too! Nuff said.
...but not when it comes to Hollywood's Chinese equivalent- ours suck, but theirs are fun.
Yea!!!
Neocons view this as "threatening" and want to negotiate over the barrel of a gun. Realists understand it as a natural progression of an evolving superpower and want to negotiate as a potential partner.
Well said!
I question if we are even a "potential partner", given all the debt we owe china and the decline of the country into a banana republic where banksters and petty tyrants like dubya ran/run the show.
For this balanced piece. As our nation turns progressive, we have to build a model of engagement, not of confrontation.
China is doing pretty good right now, and the development has benefited a lot of people already. Still lots of problems but I think that's been going around recently.
It is in both our interests to cooperate in such unstable times.
I am a bit surprised but very happy to see this sort of content here. Right on!~
Believe it or not, the stupidity and evil of US wars does not make other nations automatically correct when we face them.
Sitting in Taichung, Taiwan, watching US progressives as a lifelong progressive, I can only shake my head in disbelief at the shortsightedness of US progressive views of China, as well as at the total progressive abandonment of Taiwan, a democracy that once enjoyed strong support in the democratic party.
Not any more!
At present, China points 1,500 missiles at Taiwan and threatens to plunge the region into war unless it is permitted to annex the island. Taiwanese was never part of any ethnic Chinese emperor's state, and which was not considered part of China by the Chinese themselves until the early 1930s when it gradually began to dawn on the Chinese they could grab it.
China claims the Senkakus, which were never part of any ethnic Chinese emperor's state, and which are indisputably part of Japan. We have a treaty with Japan of mutual defense, and have conducted exercises in the Senkakus with Japan. The Senkakus did not become sacred territory of China for the last 5000 years until 1969, when the possibility of oil beneath them was announced.
China also claims numerous other Pacific Islands, including the Spratlys. From time to time islands mysteriously appear on its maps as Chinese, as the Natunas did in the 1990s. This means a constant state of tension between China and Vietnam, the Philippines, and Taiwan over these locations.
China also claims the entire Indian State of Arunachal Pradesh and is ramping up its troop presence, along with alliances with India's neighbors. The Himal is a region that is a tinderbox, and doesn't get enough attention.
Further afield China is involved in long-term anti-democracy foreign policy programs. One does not have to buy into Neocon cant to see that China is not a benign power, and will almost certainly be involved in wars with our friends and allies in the coming years.
Before they were big on Russia and the Middle East, the Neocons all had old Asia connections, which they maintain. For example, at present, Paul Wolfowitz is head of the US-Taiwan Business Council. Neocon John Tkacik grew up in Taiwan. The sad part is that with the progressive abandonment of Taiwan, the neocons are its only friends. Thanks, guys.
China is an expansionist state with a network of prison camps, widespread suppression of dissent, ongoing colonial projects in Xinjiang and Tibet, harbors a dangerous and false sense of victimization, is currently rapidly expanding its military (and as neocon John Tkacik is wont to point out, at Chinese prices $70 billion will buy you a lot more military than similar US expenditures will), and has designs on the territories of all its neighbors. Surely there is more to see here than "boy those neocons sure love war."
In the meantime, I will go out and continue to speak and write on these issues on my popular Taiwan blog, for unlike complacent and uninformed US progressive commentators, my family and I actually live under Chinese missiles.
Michael Turton
The View from Taiwan blog
"Surely there is more to see here than "boy those neocons sure love war."
No, not really. This is their philosophy, this is what stokes their pleasure spots. They believe in imposing their brand of democracy on other nations through military force. It's really pretty simple.
As for your views, I believe you when you point out these military systems, these regional ambitions, the human rights abuses. Here's the thing, Michael - we're not going to win the Chinese people or its government over by sternly scolding them or by increasing troop strengths in South Korea or by stationing a few wings of F22 planes in Guam or Okinawa. Steady, patient diplomatic engagement over the long term is going to be a lot more successful.
They say that, in the field of world diplomacy, the West plays chess while the Chinese play "Go", and the Chinese long term usually wins out. Well, the neocons play checkers. That's what you're dealing with here.
....then obviously patient diplomacy is not the way to go. Diplomatic engagement is the game the Chinese want us to play.
The US argument that you and others make -- arguing for the long-term diplomatic engagement -- requires short-term sacrifice for the sake of the relationship. In other words, the Chinese know that they can obtain the concessions they need simply by threatening the relationship -- our desire to maintain it gives them leverage over us. We are always willing to make concrete sacrifices to maintain "the relationship" -- like an abused wife trying to keep a marriage going with a sociopath.
Note the way they treat the US Navy, the one part of the US government that has consistently attempted to "maintain a relationship" with the Chinese. WSJ noted in an article earlier this year:
+++
Yet it's unclear what this stance has accomplished. Only a few months after taking his job, in May 2007, Adm. Keating held a news conference in Beijing and said if China chose to develop an aircraft carrier program, the U.S. would "help them to the degree that they seek and the degree that we're capable, in developing their programs." That offer was quickly shelved back in Washington. Earlier this month, he suggested the U.S., Australia and China should hold a joint exercise together—which also came as a surprise to many back in Washington. China still hasn't responded to the offer. Meanwhile the Chinese are aggressively defending their ever-more muscular naval stance: "The way to resolve China-U.S. maritime incidents is for the U.S. to change its surveillance and survey operations policies against China, decrease and eventually stop such operations," China's Defense Ministry declared last month. No nuanced talk of "engagement" there.
Admiral Keating himself has a hard time citing what has changed for the better vis-à-vis China in his two-and-a-half years at the PaCom helm, besides the resumption of military-to-military talks (which the Chinese unilaterally suspended in October 2008) and the fact that since 2007, "we haven't had a ship visit denied." The transparency of China's military intentions is "less than completely fulfilling." U.S. military exchanges with the Chinese are "very limited." The missiles Beijing has pointed at Taiwan are "not insignificant in terms of quantity." In sum, "there is no question that we are going to have to deal with a Chinese military that is increasing in quantity and in some areas, quality, over the Chinese military of 20 years ago," the admiral admits.
+++++
In other words, despite a decade into this, the US Navy STILL has no relationship with the Chinese -- it simply has an imagined relationship, and Adm Keating can cite no concrete gains, and despite that, the Chinese are still putting pressure on the US to stop engaging in routine surveillance, which they will continue and which they see us eventually giving in to, for the sake of "the relationship." That is Chinese long-term diplomacy at its finest -- you only have "a relationship" when you do what they want.
Another reason the Chinese like the long-term engagement so many progressives advocate is that it enables them to suborn our foreign policy class. Ken Silverstein had an excellent piece on this in August last year:
http://www.michaelturton.com/mandarins.pdf
On both sides of the aisle, extensive segments of our foreign policy class is involved in business with China. In the Obama Administration Jeff Bader, his key Asia advisor, and Mona Sutphen, his deputy chief of WH staff, worked for Stonebridge, a consulting firm that does business with China. Charles Freeman, whose appointment as NIC head caused a storm of controversy, is another old China business hand, as is his son. Of course, this is a problem for Rethugs as well, as the Silverstein piece outlines.
A longtime foreign policy specialist on East Asia security issues sent me an email the other day bemoaning how, after a thirty year career, he's "become" a hardliner on China, because our foreign policy class has shifted to the "engagement" line, and he has remained in his moderate Establishment position -- a position now considered right-wing by an Establishment "engaged" in moneymaking in the China trade. Certain thinktanks, such as CSIS, are reliable pushers of the "engagement" line -- their recommendation report earlier this year was written by former Sec of Defense Bill Cohen (runs China consulting firm) and Maurice Greenberg, former AIG CEO (AIG is old Shanghai insurance firm). The capture of our foreign policy class by monied interests is of course one more variant of the capture of policy by monied interests that is so common in the US government.
Long-term engagement with China will simply mean the longterm corruption of our political class by Chinese money, which means, as Silverstein points out, they will own our foreign policy. As they mostly do.
We're on a war course right now -- whether over Taiwan, the Senkakus, Arunachal Pradesh, or whatever claim the Chinese think up next once they have those things. This progression will not stop unless China is made to stop it. US Progressives need to wake up and realize sometimes that long-term engagement is not the answer. With China what is necessary is the willingness to instantly cut relations and to focus on the short-term concrete gains, step by step, tit for tat, with clearly outlined and adhere to goals, which "the relationship" facilitates rather than the other way around. Backed, of course, by a powerful Navy and an expressed willingness to go to war.
Michael Turton
The View from Taiwan blog
It seems to me you are suggesting US soldiers should be put in harm's way because otherwsie Chinese money will further corrupt the American ruling class. Isn't that an American problem? You can't trust your own leaders. They can be bought.
How is what China does any different from what America has done throughout the 20th century, into today?
It seems to me you are suggesting US soldiers should be put in harm's way because otherwsie Chinese money will further corrupt the American ruling class.
No, what I'm saying is that the kind of engagement -- "long-term engagement" -- often argued for is engagement that is corrupting our foreign policy class. I'd like another kind of engagement, one that recognizes China's long-term goal to disrupt and destroy democratic development, to occupy many of the territories of its neighbors, and to corrupt the political classes of the nations it deals with. Hence any engagement with China must ask for concrete, tit for tat goals, and must be backed up by a strong military presence and tight controls, and it must work for the democratization of China, something conspicuously absent in the last seven Administrations. Why do you think the rise of China has spurred military spending across Asia and the Pacific, from Japan to Australia? Because everyone not blinded by either Chinese money or China Dreams can see what is coming next.
How is what China does any different from what America has done throughout the 20th century, into today?
It doesn't. In fact it is worse. But the current fantasy of the progressive foreign policy is that it does. That is essentially what I am pointing out. A realistic -- as opposed to "realist" -- foreign policy would take that into account.
As for being "in harm's way" US troops have been there for the last 60 years. We have security treaties with several nations in the area, like Japan and Australia, and understandings with others. I'm not advocating war with China, but rather, a limited and tightly controlled engagement strategy.
Michael Turton
The View from Taiwan
You call yourself a (life-long) progressive but you sound a lot more like a neo-con.
Let's just collect the most egregious points here, or at least as many as I can stand to go through:
1. Total progressive abandonment of Taiwan
Which is code for 'refusing to beat the drums of war and threaten under the neo-con sponsored Defense of Taiwan Act' or whatever the proper name is.
What else could it mean?
2. At present...(a bunch of drivel)...One does not have to buy into Neocon cant to see that China is not a benign power, and will almost certainly be involved in wars with our friends and allies in the coming years.
These paragraphs are a fantastic laundry list of complaints and random factoids, cobbled together in nice neo-con fashion (i.e., just slapped together and then treated as if they actually represent a valid argument for whichever war one is pimping). Most of those facts might even be correct, too! I wouldn't bet on it, but you never know.
As for the 'one does not have to buy in...', well the proper response is 'but if one did buy in, one would be a neo-con, now wouldn't they?'
3. The sad part is that with the progressive abandonment of Taiwan, the neocons are its only friends.
Sniff. It is sad, isn't it? But you can always trust those neo-cons to stand by you, that's for sure. A braver bunch is hard to find.
4. In the meantime, I will go out and continue to speak and write on these issues on my popular Taiwan blog
Your popular blog? You mean your website about teaching English in the hick towns of Taiwan?
You go, girl. Show them how you do it!
5. Obviously patient diplomacy is not the way to go. Diplomatic engagement is the game the Chinese want us to play.
Ah, another neo-con trait, using a bunch of vague terminology. Here, 'patient diplomacy' is bad, but 'diplomatic engagement', now that's good!
Anyone want to suggest what this distinction means? Knowing the neo-cons as we do, I bet someone could. I know I could.
And does anyone notice that he tells us that we should adopt a strategy of diplomatic engagement (again, whatever that might mean) because China wants us to do so. Yes, neo-cons are not especially logical.
6. On both sides of the aisle, extensive segments of our foreign policy class is (sic) involved
Here we have the right wing's current meme: it's the same on both sides of the aisle! It's not just the GOP that is corrupt!!
Oh, and subject-verb agreement. You must have taught that a couple times before.
7. A longtime foreign policy specialist on East Asia security issues sent me an email the other day
Ah, the classic blind quote. Serious players (who must remain nameless because of the dangerous work they do every day for Freedom!) tell me important things that support my wild statements! Serious! People!
I am running out of patience but will do one more:
8. The US argument that you and others make -- arguing for the long-term diplomatic engagement -- requires short-term sacrifice for the sake of the relationship. In other words, the Chinese know that they can obtain the concessions they need simply by threatening the relationship -- our desire to maintain it gives them leverage over us. We are always willing to make concrete sacrifices to maintain "the relationship" -- like an abused wife trying to keep a marriage going with a sociopath.
The relationship is more like a drug dealer and an addict, with the US consistently debasing itself and running to China for more money to feed its habit, or that is how it was throughout Bush-Cheney. And who is the sociopath in this new formulation?
I love the talk of 'short-term sacrifice' and 'concessions' obtained through threats! What would those be? Its all so vague and yet I suppose it is clear to you.
Oh, why not do one more:
9. We're on a war course right now
Yup, neo-con. They are easy to spot once you have had some practice. We are always on a 'war course' to these types.
Oh, and nice terminology. 'War course' sounds as if it could have come from such a luminary as G. Swank.
Rhodo's Verdict: Turton took approximately two semesters of political science back in college, 25 years ago.
Oh, and I can blog-whore too, if the site mods don't beat me up: gongshangfa dot com
You seem to be up on this situation. At the very least, you seem to have an informed opinion.
So, I'd like to ask you a question.
Please forgive me if this question comes off as being over simplified.
I was in a conversation the other day with someone.
And they made a remark that struck me.
This person said that the reason we had such a devastating financial collapse here, was because of China called in the loans.
Again, I'm putting this question out in very simplified terms. It's early and I'm on my first cup of coffee.
I would just like to hear your perspective on this.
Thank You.
but I can answer you briefly before bed.
I don't believe that anything was called in at all. Little too conspiracy theory for me, plus these are transparent T-Bills that are held by the Chinese government, no private loan to call in.
There is no doubt, however, that the Bush Administration screwed us by putting us in such a weak position in the first place.
China has problems and does bad things, but in this story they are simply an investor in the free and liquid markets we love so much. How they get blame in this is a mystery.
Ahrgg you bought all my debt! You bastard!!
What was happening was China's economy was gaining a great deal of depth, which led to a large but short term increase in the market for t bills.
So, my short answer is no, while the crash was swift I can easily see that it was quite expected and indeed pretty late. A few smart economists saw it coming back in 2006-2007...
Hope that helps.
People need to start calling out these chickenhawk warmongers live on the media like Markos Molitsas did with Tancredo. I want to see Kristol, Kagan, Cheney and other notorious neocons humilated in public.
Yup, the neocons are at it again, understanding the IQ of the average neocon is 2 points below his/her shoe size and they maintain a memory of convenience can ANYONE tell me when is the last time China invaded anything.
Remember when Russia a few years back went over the Chinese birder, what did they do they pushed back across their border sat for a few months saved FACE then with drew. Am I a sympathizer no am I a person that likes to stay current Yes. I am a person that detest these neocons for twisting facts and Truth.
China's philosophy is to sit and wait it will come to them, here is a news flash most of these problems are made by the neocons short range thinking and racist religious attitudes.
Remember when we gave the Panama Canal back to the Panamanians (no its not off topic) the neocons pulled and lobbied for and got the funding and maintenance for the Canal Zone reduced to nothing, the neocons thinking was we are loosing money and they are brown skinned and talk funny, Here is the point the Financing for the 3rd Lock was financed by you guessed it CHINA. Oh, yeah let these neocon brain dead morons rattle the war drums.
These are only a few of the mishaps and short comings of the Hate Mongers on the right and if we had and we don't a REAL investigative reporters and FACT checkers you would see that China's military expansion is normal for a growing country and economy. The short sightedness of this and its projection falls on the shoulders of the right as it was the Dollars and Cents that matter, now they are trying to bring their Military Industrial Complex buddies into and up to date.
No I fear nothing as I believe NOTHING a war mongering Racist right winger has to say as most of these problems are of their making.
One final point the Chinese are very good at LEARNING and then using it against you remember Nixon and his staff were given a message and I do Not believe to this day it has been understood as it was a open ended two way message, that is dangerous when given to a right winger ass that requires a thought process which everyone knows they are incapable of.
So as far as China being a Military threat NO, I fear WALL Street and the American Financial Institution and the Right Wing Hate base more than I worry or Fear China.
Maybe $70 billion buys as much as $700 billion here. How many contracts for $1000 nuts and bolts does China have? Seems to me that would be a quick way for a contractor's organs to get sold on Ebay in China. Here, securing contracts like that would be patriotic honest labor for an ex-congressman turned lobbyist.
Those "C" st. clowns think the Flintstones is a documentary
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