War With China - Part 2

OK, here's where ComNavOps runs the risk of coming across as a nutcase.

Having established that there are more than adequate grounds for tension between China and the US (more so, from their point of view), we now look for actual examples of war.  Remember that they consider warfare to encompass all actions, not just the violent ones that we consider as war.  Given that this type of not-always-violent war is, by definition, hard to spot or prove, we must look for an ongoing, repeated pattern of acts that, in their totality, could be taken as evidence of war.  Is there such a pattern?  Yes, more than enough. The examples can be grouped into a few broad categories as described below.

Military.  There is a clear, repeated, and long established history of military incidents that go beyond the realm of simple posturing.  The 2001 forcedown and seizure of an EP-3 and the subsequent stripping of its classified gear constituted an actual act of war as defined by international law, though we chose not to respond (!?!).  Ships are routinely harassed such as in the March 2009 incident with the USNS Impeccable or the June 2009 incident with the USS McCain.  There have been routine and repeated military incidents and I won’t bother citing or discussing them further. 

China is engaged in a massive military buildup that goes beyond defensive.  They are building an amphibious force (read the Geopolitical section below to understand how the amphibious force will be used aside from the obvious Taiwan invasion scenario) and developing cruise and ballistic missiles designed to close the SCS and threaten Diego Garcia and other key US bases.  All of this is aimed at an eventual Taiwan invasion. 

Another aspect of the ongoing military actions is the hacking of computer networks in the US.  I’m not talking about the run of the mill viruses and worms that are all over the Internet but rather hacking attacks on military and economic institutions.  China has been directly implicated in several incidents that have been made public and I’m sure there are others that our government has not publicized.  Just recently, computer attacks have been traced to a specific Chinese military unit in a specific building!

Geopolitical.  Establishment of the “territorial” version of the EEZ has allowed China to claim virtually the entire SCS as theirs and they are disrupting the right of passage, at least as far as US military planes and vessels are concerned.  They have publicly stated that the presence of US carriers in the SCS is provocative, unacceptable, and should be eliminated (this alone is justification enough to continue building carriers – your enemy will tell what they fear most, if you listen!).

China is engaged in a policy of “creeping jurisdiction” (to use a phrase from a recent Proceedings article) whereby they are “acquiring” more and more land/ocean by claiming uninhabitable rocks as inhabitable islands (typically, they establish two-man observation posts to “prove” habitability).

More disturbing is China’s policy of state sponsored emigration whereby Chinese citizens are being sent to neighboring small countries such as the Philippines, Marshalls, Solomons, New Guinea, and other small island nations.  When racial/cultural clashes inevitably occur, China has stepped in to ensure the safety of their citizens along the lines of the US actions in Grenada and other places.  To date, China has rarely employed overt military force in these incidents but has recently served notice that it will begin providing military protection, if necessary.  Setting aside the potential military aspects, the effect of this massive emigration policy is that the nearby, small nations are seeing a shift in population from predominately native to predominately Chinese with a corresponding surge in Chinese domination of the local economies.  Thus, countries are being slowly but surely annexed “peacefully”.  Again, China takes the long view.

Economic.  You are undoubtedly aware that China is engaged in a policy of routinely buying up US debt.  It has gotten to the point that US political actions are now being run through the filter of “how will this affect our ability to continue borrowing from China”. 

China has engaged (successfully!) in a policy of economic domination of the US through a combination of state subsidized low cost labor and high import tariffs.  The net effect, as you well know, is that millions of US jobs have been sent to China and we have a huge trade imbalance.  The intent of the economic policy is to ensure that the US will be hesitant to confront China over its various policy issues and incidents for fear of jeopardizing our economic dependence.

There are thousands more examples of “acts of war” that I haven’t got the space to list.  Any of the above examples, taken in isolation, prove nothing.  Only when the overall pattern is seen in combination with China’s cultural fear (security) does one come to the realization that China has, for quite some time, been at war with the US.  OK, so maybe you don’t consider that as war.  Fair enough, but in the end is there any difference between a short physical war and a long drawn out series of non-violent actions that result in the US being dominated to the point where China controls our actions and policies?  After all, isn’t that the point of a “real” war? 

We need to recognize the situation and begin responding.  The most important response should be to increase our tariffs to the point where it’s cheaper for US companies to manufacture in the US than in China.  That will bring the jobs home (there’s your job creation policy!) and begin to eliminate the debt issue.  Of course, the response to China is a subject that could fill a book so I’ll leave it at that.

Finally, let’s specifically address the argument that China would never risk war with the US because we’re their major trading partner.  That argument is based on simple self-interest and cost/benefit assessment.  If the benefits to peace and trading outweigh the benefits to war, then peace will likely prevail.  However, China sees the benefits to war as being greater than the benefits of the current peace.  War, as we’ve defined above, will eventually gain China complete economic domination over the US, physical control of a great deal of additional islands and land around the East and South China Seas, control over Taiwan, greater security, domination over surrounding countries with the US influence eliminated, and status as the undisputed most powerful country in the world.  China will gladly forfeit its trade with the US to gain all that.  Besides, once they’ve gained all that they can simply resume trading with the US – it’s what we did with Japan and Germany after WWII.

So, am I a nutcase or do I have at least the possibility of a valid concern?  Does all of this at least make you stop and reconsider?

Setting aside whether you agree or not, now you know why I’m always harping on the China scenario in our discussions.  I absolutely believe that armed conflict with China is inevitable.

Have at the comments!