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we have received, at long last, a national wake-up call on China.
Lo these many years, as one administration
after another
blithely sold or gave the People's Republic our best military technology,
a few of us have been asking our leaders "do you really want
to arm China?" We asked because we took seriously the public
policy of the Beijing regime to prepare to fight and win a war against
the United States. So far, the answer has always been "Sure.
Why not?"
This must be
the starting point for any serious strategy. If China is preparing
to go into war against us, we had better be sure we are so strong
that they won't chance it. We want a supremely powerful United States
military, and a weak, poorly equipped People's Liberation Army.
For the past ten years, our leaders have acted as if they wanted
the reverse, which is one reason the Chinese are acting so brazenly
right now. Starting with Bush the Elder, and accelerating with disgraceful
disregard for our national interest during the recent unpleasantness,
we've given China most everything they needed to build a first-class
fighting force, and we've been extremely solicitous of their tender
feelings, adopting their language on Taiwan, bowing and scraping
to their wondrous culture, pretending they were becoming more "democratic"
as they crushed any sign of freedom outside the marketplace, and
welcoming them into the "world community" as symbolized
by the World Trade Organization.
All of this
was based on a theory rooted in pidgin Marxism, and embraced by
people who should have known better. The theory states that democracy
is linked to wealth, and thus as a people becomes richer, it automatically
becomes more democratic and freedom loving. The historical facts
do not support the theory (Imperial Rome was rich; Pericles's Athens
was poor, just for starters. And, more recently, when we gave credits
to the Soviet Union, it only made them stronger, not more freedom-loving),
but the theory lived on. If you leaf through the literature on China,
you will find no end of self-proclaimed deep thinkers in academia,
government and business chanting this siren mantra. And yet...
And yet China
has become more repressive as it has become wealthier. And yet their
political vision remains unchanged, a vision of a proud, powerful,
dominating nation imposing its will on its neighbors, its region,
and its distant American enemy. And yet we have not come to grips
with this terrible reality, and we have not recognized the terrible
blunder we have committed, and continue to commit, by giving Beijing
the wherewithal to realize their ominous vision, a vision dramatically
clarified by their act of piracy in international air space against
an unarmed aircraft.
What else is
to be learned from the events of the past few days? The good news,
paradoxically, is that the Chinese Air Force isn't ready for the
big time. That fighter pilot was certainly not ordered to sacrifice
himself. He was supposed to intimidate our spy plane, not bring
it down. He made a fatal error. Those who know how the world really
works see that the Chinese goofed, and they are now scrambling to
save face. That is why they want us to apologize, when it is they
who should ask for forgiveness.
The good news
is simultaneously bad, because it will be very hard to get them
to cooperate. They will fear that any gesture of rational goodwill
on their part will be interpreted as a confession of error. It's
not going to be easy to get our sailors back (indeed, we may even
see a replay of Khomeini's greatest hit: a full-blown hostage crisis),
and if we ever see that plane again, it's likely to be in small
pieces. The Chinese may have blundered, but they are very happy
to have had the good luck of laying their eager hands on some top-notch
American surveillance gear. They will certainly exploit it (who
wouldn't?).
As we have
just been reminded, we should be very concerned about the kind of
technology that reaches China. The administration's reaction shows
that the American people understand this. Various military spokesmen
have quickly put out soothing statements to convince us that the
crew undoubtedly destroyed anything of real value before the Chinese
laid their hands on the aircraft (this before we could possibly
know it), which shows that we are in fact very concerned about was
has been lost to them.
If we're concerned
about that technology, we should also be concerned about all the
other things we've been selling to the Chinese. It follows that
the administration should immediately suspend all licenses for the
sale of military and dual-use technology to China, pending a serious
strategic review, which the president should order right now. He
should tell Secretary Rumsfeld to study the military consequences
of our foolish sales to China. He must know, quickly and clearly,
what kind of military-under a worst-case scenario — China could
put in the field. That review would tell us what we need to guarantee
a decisive victory in an armed conflict with China, and it would
identify what China needs to complete its own military program.
We could then build the army we need, and withhold from the Chinese
the technology they want to do us in.
Meanwhile,
what do we do if the Chinese dig in their heels and demand our humiliation
in order to hide their shameful behavior? We have the usual diplomatic
tools in the usual fora: U.N. denunciations, recall of diplomats,
perhaps the expulsion of some of the young Chinese studying in our
universities and laboratories (both helping our research and stealing
our secrets), seizure of assets, embargoes and so forth, all designed
to brand Beijing as a pariah regime. Some are now arguing that we
should respond to the Chinese provocation by fulfilling Taiwan's
military wish list, but we should do that in any case, and we should
be at pains not to link that proper decision to current events (even
though the Chinese have probably clinched the deal through their
ham-handed behavior. Americans don't like nasty countries telling
us how to behave). Imaginative policy makers will undoubtedly come
up with other actions, and I'm all for them. If anyone is going
to be punished for this, it must be the Chinese.
It will be
said that such measures would increase the likelihood of war, but
the opposite is true. A wise Roman strategist put it most neatly:
If you wish peace, prepare for war. The conflict the Chinese are
preparing is not inevitable; even a national mission can be revised
if circumstances warrant it. Of late, we have served the Chinese
an attractive bounty of tasty carrots. It behooves us to combine
our largesse with a suitably menacing set of sticks. Speedily built
and wisely brandished, American power may yet compel them to adopt
an orderly and reasonable decorum. But it will be neither quick
nor easy. A decade of folly is not easily remedied, and we are now
called to account. Let's hope we have heard that call.
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