Feeding the Dragon, Hurting the Alliance

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


Just saying there isn't that great of a chance of war with India and Pakistan (in fact nukes may have prevented a war between the two states in the late 90s... not like they weren't due for one), so basing your fears on an East Asian nuclear WW3 is kind of silly. Nukes prevent warfare, as they did between the USSR and US (without nukes, WW3 would have occured, I'm sure of it).

I'd rather not stake the continued existence of a billion or so people on a mere 60 or so years of historical precedent. The avoided hot war between the Soviets and the West caused quite a few not insignificant proxy wars and the political ossification of a huge portion of humanity for decades. The transition after the Cold War was bloodier and much more difficult to deal with because in many ways and places things hadn't changed much since the 1940s. States fell apart as their final raison d'etre fell away, others fell into near anarchy with their economies largely destroyed. Many small wars began and even where the effects of the end of the Cold War have been largely positive one still has to mourn the wasted decades and trillions of dollars and wonder what could have been.

The big losers in an Asian arms race / rapid emergence of the Chinese superstate are going to be all of the neighboring countries which have a freer political system than the Chinese. The U.S. loses only by deciding to get involved, we can pack up and leave Japan, Taiwan, The Phillipines, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, NZ, Australia, and dozens of other Central and South Asian states in the lurch and hope that the new Greater Asian Prosperity Sphere is a kindlier and gentler entity than it's predecesor.

[Jaakko]

Woah, I didn't know that Europe selling weapons to China will be the direct cause of a billion people getting nuked to death. Where can I buy such accurate magic 8-balls?

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Jaakko
Woah, I didn't know that Europe selling weapons to China will be the direct cause of a billion people getting nuked to death. Where can I buy such accurate magic 8-balls?

There used to be an excellent pinball game called Eight Ball Deluxe in one of the bars in my old student union.

A propos of nothing....

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Agathon
Is it totally inconceivable that the Chinese might actually be friendly people?

As hegemonic powers go, the US is about the most benign there's been. We all know how much you appreciate them. What makes you think China will be nicer?

[Imran Siddiqui]

There was no WW3 against the Soviets because we never let down our guard.

Well there was the whole 'detente' period which some say we let down our guard too much... blame Nixon!

I'd rather not stake the continued existence of a billion or so people on a mere 60 or so years of historical precedent. The avoided hot war between the Soviets and the West caused quite a few not insignificant proxy wars and the political ossification of a huge portion of humanity for decades. The transition after the Cold War was bloodier and much more difficult to deal with because in many ways and places things hadn't changed much since the 1940s. States fell apart as their final raison d'etre fell away, others fell into near anarchy with their economies largely destroyed. Many small wars began and even where the effects of the end of the Cold War have been largely positive one still has to mourn the wasted decades and trillions of dollars and wonder what could have been.

Cost/benefit. Yeah, it hasn't been all flowers and cake (then again, what is), but the alternative was far worse. I'd take the Cold War and its aftermath over even a repeat of WW2 (WW3 probably would have been much worse).

Or most of the Americans posting in this thread, sadly enough...

Which is why we continue to have normal trade relations with them .

As DD is fond of saying: "my give a **** is broken".

If we're serious about China's human rights abuses then stop trading with them. Do what we do to Cuba.

[Patroklos]

We waste our entire military on Iraq

Yeah, takin gover an entire country without even waking up, let alone getting out of bed, means we wasted our entire military.

What is the army's loss percentage again, .01?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Chirac isn't too concerned about that, DaShi. It doesn't appear as if most Euros are either.

Or most of the Americans posting in this thread, sadly enough...

cause its the usual poly trollfest. cause its gone from specifics about the arms embargo to the usual blather about the US, etc.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Cost/benefit. Yeah, it hasn't been all flowers and cake (then again, what is), but the alternative was far worse. I'd take the Cold War and its aftermath over even a repeat of WW2 (WW3 probably would have been much worse).

A world war three WITH nukes would have been even worse. Youre like the guy who goes for years without insurance, and having made it ok, congratulates himself on the money he saved.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
cause its gone from specifics about the arms embargo to the usual blather about the US, etc.

I knew it would do that before I posted it. I just thought it would attract one of the posters (Spiffor & mindseye chief among them) who's opinion I would have actually been interested to hear before it degenerated into that.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
A world war three WITH nukes would have been even worse. Youre like the guy who goes for years without insurance, and having made it ok, congratulates himself on the money he saved.

Nukes have shown themselves to be the ultimate deterrant. Unlike your inane insurance analogy, having insurance doesn't prevent disease from infecting you.

[Zulu Elephant]

OK, the thread seems to have moved on slightly since the second page (I stopped reading then). But, up to there, people couldn't understand why the Europeans were selling arms to China. This might shed some light (only the bold is important)

Niall Ferguson
Monday February 21, 2005
The Guardian

When Richard Nixon visited China in February 1972, the world was agog. His reputation as an anti-communist and cold war hawk was well established. China was in the grip of the cultural revolution, a deranged civil war between the generations unleashed by Mao Zedong. And yet there were Nixon and Mao swapping toasts and guzzling feasts in the Forbidden City.

Today there are those who find the idea of George Bush in Europe almost as improbable. But that is where President Bush is heading this week - to Brussels, Mainz and Bratislava.

Like Nixon, Bush has a track record of hostility towards his hosts. In his first term, he and his closest colleagues made no secret of their impatience with the reluctance of France and Germany to become involved in the war to depose Saddam Hussein. Two years ago, in a spectacularly undiplomatic moment, Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, sneered at what he called "old Europe" - meaning the original members of the European Union, as opposed to the "new Europe" of east European statesabout to join the EU.

For much of 2003 a mostly frivolous but sometimes earnest mood of Francophobia swept the US. White House speechwriters did not actually use the phrase "cheese-eating surrender monkeys". But it was easy to imagine the president muttering it in private. Bush in Europe? It really is as incongruous as Nixon in China.

Meanwhile, Europe itself - like China in 1972 - has been undergoing profound change that has seemed for some time to rule out meaningful transatlantic reconciliation. Ever since the decline and fall of the Soviet Union, Europeans have depended far less for their security on the US. That has significantly reduced the incentives for harmony within what used to be called "the west".

Perhaps more importantly, large Muslim populations (especially in France and Germany) have subtly shifted European attitudes towards the Middle East, the world's geopolitical hub. Traditional Arabophile tendencies on the part of European diplomatic elites have been reinforced by politicians fearful of alienating Muslim constituents if they adhere too closely to the US. In some quarters, European hostility to Israel has become more strident, sometimes (at least to American ears) even anti-semitic.

For these reasons, it is hard to feel optimistic about the tour. Yet the lesson of Nixon in China is that sometimes opposites really can meet.

Both sides seem in the mood for rapprochement. Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell's successor at the state department, was not known for her cheerful demeanour in her four years as national security adviser. But on her recent tour of European capitals she was all smiles. Nobody was left in any doubt that the second-term Bush administration had rediscovered the delights of diplomacy. Ms Rice's trip was the opening salvo of a US charm offensive.

And there are signs that this amity could be mutual. The Dutch secretary general of Nato has said he will try to get more European member states to contribute to the training of Iraqi security forces. Peter Mandelson, the EU trade commissioner, has proclaimed his eagerness to "revitalise transatlantic relations". Last Tuesday, Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy representative, said the tension was over. It was time to "look to the future".

Yet it is impossible to escape the suspicion that this mood music conceals fundamental differences on three major international issues.

Number one remains Iraq. France and Germany still refuse to allow military personnel to enter Iraq. Any contributions they make to training will take place in countries neighbouring Iraq.

Number two is Iran. The US is intensely suspicious of the recent European deal that elicited promises from Tehran - a "totalitarian" regime, according to Condi Rice - to renounce uranium enrichment in return for assistance with non-military nuclear projects. The European position, as enunciated by the German defence minister last week, is that Iran will "only abandon its nuclear ambitions if _ its legitimate security interests are safeguarded". This does not play well in Washington, where plans were quite recently afoot for air strikes against Iranian nuclear facil ities. At the very least, the US wants to put the case for sanctions against Iran before the UN security council.

The biggest source of tension, however, may relate to China. The Europeans plan to lift the arms embargo imposed in 1989 after Tiananmen Square. The Americans oppose this, but their opposition is a symptom of a deeper suspicion of what Europe is up to in Asia.

It is not widely recognised that the US is currently being subsidised by foreign monetary authorities, mostly Asian. Central banks, led by the People's Bank of China, are financing about 75%-85% of the US current account deficit. In essence, the Chinese are buying dollars and US bonds to prevent their own currency appreciating against the dollar, which would in turn hurt exports.

N ot only are the returns on these dollar holdings miserably low, but as the US "twin deficits" grow, the exposure of China's central bank to a dollar devaluation grows. According to a recent estimate, if the yuan appreciated by 33% against the dollar, it would inflict a capital loss on the People's Bank equivalent to 10% of GDP.

From an American perspective, this arrangement is just fine. American consumption and foreign policy are effectively being paid for with low-interest loans from Asia, allowing the Bush administration to give American voters both butter (tax cuts) and guns (the occupation of Iraq). And economic interdependence notionally reduces the risk of Sino-American disagreements on strategic matters, notably North Korea but also Taiwan. Yet the Chinese must be feeling nervous. It clearly makes sense for them to reduce their economic dependence on the US export market and their exposure to the dollar.

Step forward Europe -already a bigger market than the US for Chinese goods and proud owner of the euro, a currency looking increasingly like an alternative reserve currency to the dollar.

The irony is that just a few months before Bush's visit to Brussels, a European statesman went on a little-reported trip to Beijing. President Jacques Chirac was there ostensibly to promote trade and cultural exchanges with France. But Chirac surely had a rather grander design in mind. He knows that talk of transatlantic rapprochement amounts to little more than empty rhetoric. He also knows that Europe has an opportunity to woo China from the American embrace.

Today, as in 1972, the international system has a triangular shape. Then it was the US that outwitted the Soviet Union by making overtures to China. Perhaps it is now Europe's turn to outwit the US by doing the same. Or has George Bush already booked his flight to Beijing?

· Niall Ferguson is professor of history at Harvard, a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford, and a senior research fellow of Jesus College, Oxford; his latest book is Colossus: The Price of America's Empire

[Spiffor]

DD attracted this thread to my attention, and warned me to ignore the trollish part. Which is why I carefully avoided to read anything other than the OP

I think this issue will be probably the one where we'll see if the EU-US relationships have grown in maturity since the Iraq diplomatic debacle (which was a debacle for all parties involved, unlike what the article is suggesting).

The EU wants to open the huge Chinese weapon markets to its productions. This demand is also motivated by Chirac's megalomaniac willingness to create a multipolar world*. The US wants to maintain its hegemony, and doesn't want to let China be dangerous enough that it cannot defend Taiwan anymore. Such a defeat (although the US would avoid the fight altogether rather than fight in a quagmire/defeat/nuclear holocaust) would seriously shake American hegemony.

Now, it seems Bush has grown wiser since the Iraq experience, and the EU doesn't lack pragmatists either. Instead of threatening the EU like the bigot journalist is suggesting, they should work on a compromise. And in particular, the US should jump the bandwagon if any arms trade is open with China: most US-EU disagreements come from the fact that the EU accepts clients the US doesn't want to hear about (pretty much all the "rogue States").

If the US and the EU managed to discuss the topic, rather than staying on their positions, hurling mud and threats at each other, then the Transatlantic Relationship would prove solid.

If the US behaves like the bigot journalist says, i.e. threatening and acting against the EU, it will achieve nothing. That's because the moron who wrote it couldn't understand one thing: the EU now intends to be considered an equal partner of the US, not a vassal anymore. The very fact that even Tony Poodle wants to lift the ban does show it. If we are treated with contempt -as inferiors- we will further build a united diplomacy, like we have begun to do.

The Transatlantic relationship will only be functional if both parties are prone to discuss. The European Political culture is now full of compromise-loving, and the occasional moron (Chirac) won't change our willingness to negociate. The US now has to understand that it too must talk, that it too must make concessions.

Let's hope the Yank diplomats understand it better than the journalist.




*it is only megalomaniac because Chirac wants to be in the history books for that. The world will be multipolar in a few decades anyway, but Chirac wants to be the guy that had pushed for it. It's completely stupid to rush things like that for personal glory.

[Saras]

Ferguson seems like a smart fellow from what I read of his (vol I & II of "Rothschilds", and "Empire"). I didn't understand the need to "outwit" the US. Is this some sort of TV show?

[GePap]

Originally posted by Straybow Originally posted by GePap

Well, for one thing we like to take seriously that old saw, "He who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it." For example, the Brits saying in 1932 that there was no possibility of war within 10 years. How they were too weak just 5 years later to oppose Hitler, the Brits and French turning their backs as Hungary was forced to surrender the Sudatenland.

OH, invoking Godwin already! Good for you, first Nazi reference! ...

But lets take your little rant- lets say China became "fascist"- how does that directly threaten Europe? Answer, it does not.

If you are weak, your enemies are encouraged to take advantage of that weakness. There was no WW3 against the Soviets because we never let down our guard. There will be no WW3 with the Chinese if we continue to keep our guard up.

You realize that this goes ditto for the other side? Unless you assume some basic aggresive intent on only one side, and assume the other side is made up fo sugar, spice and everything nice? Yes, the US kept its guard up - AND SO DID THE SOVIETS. Do you think that is the US had seen a window of opportunity to destroy the Soviets because of Soviet military weakness, the US would not have taken it?

This means that China has a huge incentive to build itself up, to prevent any possible hostile US intent- I know you will haw about how that is insane, and other crap, but you know what? The US has as good a record of foreign aggression as China, heck, in the last 50 years a much bigger one. So do pray tell why, when you have people going on and on about the grave Chinese threat in the US, should the Chinese not say : these people are ideologicall nutters, and lets be armed to the teeth to make them think twice.

Is this principle something you honestly don't understand, or are you merely ideologically obtuse? "If we all just laid down our guns there'd be no more war."

NO, in fact, unlike you, I realize all conflicts have two sides. It works better when you see this, instead of living in some fantasy charicature world were your side is eminetly good and pure, and evryone who does not see that must be some satan spawn. Or is that too hard for you to understand?

Hah! The Europeans did think the races of the lands they colonized should be grateful for the internal peace, education, and other benefits of civilization brought in.

Certainly, but they never did any of these things for the benefit of the locals, only for their benefit. Its akin to the moronic arguement that blakcs should be glad they were taken slaves cause America is so much nicer than Africa. NO, Europeans invaded people for their own good, and then thought- you are better off under us. The US invades people and tells them- we are doing this for you, not us, you.

That is the difference.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Whoha


I never said China in my post. You asked why the US would want such things, and obviously those arguments apply to China as well. China has every right to buy the arms, But we in the US need to realize that Europe is increasing not our ally or our friend. You said they don't give a **** about our position in the Pacific? so then why, for example, should we give a **** about their position in the Ivory Coast?

And what exactly has the US done for the Ivory Coast, pray tell? I haven't seen any significant US assistance, other than helping get westerners out.