China: The Gathering Threat [Hardcover]

[hipster_dufus]

Let's try to stay objective*, I'll post a few book reviews that look at it from different angles..

*...and yeah, yeah, I'm expecting folks to cry "Goering, Goering, you're being Goeringed!" and I could come back and say "hey, that's nice and you're watching too much Celente on Russian controlled RT News..." It's a two way street...kapish? :wink: :biggrin:

keep in mind the book was published in 2005..

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China: The Gathering Threat [Hardcover]
by Constantine C. Menges
2005

In a book that is as certain to be as controversial as it is meticulously researched, a former special assistant to the president for National Security Affairs and senior official of the Central Intelligence Agency shows that the U.S. could be headed toward a nuclear face-off with communist China within four years. And it definitively reveals how China is steadily pursuing a stealthy, systematic strategy to attain geopolitical and economic dominance first in Asia and Eurasia, then possibly globally, within the next twenty. Using recently declassified documents, statements by Russian and Chinese leaders largely overlooked in the Western media, and groundbreaking analysis and investigative work, Menges explains China's plan thoroughly, exposing:


China's methods of economic control.
China's secret alliance with Russia and other anti-America nations, including North Korea.
China's growing military and nuclear power-over 90 ICBMs, many of them aimed at U.S. cities.
How China and Russia have been responsible for weaponizing terrorists bent on harming the U.S.
Damage caused by China's trade tactics (since 1990, we've lost 8 million jobs thanks to China trade surpluses).

[hipster_dufus]

BOOK REVIEW
China as a US enemy
China: The Gathering Threat by Constantine C Menges

Reviewed by Dmitry Shlapentokh

Author Constantine C Menges, who died of cancer at age 64 in July 2004, was clearly a knowledgeable person with broad experience in the field of foreign affairs, as can be seen by his long-term work for the Central Intelligence Agency and other US government agencies.

He completed the manuscript for China: The Gathering Threat just before his death. The book, published last April, demonstrates not only his erudition but his ability to draw a big picture in which past, present and future are connected in one integrated whole.

The focus of the book is communist China and the geopolitical threat it constitutes for the US in the long term. Menges regarded China as the only real threat to the United States' existence.

Even the events of September 11, 2001, some of which Menges witnessed, seems not to have changed his mind. He wrote the book as a sort of political testament to fellow Americans who, he implied, could well not recognize the imminent threat posed by China. One of the major reasons China constitutes such a threat is that - in contrast to other enemies of the US, except perhaps the Soviets in the past - it has a well-defined plan to achieve global predominance.

The author was sure he knew this plan, and the beginning of the book provides a clear outline of it: domination of South Asia, transformation of Russia into a Chinese appendix and, finally, global predominance and subjugation of the US.

Developing this major point, the narrative starts with the rise of communist power in China, its consolidation during Mao Zedong's time and its increase up to the present. In recent history (starting with the 1990s), Russia has played an essential role in the increasing power of China. It has done this - at its peril in the long run - because of the authoritarian/totalitarian proclivities it has not been able to overcome despite the anti-communist revolution. In fact, the rising Chinese/Russian axis constitutes a threat that could make the Chinese dream of global predominance quite possible.

The general outline of the book makes a good point - in this the author was not alone in seeing China as dominating globally in this century - but the general analysis hardly exhibits much sophistication. This, for example, can be seen in the analysis of the Chinese-US relationship. While the Russians are regarded as great helpers of the Chinese in their rise to power, faulty US policy toward China has been equally responsible for making possible its transformation into a geopolitical colossus. In fact, one can assume the author believed that America's own foreign policy, more than anything else, is responsible for the almost imminent US geopolitical debacle. The problem is that members of the US elite are either blind to the real threat or plainly politically venal and ready, if necessary, to forget the country's national interests to promote their political careers.

To be sure, the author saw the problems with Republican administrations, as president Ronald Reagan was not able to understand fully the dangerous totalitarian essence of the Chinese regime - the source of China's global ambitions. But at least he fought against the "evil empire" and made a record of Chinese civil-rights abuses. The problem was more serious with president Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, his major foreign-policy guide. The Kissinger/Nixon rapprochement with China could be partly explained by the desire to counterbalance the USSR, but Menges implies that it went too far. However, the most serious problem was with Democratic administrations.

President Jimmy Carter and his advisers were totally naive, and the author scorns his national security adviser, Zbigniew Brezhinsky, who arrived in China "laden with gifts". The major thrust of his criticism is directed against the Clinton administration. In his view, president Bill Clinton's cozying up to China was not just naivety but worse: Clinton was absolutely cynical and helped the Chinese just because they helped his political career. This cynicism and, implicitly, the shortsightedness of the US business elite, drenched in greed, were the major reasons for the growth of the Chinese geopolitical and economic clout.

One might add that, in this vision of the Democrats as cynical power seekers who lead the United States to perdition, Menges was actually similar to Brezhinsky, who also attributes America's growing problems to the US elite.

The author's limited view of why the US has been engaged in rapprochement with China and is increasingly threatened by its geopolitical/economic might - reducing everything to naivety or the low moral caliber of the US elite and ideology as the driving force of international relations - explains his rather simplistic prognosis for the future and his vision of international relations. For example, because Menges believed that totalitarian/authoritarian regimes always gravitate to one another, he thought China and Russia were almost destined to join hands to fight the US, at least until Russia was absorbed by China.

The assumption that geopolitical interests and not ideology bind states together pushed the author almost to ignore that, regardless of the Chinese/Russian rapprochement in the past 15 years or so, the two countries have a deep distrust of each other. And their alliance is just one of many possible options that may depend on the US global posture and the health of the US economy. The captains of that economy tolerate Chinese economic expansion not out of naivety or even pure greed - the Chinese are not less greedy than the Americans - but simply because the US could not exist without extensive borrowing from China.

With all these shortcomings, the book is nevertheless worth reading, not just because it provides a wealth of information and sound observation, but because it provides insight into the world of the neo-conservative Washington elite. It explains a great deal about their planning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and their belief that destroying the authoritarian/totalitarian regimes would solve all problems and ensure the global spread of the benign Pax Americana.

Dmitry Shlapentokh, PhD, is associate professor of history at the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Indiana University South Bend.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HD22Ad01.html

[hipster_dufus]

China's Dangerous Ascent and Russia's Response

Book Review of China: The Gathering Threat by Constantine Menges

July 28, 2006
by Andrei A. Piontkovsky

By Boris Ryvkin

The recent release of Dr. Constantine Menges’ China: the Gathering Threat in the Russian Federation demonstrates a growing interest in analyses of the rise and intentions of China’s Communist regime. Through an artificial pricing of exports, the closure of their domestic market to Western business, and the systematic reduction of labor wages, the Chinese have engaged in a dangerously one-sided trading game with their international partners. The aim has not been the expansion of human rights and democratization, but a determined effort to achieve global hegemony. Of all its potential foes, the United States has been officially declared the “main threat.” In what may be the greatest geopolitical game since Nixon’s Triangular Diplomacy, Menges lays out the steps the US must take to contain China’s ambitions and protect our global position.

While the text centers on US strategy and attitudes towards China’s rise, Russia’s role in the unfolding drama is vitally important. The release of the book in Russia has renewed discussion about a topic tabooed by many in the political and military inner circle. Lack of discussion about the territorial threat posed by Chinese expansion to Russia’s Far Eastern territories, authority in Central Asia, and status as a great power stems from a larger confusion and nostalgia plaguing Russian foreign policy. As the forward to the Russian edition reveals, ignorance in no way replaces truth. As Russian policymakers debate the demographic crisis looming across Siberia and the Far East, see an Islamist surge across Central Asia and the Caucasus, and miss opportunities to move closer to the West, the Chinese threat will become more acute and Menges’ work will only grow in influence.

The Chinese Communist Party has undergone a transformation of means, but not purpose. The era of Mao Zedong’s land reforms, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution have given way to Hu Jintao’s more temperate but no less lethal Communist dictatorship. The Mao era led to the deaths or imprisonment of over 70 million Chinese, a crippling of the agricultural sector, and a decimation of China’s intellectuals. Having declared his regime one of “true” Communism, Mao dreamed of Chinese dominance across Eurasia.

Following his death in 1976, and with the next decade seeing the rapid undermining of Communist regimes in the USSR and Eastern Europe, the Chinese Communists made a momentous decision. Proceeding in the direction of economic liberalization and reduced regimentation, they forcefully repressed any democratization efforts and signs of dissent against party control. Advances in information technology and increased minority demands for equality and representation have led to swift reaction. An extensive labor camp network remains operational, Buddhists and other religious groups are targeted, and the media remains under heavy state oversight. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, of which China is a key member, has made controlling internet speech a priority equal to fighting international terrorism. Internal political divisions are, nevertheless, evident within the Party. Hard-line elements within the military and parts of the Central Committee push for greater use of force against Taiwan and Japan, as well as a return to Mao’s economic policies. They are subordinate to more moderate leaders, who see greater promise in the present combination of economic development and political repression. Most of the pro-democratic voices have been relegated to political oblivion.

After crushing student protests at Tiananmen Square, the regime tightened its hold on Tibet, intimidated Taiwan with ballistic missile over-flights, and engaged in nuclear proliferation efforts with North Korea, Libya, Iraq, and Iran. With 40% of its exports going to the US, which has extended and renewed China’s most favored trading nation status since 1982, China has used its estimated $732 billion cumulative trade surplus for military expansion. The hard currency earnings of the regime, which has greatly invested in international bond markets, have approached $1.5 trillion in dealings with Japan, the EU, and the US. According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, recent estimates place Chinese land-based nuclear missile strength at 80, with 20 ICBMs having a range of up to 5,000 miles (Norris and Kristensen, 2006). The CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency predict a several-fold increase in warhead quantity by the end of the decade, but deployment has stabilized the past six years. The Chinese are developing two new solid-fueled missiles and expanding their submarine capabilities. An army of 2.3 million, the largest standing force in the world, only adds to the danger.

Chinese military doctrine sees war with the “US hegemonists” as inevitable and seeks dominance by indirect conflict. The aim is to push the US out of the Pacific Rim and the Far East by coercion and provocation. The consensus among the general staff seems to be that the US will not fight over Taiwan, and a weakening of US influence in Japan and South Korea is only a matter of time. A confused US response over North Korea and a not so favorable situation in Iraq only fuel Chinese assessment of the US as a paper tiger. The great Sun Tzu argued that “to subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill,” and it is clear the Chinese are making the most of this maxim. Of its 24 neighboring states, China has territorial claims to at least 11 and has used its demographic advantage to push into Siberia; this places the rising giant on a possible collision course with a still not fully recovered former giant: Russia. To effectively handle the Chinese threat, Russia is essential. It has diverged in post-Communist development from its eastern neighbor, has serious concerns about its role in the international system, and retains a sizeable nuclear arsenal.

Russia’s reception of Menges’ book holds incalculable importance. Vitaly Tsigichko wrote the official forward to the Russian edition. He highlights the threat of China to his nation’s Far Eastern territories. “A conclusion can be reached that China must expand its ‘living space’ in accordance with increased economic and military growth against the interests of weaker neighbors, including Russia” (Tsigichko, 2006). A demographic occupation of Central Siberia and Baikal by waves of Chinese migrants is equally worrisome. “The hegemonic ambitions of China pose an unprecedented threat to the Russia’s interests in Asia and the Pacific” (Tsigichko, 2006). Menges himself hypothesizes a worse-case scenario, where sweeping Chinese annexation of Russia’s eastern territories would reduce the once mighty empire to the size of historical Kievan Rus.

Tsigichko concludes the forward with a praise of the timeliness and incredible importance of the text to Russia’s political elite and administration. He argues that Russia has only two viable choices in dealing with China. It can realign with the democratic West, which would mean a change in attitudes towards the US and a reassessment of Russian policy in the Middle East and Central Asia, to contain China’s hegemonic ambitions. The alternative sees Russia becoming a poker chip in China’s geopolitical games, ceding most of Eastern Siberia, and ending its existence as a relevant player in the international system.

Russia’s current policy predicaments are directly linked to the highly negative and disillusioned view of the Yeltsin era. The shock-therapy model advocated by Gaidar and Yeltsin in 1992, which saw full-scale liberalization of wages and prices combine with an end to state industrial subsidies, was advertised as the best way to shake off the nation’s Communist stagnation. Growth was promised in two years, but the nation faced six years of rising inflation, declining pensions, and a wage non-payment crisis. Yeltsin’s government placed economic transition ahead of institutional and legal reform, leading to problems with both. The storming of the White House, a two year quagmire in Chechnya, and the cementation of oligarchic control of the Kremlin following the 1996 Presidential election sent hopes for a brighter future plummeting.

Putin’s foreign and domestic policies have exploited popular disenchantment to send Russia on a perilous course. Bureaucratic centralization, the loss of regional autonomy, and the decapitation of whatever remained of a relevant Duma have gone hand in hand with growing anti-Western hysteria. The regime has, along with joining the SCO, signed mutual cooperation and military defense treaties with its Chinese neighbor. Russia has opposed efforts to sanction Iran and North Korea for their violent provocations, seeks to undermine US interests in Central Asia, and desires a coalition defeat in Iraq. Russia has cooperated with Palestinian terror groups and restricted NGO operations inside its borders. Putin dismissed suggestions of western mediation in the Chechen conflict and forcefully opposes an expansion of colored revolutions into Eastern Europe.

The Russians are dangerously trying to play off the West and the Chinese, despite rejecting their identification with the former and underestimating the threat posed by the latter. It seems foolish not to take Chinese ambitions and doctrine seriously vis a vis Russia’s eastern territory, Central Asian influence, and Middle Eastern strategy. The Chinese seek global dominance, while the US wants to keep the status quo (which leaves Russia fully in control of its sovereign territory). Building security and economic relations with the Chinese may seem logical from the perspective of a Russia following the Lavrov non-alignment formula, but illogical in a Russia committed to maintaining long-term relevance and sovereignty. Our greatest hope, both for a secure US and a stable Russia, lies in Menges’ words gaining more traction within our old rival’s policy circles.

Boris Ryvkin is a student in political science at Brown University and a researcher in Hudson's Center for Future Security Strategies.

http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_details&id=4140

[hipster_dufus]

Renowned Strategist Warns of Dire Threat from China

William R. Hawkins
Friday, May 27, 2005

The new book China: The Gathering Threat by the late Constantine Menges deserves to become a best seller. Menges first presents a well documented history of the last half-century of U.S.-China relations, showing how Beijing has expanded its ambitions as its economy has grown, until it now plans to dominate not just Asia, but events globally.

Dr. Menges then turns his attention to the situation in Russia, where out of national weakness and anger over the collapse of the Soviet Union, President Vladimir Putin has aligned with Beijing, even though China poses a major threat to Russian interests in both Central Asia and the Far East. Finally, Menges proposes a comprehensive strategy to contain China until internal democratic forces can change the regime into one that can be trusted.

Constantine Menges devoted his entire life to the service of the United States. His untimely death in 2004 left a void among that small cadre of strategic thinkers who are also experienced activists on the world stage. Menges was born September 1, 1939, the day Germany invaded Poland to start World War II in Europe. He was born in Turkey, to which his parents had fled because of their outspoken opposition to Adolf Hitler, and came to America at age four. Menges would spend his career fighting against the spread of tyranny.

As a student in Prague when the Berlin Wall was being built, he smuggled refugees out of East Germany. Menges earned his doctorate from Columbia University, then went to the Rand Corporation where he wrote papers that anticipated the Reagan Doctrine, which brought down the Soviet Empire. He argued that “communist regimes are very vulnerable to a democratic national revolution that is conducted with skill and determination.” He served the Nixon and Ford administrations in the field of civil rights, having worked for voting rights in Mississippi and marched with Martin Luther King, Jr.

Menges warned President Jimmy Carter in 1977 that the friendly government in Iran might be overthrown and replaced by a radical Islamic state. In 1979 this happened, imposing one of the greatest strategic defeats on U.S. policy of the post-war era – one that still haunts us today as the Tehran mullahs develop nuclear weapons.

When President Ronald Reagan took office, Menges worked for the CIA and then on the National Security Council. He played a vital role in fighting the spread of Communism in Central America and drew up the plan for the 1983 invasion of Grenada, which toppled a pro-Castro tyrant. Menges warned President George H. W. Bush of the rising tide of terrorism and drew up a plan to combat it (Menges never talked of a threat without providing a counter-plan), but the incoming Clinton administration had no interest in the subject.

During the Clinton interregnum, Menges moved from government to academia as a professor of international relations at George Washington University. He was active as an advisor to many members of Congress, which is where I met him while working for Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA). Under the joint sponsorship of Hunter’s office and Menges’ “Transitions to Democracy” project, we hosted discussion sessions among Congressional staff members who dealt with national defense, foreign policy and international economics.

I had read several of Menges’ books before I met him. His memoir of the Reagan years, Inside the National Security Council, made my blood boil. It exposed the ways in which the State Department “career” bureaucracy had tried to sabotage the president’s foreign policy. This is a problem that plagues President George W. Bush today.

I was thus honored to be asked to appear on a panel at the Hudson Institute to promote China: The Gathering Threat. My role was to discuss China’s economy and Menges’ concern that U.S. trade policy was helping to give Beijing the resources needed to challenge American security interests around the world. Menges advocates an immediate end to trade deficits with China to bolster American industry and to aid democratic allies whose economies are also being ravaged in competition with Chinese exports. The gains from trade should be shared between countries who have compatible interests and values, not used to increase the capabilities of rivals.

Such a change in U.S. trade policy would also dramatically slow the Chinese economy and discredit the Beijing dictatorship, opening the door for democratic reformers to make their case that China can only progress if it adopts a liberating system of popular government. Menges does not want to fight a war with China, but to promote change in Beijing before the regime thinks it is powerful enough to risk a war.

Rapid economic growth under a dictatorship that views the United States as its “main enemy” poses a threat even more potent than the Soviets. The USSR eventually imploded because of the inherent flaws in the Marxist model. China has sought to avoid the same fate by “opening” to capitalism. Many in the West have naively hoped that this alone would bring about political reform and an eventual move towards democracy. But what has actually transpired is the movement of Beijing from communism to fascism – the use of capitalist energy to fuel the ambitions of a tyrannical government.

The Cold War strategy of containment was based on cutting Moscow off from outside sources of capital, technology, and trade until the system collapsed. In stark contrast, China has benefitted from a flood of outside support. Since 1993, the United States alone has given China some $800 billion in hard currency from its expanding trade deficit. The 2005 deficit will likely give Beijing over $200 billion more, putting the cumulative total of wealth transferred from America to China at over a trillion dollars. Add to that the surpluses China has run with Europe and Japan, plus foreign investment, cheap credit, and technology transfers, and it is clear that transnational corporations and banks are primarily responsible for the rise of Beijing’s power.

And here is where democracy cuts both ways. Corporate lobbyists work very hard to prevent the U.S. government from taking action to contain or deter Beijing. Chinese strategists assume, writes Menges, “that all private businessmen are self-interested and self-seeking and that they do not consider or care about the broader national or geopolitical consequences of their actions” and that the transnational corporations “will continue to help China accomplish its purposes in the years ahead.” It is imperative that in Washington “government officials, not businessmen, decide what is in the broader national interest of the United States.” But weaning politicians from corporate influence (and money) is not an easy task.

Exactly a week before the Hudson Institute event, the annual Fortune Global Forum opened May 16 in Beijing. The Global Forum was an invitation-only event “limited to chairmen, CEOs, and presidents of major multinational corporations” according to its website, though Chinese government officials (including President Hu Jintao) were more than welcome. The description of the event stated, “As the world's economic center of gravity shifts to Asia, the dynamics of the global economy are changing dramatically. Already a dominant force in trade, China will overtake the US to become the world's largest economy by mid-century.... The focus of the 2005 Forum will be how multinationals can tap into the enormous potential of China. Among the featured speakers were presidents and CEOs from General Motors, Motorola, Wal-Mart, and Goldman-Sachs, which has put together the financing for many major Chinese projects.
President Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin, had been a co-chairman of Goldman Sachs. He recently told the Associated Press, “China is likely to be the largest economy in the world and a tough-minded geopolitical power equal to any other geopolitical power on the globe.” So the business execs can’t say they don’t know what they’re doing. Menges is right, they just don’t care.

It is the duty of those in government, however, to care about the trends that threatened to shift the balance of power in the world against the United States. They must be willing to act against the entrenched special interests who have decided they can profit from building China into the next Great Power. To do this in a democracy, U.S. government leaders need the active support of the American people. The work of patriots like Constantine Menges are vital to inform the views of both officials and voters. That is why the appearance of China: The Gathering Threat is so timely and important; and why Menges poured his last energies into completing this book before his death. Everyone should be concerned about the rise of a China still ruled by a communist-fascist dictatorship; and anyone so concerned should read Menges’ book, which lays out the situation in encyclopedic detail (the book runs 565 pages) while providing bold, but realistic, scenarios for meeting the threat.

http://www.americaneconomicalert.org/view_art.asp?Prod_ID=1953

[hipster_dufus]

This related and alarmist view is out of New Zealand...

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100 DAYS – Claiming Back New Zealand (http://100daystodemocracy.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/182/)

June 30, 2010
The real and rising threat from China.
By Amy Brooke (http://www.amybrooke.co.nz/about.php)

The real and rising threat from China. While our politicians are sleeping….

This current July issue of Investigate examining Barack Obama’s legacy has an outstanding article by Professor Dong Li, titled Dragon Rising , which Professor Li originally presented at this year’s Summersounds Symposium in Nelson.

In it, Li Dong warns of China’s aim to turn the West into virtual serfs. His qualifications are impeccable; his analysis outstanding - echoing the warnings on China already expressed in such outstanding books as The China Threat by Bill Gertz and China – the Gathering Threat by Constantine C. Menges, Ph.D.

It is almost incredible that our politicians can be so utterly naive and under-educated historically as to ignore the reality that “the Western elites persist in taking such a naive and over-optimistic view of the CCP leadership”. As Professor Li illustrates, ”in the near future, Chinese overseas efforts will concentrate on grabbing and controlling as much as possible of the world’s remaining raw materials and fossil fuels”. He illustrates how China is seizing control of these raw materials, and why “the twenty-first century will witness a titanic struggle between democracy and dictatorship… The CCP leadership will launch massive cultural and media offensives in the West in order to finally overturn the democracy of universal rights of democracy and human rights.”

This article is enormously important - particularly at a time when the Key-led government is culpably treating a Chinese (Hong Kong-fronted) bid for New Zealand farmland as simply another proposed investment by an overseas company, and actually quotes its foolish ”non-discriminatory investment policy”!

It is time that our politicians woke up and realized what is at stake. There is no apparently independent Chinese investment company which operates without the tacit agreement of (if not actual investment in it, by) the Communist Chinese Government. Being an oppressive totalitarian regime, this same Chinese government could take over any of these investment companies at any strategic time now or in the future. Should this happen, Communist China would then own New Zealand territory. This country’s history is first to gain an economic foothold, followed by political interference (which we have already seen) and then a military presence, to safeguard its interests. We have long been showing high-ranking Chinese military around our military bases. Why? The most recent reason quoted was for peace-keeping purposes. When were the Communist Chinese military ever involved in “peace-keeping”?

This article by Professor Li is crucial to our understanding of how much we are now at risk. If we do not wake up now, we will wake up one day in the not too distant future and wonder what happened to our country – while our politicians were sleeping.… For example…” As a major component of the grand strategy for overseas propaganda work’ , the CCP regime is establishing so-called Confucius Institutes everywhere as cultural footholds and recruiting grounds for future collaborators.” We already now have these in New Zealand.

If you care about our future and that of all our children, this article is a must – as is sending a strong wake-up call to our overly cavalier, if not downright ignorant governing National Party, to Labour, ACT and to the Overseas Investment Office, protest ing strongly about any possible selling of New Zealand farmland, territory – or controlling interests in our resources and products to Chinese investment companies. In an outstanding and highly readable article, Professor Li is very well placed to tell us why.

” The CCP focus on foreign trade expansion has fortuitously coincided exactly with a period of world history when the doctrine of free trade has become a dogma, and when developed countries, in the unrealistic pursuit of universal free trade, have been engaged in a large-scale but poorly managed globalization, WTO style. According to an American political economist and best-selling author Pat Choate: ‘The globalization policy of Presidents George H. W. Bush , Bill Clinton and George W. Bush collectively constitute the worst economic policy mistakes in American history ‘. Choates’s accusation has been underlined by the fact that within a short historical span of three decades… the US has fallen from being the world’s number one creditor to the world’s number one debtor nation. ” What an irony it is that it is to a Communist totalitarian country that the world number one democracy is most indebted, ”suffering from an ever-growing trade trade deficit with China” , with ”hundreds of billions of US dollars flowing into Beijing’s coffers”.

Members of parliament tell us they have little or no time to read in these areas. Apparently, they also have no time to think.

Can we also afford this luxury - or is our time running out too quickly?

Check out Dancing with Dragons in the current INVESTIGATE - How the rise of China as a successful dictatorship could affect us all – and ponder Professor Li’s question: ” Are we sleep-walking toward effective slavery, blinded by our addiction to cheaper products, and willingness to believe in fairytale endings?” What really is at stake…?

http://100daystodemocracy.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/182/

[Garyw]

You mention the enemy in all your book recomendations but it is not China. I can't decide which to eliminate first the Federal Reserve or the CIA. I have heard they can survive without money from the US Government all they have to do is sell the drugs they control. The Cia is the Assassins and Hitmen of the World. They answer to no one. They are the devils of the earth. Why do you think everyone around the globe hates the US. I think you should read the creature from Jeckyl Island as well.

[hipster_dufus]

Why do you think everyone around the globe hates the US.

And whose geopolitical/strategic interests do you suppose that serves? Definitely not the interests of "western" strategic alliances...

[Scorpio]

I find it hard that any thinking person cannot see the real and perceived threat that is china,

There is no miracle there, it is real easy to see what is going on, A + B = C

S

[hipster_dufus]

A + B = C

Here's the proof :biggrin::

[andial]

I agree as the war on terror winds down as evidenced by the capture of Osama Bin Laden we will need to nurish a new threat to our country so as to keep the animal spirits of the nation alive. I also think China makes a much better enemy, the struggle against them will being much more challanging than fighting small tribes of Arabs hiding in caves armed with rifles and Toyota pick up trucks. A "cold war" with them like we had with the Soviets is probably the most likely scenario IMHO.

[Scorpio]

Actually Andial, they are already trotting out the Iran thing,

saying they provided support and were primary expediters behind Al Quaida

S

[Not Sure]

China is a "threat" only because the American Empire is a near-corpse just years away from entering rigor mortis.

[andial]

Actually Andial, they are already trotting out the Iran thing,

saying they provided support and were primary expediters behind Al Quaida

S

Yes plus we have the Israel border thing heating up a little also. But I still think a cold war with China is up on deck and the war on terror is being sent down to the minor leagues. Using Iran as a pretext might work with that also since Iran and China do a bit of trade with each other.

[Apocalypto]

I find it hard that any thinking person cannot see the real and perceived threat that is china,

There is no miracle there, it is real easy to see what is going on, A + B = C

S

LOL! Scorpio, you don't even have to do any math. Just look at the charts linked below.

Americans have been pumping their money into China like there's no tomorrow. Any "thinking person" should be able to surmise, without even busting one brain cell, that Americans brought the China "problem" on themselves.

http://www.uschina.org/statistics/tradetable.html

[Book]

http://www.asianmoviepulse.com/wp-content/uploads/Jackie-Chan-and-Jet-Li.jpg

So obvious. Just look into Jackie Chan's scheming evil commie eyes.

:bear_cry: glen beck should report on this after he gets done shining shoes in israel...

[hipster_dufus]

Americans have been pumping their money into China like there's no tomorrow. Any "thinking person" should be able to surmise, without even busting one brain cell, that Americans brought the China "problem" on themselves.

What!? Are you saying the CPC can't be trusted?

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"I think there is a genuine movement toward openness and freedom in China."
—PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON, Shanghai, June 1998

[hipster_dufus]

So obvious. Just look into Jackie Chan's scheming evil commie eyes.

lol, and the man is a lil' confused too...

"I'm not sure if it's good to have freedom or not,....I'm really confused now. If you're too free, you're like the way Hong Kong is now. It's very chaotic. Taiwan is also chaotic....I'm gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we're not being controlled, we'll just do what we want."
--Jackie Chan, 2009

[smilershouse]

China is a "threat" only because the American Empire is a near-corpse just years away from entering rigor mortis.

China is proud of making the Bonsai,

Western people people making complete articles of themselves.

Moral decline. My dearest Western world, for I knew you well.

SH

[Sallivan]

This looks like a very interesting book, I'll definitely read it:)
Thanks for posting!


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[Book]

http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_details&id=4140



Your source is the Zionist Neocon Hudson Institute. Look at all the dual-citizen Israelis and Neocons on their payroll:

http://hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=hudson_scholars

:flute:

[hoarder]

As the old saying goes "all nations are enemies". Anyone with an ounce of common sense already knows this. Why are people so naive that they think other nations are our "allies"? The only time two nations are allies is when they are both fighting the same enemy and even then the "allies" are enemies.

Everyone should read "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu and "The Prince" by Maciavelli.

That sould be enough to cure you of any naivete.