The American Spectator : The Symbols Bang in Asia

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The Symbols Bang in Asia

By Peter Hannaford on 12.27.10 @ 6:07AM

Reacting to China's new assertiveness.

What threat is causing China to build its first aircraft carrier (with a battle group of ships to go with it)? Answer: None. Its motives are two. First, it wants to erase the bad taste of a century of "humiliations" at the hands of various European powers and, by doing so, achieve universal respect as a powerful nation. Second, it wants to send a specific message to us, the Japanese and Taiwan: We're in charge in East Asia, so don't mess with us.

Not surprisingly, the recipients of the message see it as more than a move by China to build its self-esteem. Despite the Obama Administration's discomfort with projecting American power, it is doing so in several places out of recognition of the reality that we live in a dangerous world. The U.S. will not easily or readily withdraw from its position as the major naval force and protector of the peace in the Western Pacific. Furthermore it has treaties with Japan and Taiwan that, in one way or another, bind us to the defense of both.

Japan has been revising its National Defense Program Guidelines to replace the original emphasis on defending against a possible Russian invasion with one that recognizes China's muscle-flexing. Vice Defense Minister Jun Zumi recently told an interviewer, "We must put priority on strengthening our defense capability in the south and the west, looking toward China." Not lost on Japan was China's recent warning to the U.S. and South Korea not to hold joint naval exercises in the East China Sea. Specific Japanese plans call for its Self-Defense Forces to add six more submarines to its fleet of 16 and to build army bases on small islands to the south of Okinawa.

Taiwan, for several years, has taken seriously the steady increase in the number of missile-launching sites China has been building on the Fukien Province coast, facing it. Symbolically, the increases have been intended to underscore China's oft-repeated message that it reserves the right to attack and invade Taiwan if the latter were to declare independence.

The Taiwan Relations Act, which became U.S. law in 1979, call for us to provide defensive armaments for Taiwan to help it deter and discourage an attack by Beijing's forces. The arms sales have often been subject to delays or cuts in Taiwan's shopping list. Determined to be more self-reliant, Taiwan is now building, for the first time, weapons that go beyond pure defense. Chao Shih-chang, deputy defense minister, has advised the legislature that mass production has begun of the Hsiungfeng 2E, a cruise missile which can hit targets well within the mainland of China. It is also producing a new anti-ship cruise missile, the Hsiungfeng-3. Could this be a message to the aircraft carrier builders?

Despite considerable expansion of Taiwan-Mainland China commercial relationships over the last two years, threats are threats and, wisely, are taken as more than mere chest-thumping by China's neighbors.

Mr. Hannaford is a member of the Committee on the Present Danger.

About the Author

Peter Hannaford was closely associated with the late President Ronald Reagan for a number of years. His latest book is Reagan's Roots: The People and Places That Shaped His Character.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (16) | Leave a comment

Thomas James| 12.27.10 @ 8:17AM

The last thing in the world the CCP wants is hostilities with anyone, especially the US. It would doom its economy and that would doom the CCP.

Le Cracquere| 12.27.10 @ 1:11PM

This might be the last thing in the world an emotionless, utterly rational and disinterested strategist might want. However, messy human emotions (including pride, fear, and ambition) overrule geopolitical cost-benefit calculations all the time.

Melvin| 12.27.10 @ 8:49AM

After spending a very large part of my adult life in Asia. I can safely say the dragon is extremely hungry, and vengeful.
There are those that are in the Chinese government who still harbor serious resentments against Japan for what Japan did to the Chinese people during WW2.
What kind of resentments am I talking about? Complete destruction of Japan. This is why the Japanese are still terrified of China every time it rattles its saber.
Smaller Asian countries are cozying up to the West because they do not want to become economic vassals of China.
Don't let those tourist like smiles from Chinese government officials fool you, behind those smiles are ruthless and corrupt human beings that have the appetite of locusts and the character of Genghis Kahn and Mao Tse Tung rolled into one.
China's main goal is to completely freeze out the West in all of Asia, and I do mean, "ALL" of Asia, right down to the smallest archipelago.

Big Tony| 12.27.10 @ 9:05AM

And why wouldn't the Chinese harbor resentment against the Japanese for the things they did in China 65 years ago. I know southerners that harbor resentments for the things the Yankees did to the south and the southerners during and after the War Between the States 145 years ago. And the Japanese were far worse than the Yankees.

Melvin| 12.27.10 @ 11:24AM

Very true, but I don't know too many Southerners building aircraft carriers and having nuclear missiles.

Pelligrino| 12.27.10 @ 12:41PM

Goodness, where to begin. Uh, there are mamouth differences between a civil war inside a nation and a war from aggressors from off one's own shores.

If China and the Chinese cannot shake off the ills of Japanese agression in WW II, well, then they show, frankly, immaturity.

A form of real pettiness.

An individual and a nation show great character and strength when able to forgive. And this is not a sentiment so much as it must be an action.

Anyone can see -- for the last 60+ years -- the Japan we now know is nothing like the Imperial Japan that brough havoc to the entire Pacific.

People -- in upright societies around the globe -- have 'buried the hatchet' after so many conflicts/atrocities.

No, one musn't forget. One remembers. But I know of no useful nation on the planet that wallows in its self pity and desire for revenge. (The same for individuals).

It is so nausiating when one travels in the Arab lands and hears the weeping and gnashing of teeth over atrocities perhaps real and many imagined 300 - 900 or more years prior.

Really? Get over it. (particularly when that former aggressor now looks, smells, behaves like nothing in your great-great-granddadies stories)

If vengance is still (still?) on the minds of the Chinese leadership after ALL these years, well then we must watch them 24/7 in EVERY WAY like hawks who never sleep.

How sad. They could be a great nation. But will their leaders be wise enough to choose the right way?

JShizzle| 12.27.10 @ 2:21PM

Pelligrino--While I agree with your position, I can say that people like my grandpa do not. They of the generations that fought the Japanese did not seem to be ready to forgive. He would not buy Japanese products, use racial slur towards them, etc. I do not judge, for I didn't experience the hardships that war brings...BUT I do agree with your argument. Plus, it seems that China is compelled to 'save face'...which may spell bad news for Japan.

PJ| 12.27.10 @ 4:23PM

Melvin hit it right on the nose w/his 8:49 am posting.

Also, China does not play by westernized rules & it has not forgotten the brutal Japanese takeover of Nanking during WWII. (If I'm not mistaken there there has always been animosity between the Chinese & Japanese for centuries.)

Richard Baker| 12.27.10 @ 10:18AM

Tony:
Being from Virginia I understand the War Between the States comments. However, the Old Confederacy hasn't started to re-arm to get back at those Damn Yankees, just yet (though hope springs eternal, eh?). Chinese Communists are in a pickle. They have literally screwed themselves out of a place at the table with their enormous population and are needing Lebensraum. Building their huge military, such as Hitler did, is not for self-defense but for projection. Japan, Korea, and all the other former members of the Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere are correct in their concerns. After all, they've all seen this scenario before.

Richard Baker| 12.27.10 @ 10:25AM

That should be Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Louis Jenkins| 12.27.10 @ 12:49PM

A nation dreams, builds, and dominates. Even the USA is (has) been doing it. The USA is in deep, and while the smaller asian countries are trying to get close to the US, China is in their backyard. China is going to build and strengthen their military, and there's not much we can do about. A START treaty with China?

davelnaf| 12.27.10 @ 1:00PM

In the event of war over Taiwan the Chicoms would depend on the US doing what would essentially be a fool’s game: rushing carrier battle groups near or into the East and South China Seas, or anywhere near them, right off the bat. US submarines will ply their trade in those waters, but putting surface ships there would be the height of military folly and the Chicoms know this. So, what are they up to? Their purported strategy is too narrowly defined for a country as engaged commercially as China is with the rest of the world. It is like relegating half your chess pieces to defending the Queen for the purpose of forestalling checkmate indefinitely. On the other hand if they are completely realistic it could be that their strategy really is this limited and they are trying to pull off what amounts to the biggest psychological warfare game in history. Their ultimate purpose could be to get as much out of the rest of the world for as long as they can before exhaustion sets in over their rapacious brand of engagement.

Richard Baker| 12.27.10 @ 2:25PM

Let the Chinese develop a submarine capability. The Attack submarine community in the US Navy would have a field day and the Chinese are well aware of that. We can psyche them out, as well.

Richard Baker| 12.27.10 @ 4:08PM

Excuse me. The Fast Attack submarine community.

Charles Stevens| 12.30.10 @ 5:56AM

One of the most evil days in US history occured on 22 Dec 2010, when Obama signed the bill turning the US military into a homosexual institution. The US military will now become one vast eternal social experiment for progressives. No longer will it be able to focus 100% of its energies on its primary purpose of defending the nation and projecting US power; in short, no longer will it be an efficient killing machine. And how does that pertain to this article about China? In ten years or less, China will deliberately provoke a military showdown of some type in Asia (it is planning one even now), and the US military will be revealed as totally unable to deal with it. On that day, the shift of loyalties in Southeast Asia will be rapid and unequivocal. They will have no choice but to deliberately reduce Western influences in their respective societies, and to ecourage all things Chinese, including language (for example, most Southeast Asian countries currently teach their children simultaneously English and the native language), culture, and economics. The West in general, and the US in particular, are now on the road to extinction, due solely to the overwhelming takeover internally by progressives. In the annals of world history, it will someday be seen as an immense tragedy for everyone concerned. But that day is most probably centuries in the future. Tell me, do you really feel safer now, or did you as an ostensible conservative let that whole gay situation pass you by as a non-event?