Feeding the Dragon, Hurting the Alliance

[Agathon]

You're on crack if you think Tiananmen had anything to do with the fall of the wall.

That has got to be one of the stupidest things I have ever seen a supposedly intelligent person post, ever.

Those who made the wall fall explicitly acknowledged it. West German TV broadcast the Tiananmen events and some people on the other side picked it up. Word got out.

They became aware that civil disobedience had very nearly succeeded in a communist country and correctly divined that their own authorities lacked the gumption to slaughter their own citizens. In fact they were proved absolutely right as Honecker wanted to suppress them but was ousted because the rest of them couldn't face doing it.

I've seen people involved in the Mauerfall say this in interviews. It's kind of obvious when you think about it - the East German thing only picks up steam after that. I imagine the Chinese were also influenced by earlier events in Europe.

Tiananmen was itself influenced by the "people power" revolution in the Phillipines a few years earlier, and that was influenced by the failed Kwanju uprising a few years before that.

[Agathon]

Invasion of Nicaragua to depose Noriega is perhaps the sole exception (but note that it wasn't for conquest, either).

I might take you seriously if you actually got the facts right.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Agathon

You're on crack if you think Tiananmen had anything to do with the fall of the wall.

That has got to be one of the stupidest things I have ever seen a supposedly intelligent person post, ever.

Those who made the wall fall explicitly acknowledged it. West German TV broadcast the Tiananmen events and some people on the other side picked it up. Word got out.

They became aware that civil disobedience had very nearly succeeded in a communist country and correctly divined that their own authorities lacked the gumption to slaughter their own citizens. In fact they were proved absolutely right as Honecker wanted to suppress them but was ousted because the rest of them couldn't face doing it.

I've seen people involved in the Mauerfall say this in interviews. It's kind of obvious when you think about it - the East German thing only picks up steam after that. I imagine the Chinese were also influenced by earlier events in Europe.

Tiananmen was itself influenced by the "people power" revolution in the Phillipines a few years earlier, and that was influenced by the failed Kwanju uprising a few years before that.

The **** was hitting the fan well before Tiananmen, Aggy.

Atre you going to say now that glasnost caused people power in the Phillipines?

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Agathon

The Chinese do not have a history of manic aggression. They want Taiwan back, because its part of China (which even the Taiwanese admit, but they think they should be in charge of China) and they invaded Tibet because it was a weak state between them and India, a country with which they have hostile relations.

There's also the little matter that Tibet was a Qing vassal. The Chinese have been extremely reluctant to see any bit of the Qing empire go away. Taiwan has, last I heard, still not formally accepted Mongolia's independence, and the commies only did it because the alternative was a breach with Stalin.

About a year ago, a Manchurian politicitian suggested, apparently in all seriousness, that China should buy the Maritime Province back from Russia.

[mindseye]

Originally posted by DinoDoc

I'm kind of curious what Spiffor and mindseye's feelings on the matter are.

In a nutshell, I'd rather no one sold arms to China.

I'm dismayed but not the least surprised if Europeans scramble for Chinese arms sales. It's a highly lucrative business, and given the scale (and customer base) of the US arms trading industry, I'm not sure Americans have much room to criticize Euros on this score without being mighty hypocritical.

China should be expected to modernize its military and have a force commensurate with its economic power, just like any other major power. However, I'm not terribly worried about it being an international military threat.

The guys running the game in Beijing (along with their families and friends) are becoming so astoundingly rich from economic development, that it's hard to imagine them doing anything that might imperil their gravy train. And that includes taking up arms against Taiwan. The leaders of the CCP have become quite enamored with MBZs, villas, concubines and international gambling vacations.

I'm more concerned about China as a cultural threat, specifically its business culture. Find the worst sweatshop factory in any corner of the globe, and chances are it's owned by Chinese (including Taiwanese).

[lord of the mark]

Nepal

In Nepal the king has launched a coup, dismissing the civilian govt and attempting to rule directly. IIUC India has protested vigourously, cutting off military sales. China, OTOH, has said nothing. Is China working with the king? Is this an attempt to exert dominance over another buffer state, this time on the Indian side of the Himalyan ridge?

[Last Conformist]

Nepal being an Indian client, one might've expected China to be sympathetic to the Maoists. But I don't know anything for sure.

[GePap]

Re: Nepal

Originally posted by lord of the mark
In Nepal the king has launched a coup, dismissing the civilian govt and attempting to rule directly. IIUC India has protested vigourously, cutting off military sales. China, OTOH, has said nothing. Is China working with the king? Is this an attempt to exert dominance over another buffer state, this time on the Indian side of the Himalyan ridge?

Or maybe China does not give a damn about the Nepalese king overthrowing democracy, since democracy is not high on their agenda? Plus India, with its own large Maosit revolts, has far more at stake in Nepal to begin with.

You know, I have heard nothing from Thailand either, nor even Bhuttan! Those damned Bhuttanese!

This is the sort of paranoia that is endemic.

As for Straybows long winded but not particulalrly interesting remarks- there are time for valid Hitler comparisons- you haven't pointed out any worth a damn. And all conflicts have two sides- even aggressors have a reason for their actions-that is a side. Too bad to see that in your limited monochrome existance that obvious reality is lost.

And as for the notion of some grand allience of western nation- won't happen, period. NOr will there really be some grand anti-Chinese allience in Asia, and all of this for a variety of reasons:

1. Europe and the US have increasingly divergent values when it comes to international relations as I said earlier-with the US staucnhly for its hegemony and sovereignty to enforce that hegemony, while the Europeans are slowly moving or trying to change the basis of sovereignty to more international and supranational notions. The two are in conflict. Russia is more enclined the the US position, in so far as it wants to get back its power and probably corectly sees the European approach as negating this.

2. When neocons like Krauthammer go around calling Europe "decadent", you can see where this supposed western allience falls apart- unless there is a tectonic shift in values in either Europe or the US, while still being capitalist democracies their values will not be particulalry alligned

3. IN Asia, besides China you have India growing, and many Asian states have not forgiven Japan, and Muslim Asian states have increasings rifts with the US as long as US public diplomacy continues to be crap. Why then should Indonesia decide to take a stand vs China, as aopposed, say, coming to an agreement with China and siding with them? Dittop for plenty of toehr states. Never do we see all states decidng which power is the bigger threat- Japan may have a pacifist history, but it has a past that is much darker for most asians than China. If and when China can dole out cash like Japan has, it has a good chance of being very popular.

[lord of the mark]

Nepal

In January the govt of Nepal closed the Tibetan welfare office in Katmandu.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

None of it means that they want to invade Japan.

Who said anything about invading Japan? Cutting off Japan's oil supplies is enough to bring the country to its knees, something that will be hard to prevent if China gets a thoroughly modern military and control of Taiwan...

For the time being, it would be suicidal for China to go to war with Japan, and that's likely to be remain the case for the effective lifetime of the system the Chinese want to buy.

[lord of the mark]

pardon my error, china DID say something

" China respects the choice of Nepalese in developing their own country and sincerely wishes the nation to realize social security, economic development and ethnic pacification."

[Last Conformist]

I'm not entirely sure what the Nepal tangent has to do with the rest of this thread. Maybe start a separate thread for it?

[lord of the mark]

the US is still willing to work through international institutions, and the Europeans have not forfeited all notions of sovereignty (both of individual states vs the EU, and of the EU vs the UN and other global bodies) While we have different approaches on HOW to achieve many things, these are capable of being compromised, and are dwarfed by our common goals and interests.

In fact the Europeans (those who werent already part of the coalition of the willing) are now making at least a token contribution to training Iraqi security forces, the US and Europe are both support Abu Mazen and the mideast peace process, the US and the EU led by France are working together on the situation in Lebanon, the US and EU worked together on the Ukraine, we are working together on issues of trade, international development, etc.

[pchang]

I think the idea is to show that China's leaders do have a desire to spread their influence and are not above using military might to achieve their ends. The fact they have not done too much in the past is more a matter of ability than desire. With increasing ability, we should expecgt to see more military adventurism from China.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
I'm not entirely sure what the Nepal tangent has to do with the rest of this thread. Maybe start a separate thread for it?

It to put the "china threatens no one but Taiwan, theyre only interested in selling stuff, the notion that they might have geopolitical goals is just paranoid blustering of neocons stuck in the militaristic past" in perspective.

Again, I dont see this as 1933, or China as Germany. But the notion that we KNOW for certain that there is no threat from China, and that we should not be at ALL concerned about the growth of Chinese power strikes as leaning to far the other way.