The American Spectator : Uncle Sam and the Chinese Dragon

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Books in Review

Uncle Sam and the Chinese Dragon

By David Aikman from the February 2012 issue

An alarming reminder of China's growing power unrestrained by any normal moral limits.

Bowing to Beijing: How Barack Obama Is Hastening America's Decline and Ushering a Century of Chinese Domination
By Brett M. Decker and William C. Triplett II
(Regnery Publishing, 231 pages, $27.95)

Most Americans—even those who barely ever read a newspaper—are by now well aware of China's astonishing rise to global great power status over the past four decades, of that country's phenomenal wealth and its propping up of the American economy through the purchase of U.S. Treasury bonds. You would have to have lived since 1980 in a New Mexican rock hideaway not to have become aware of America's soaring trade deficit with China or to know that the People's Republic of China, no thanks to its Communist founder Mao Zedong, now probably boasts more billionaires than there are registered Republicans living in the South Bronx. A growing number of Americans have also learned that China is fast emerging as a military superpower, with a military about twice the size of America's, naval cruise missiles specifically designed to kill U.S. carriers, and an amorphous mob of semi-military computer hackers who routinely take down U.S. government websites.

What few Americans understand, however, is that China is not merely a friendly economic rival to the U.S., but a nation-state specifically aspiring to gain global primacy over the U.S. and, in many areas of contention with America, competing ruthlessly for national advantage. China, to judge by innumerable official Chinese policy articles in books and the Chinese media, doesn't want simply to emulate American success in the global arena. It wants to obliterate America's ability to compete with China in economics, military affairs, and the "soft power" of international propaganda.

In the past decade, a few books have warned America of the "Chinese threat," from Steven Mosher's Hegemon to Washington Times reporter Bill Gertz's The China Threat: How the People's Republic Targets America. Other titles like Martin Jacques' more recent When China Rules the World take a sobering look at what kind of global hegemon China might be if most of its national aspirations came to pass: not a pretty one, and certainly not with the relatively benign Anglo-Saxon openness that characterized Britain's imperial heyday in the 19th century and most of the American century in our own time. What Brett Decker (editorial page editor of the Washington Times) and William Triplett (former chief Republican counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee) bring to the discussion of China's growing strength are some alarming new examples of China's military connections with rogue regimes around the world like North Korea and Iran, the crony capitalism guanxi ("connections") of the country's Communist Party "princelings," and the constantly expanding role of Chinese "agents of influence" close to centers of power in official Washington.

The book performs a helpful role in reminding readers of the sheer nastiness of the Chinese Communist regime; torturing and beating to death dissidents, crushing religious opponents (both Christian and Tibetan Buddhist), and the underlying premise of such behavior: rule by law rather than rule of law. It also provides a dismaying reminder of how many China apologists occupy high places in the U.S. government and business communities; none being more prominent or more shamelessly exculpatory of Beijing's political repression than former Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger.

It seems impossibly long ago now that American optimists in the 1980s were trotting out the lazy cliché that growing Chinese middle class prosperity would soon enough force the Communist Party to concede power to some sort of multi-party democratic governance. After all, went the argument, South Korea and Taiwan were at one point rather thuggish one-party regimes, but their growing integration into the global economy and global culture eventually forced them to ditch their dictatorships and launch forth into parliamentary democracy. Surely, the argument continued, middle class economic pressures inside China would soon enough force the Communist Party to make compromises in favor of true democracy.

What the authors of Bowing to Beijing show, however, is that precisely the opposite has happened in China. The Chinese Communist Party has actually strengthened its hold on power by rewarding loyal supporters, especially at the top of China's business tree, with fabulous financial advantages over merely "ordinary" Chinese entrepreneurs. China's capitalist class is the strongest bulwark of the Communist state, say the authors. They add, "it's likely that China will continue to become richer without becoming freer." What is rather frightening about this observation is how closely it mirrors the pattern of Nazi Germany. As German capitalists benefited from Hitler's crusade to revive the German national spirit, so they helped reinforce the tyranny of the S.S. and the Gestapo.

The title of the book is derived from the now infamous photograph of President Obama bowing, like a British schoolboy to the Queen of England, during an early meeting with President Hu Jintao. Indeed a sub-theme of the book is the alleged tendency of the Obama administration to bend over (in most cases backward) both to placate Beijing and to downplay any fears that China might already be posing a significant threat to American interests and freedom. In one of their more telling anecdotes, the authors describe the dismay with which many senior American intelligence analysts responded to the Obama administration's decision to remove China from the "Priority One" category that it shared with countries like Iran and North Korea to "Priority Two," a category that placed China as an issue alongside humanitarian problems like the earthquake in Haiti. The authors remind readers of the more than 60 examples of Americans indicted for spying for China during the merely three-year period 2008 to 2011, the 128,000 Chinese students studying at American universities and completely overwhelming FBI abilities to keep track of their activities, and rather unpleasant cases of Chinese "agents of influence" in the U.S. like the Sanya Group, a cozy club of retired former American and Chinese military officers. American members of the Sanya group have been known to attempt to delay the release of congressionally mandated Pentagon reports of Chinese military power.

BOWING TO BEJING is certainly an alarming reminder of China's growing power unrestrained by any normal moral limits. It also reveals that far too many Americans have succumbed to the financial inducements of China's growing "soft power"; for example, the Confucian Institutes being set up at a number of American universities. Nominally institutions that make available to American students knowledge of Chinese language and traditional culture, the Confucian institutes also function as convenient propaganda establishments distracting American academics from paying too close attention to the ugly side of Chinese Communist rule: the suppression of dissent, the torture, and the constant lying about the realities of Chinese life.

The overall gloomy picture that emerges from Bowing to Beijing, however, may not be the last word on China. There are many brittle weak points in China's burgeoning economy. Even the vaunted political stability enforced by the Communist Party, the People's Liberation Army, and the Public Security Bureau may not be impermeable. Thousands of annual domestic protest demonstrations against corruption and injustice could yet get out of hand, leading to a serious erosion of China's great power status, if not a fundamental political realignment of Chinese politics.

Finally, and not least important, arguably the most important cultural story in the modern world is the steady Christianization of China: the demand for morality and accountability and honesty in national life. China in the historical past has sometimes demonstrated commendable unity and civilized decency. It would be a rash prophet who completely ruled out a possible return to those standards. In that sense, it would be pleasant if some of the worst fears about China of Decker and Triplett did not come to pass.

About the Author

David Aikman is a former senior correspondent for Time Magazine and the author of ten books, including, most recently, The Delusion of Disbelief: How the New Atheism Is a Threat to Your Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness and The Mirage of Peace: Understanding the Unending Conflict in the Middle East.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (18) | Leave a comment

Jack in Wi.| 2.16.12 @ 6:43AM

China isn' wasting it's time and money being policeman to the world. It is concentraing on it's own counntry and building it up. The USA is headed down because we have wasted our blood and treasure for 100 years sticking our nose where it didn't belong. We don't need another war with China, but need to be getting our own house in order. The world can get along without our interference just fine.

Alan Brooks| 2.17.12 @ 12:36AM

They wont listen, Jack, they want to sell mags first and foremost- all else is secondary.

Alan Brooks| 2.17.12 @ 12:38AM

BTW, all power is amoral;
ours, theirs,
everywhere save for behind the Pearly Gates..

POST American| 2.16.12 @ 7:50AM

"America had better watch it
or in a couple of decades we're
going to be a minstrel show
---for RED China."
-Gore Vidal
1985
(height of the Reagan 'revolution')

A DONE DEAL

Remember, it was the Reagan bunch,
pumped even by such deluded media
jerks as Trump and Oprah --who sold
us on the 'SIR---vice' economy.

Never designed to last. Never, ever
expected to be sustainable in any way,
shape or form.

Standardization, annihilation of whatever
tatters of surviving culture there were
-------degradation -------and EUGENICS.

Did wonders for gutting the REAL economy
and providing bling cover for full-blown,
US taxpayer underwritten, capstone
------------------TREASON-------------------.

And it's not only not over
-------------IT'S SCARCLY EVEN BEGUN.

"RED China is NO longer 'communist'
---but has, like a good PSYCHOPATH,
turned on a dime ---and is NOW a form
of corporate fascism --ruled very much by
the same families who were at the helm
during the MAOist Halocaust. IN FACT,
RED China at this point, with its fierce
EUGENICS and police state, resembles nothing
so much as a domesticated National Socialism
a la 30's Germany. A Nazism that 'works'
--the Globalist 'Mere--ICK--CULL'
engineered by Globalists from 'earlier models'
---and entirely underwritten ---BY YOU."

-----------------HUAC/ NUREMBERG-----------------

"Lets ALL DIE ---or LET's DO IT."
-Thomas Carlysle

numbatdog| 2.16.12 @ 8:02AM

Fill in the missing words...
The - - - - - - - - Party has actually strengthened its hold on power by rewarding loyal supporters, especially at the top of (the) business tree, with fabulous financial advantages over merely "ordinary" entrepreneurs.
Different country, same cronyism.

Von Mises Jr.| 2.16.12 @ 9:55AM

NEWS FLASH: The communnist threat to this country is internal, not external.
China is building great cities and factories while we cannot re-build the WTC site ten years later. We are restricting oil development, while China is developing energy worldwide. And our elites are destroying capital markets while the Chinese are allowing ownership rights and capital investment to flourish.
Stop blaming "Bokonon" while our dictators McCabe and "Papa" Manzano are destroying our San Lorenzo!
It appears we don't need their help in destroying America.

KyMouse| 2.16.12 @ 1:28PM

And the Obama administration is going to require all of us to buy those Dairy Queen lightbulbs, which are made only in Red China? Everybody (okay, maybe not the Amish) needs lightbulbs. Zillions of dollars will go to China for that product alone. Correction--are already going to China.

I just don't understand how this can be happening.

biomedlives| 2.16.12 @ 1:46PM

Maybe it's not such a great idea to send manufacturing, research and development to China.

Brian Richard Allen| 2.16.12 @ 2:23PM

.... German "capitalists" benefited from Hitler's crusade to revive the German national spirit, so they helped reinforce the tyranny of the S.S. and the Gestapo ....

Beg to differ but the Nazi's cohorts, cronies, "contractors" and "suppliers" and other profiteers were absolutely not Capitalists.

Any more than are our own feral gummint's not entirely dissimilarly opportunistically-corrupt cohorts, cronies, "contractors" and "suppliers."

StanO| 2.16.12 @ 5:03PM

These issues are long term issues, first our trade deficit with China is $300 billion in a 15Trillion dollar economy.

Can and should we ignore the issue . . . no! But, China's hand is not fully played. There is no magic pixie dust that suddenly makes Chinese government make good decisions, you can hide the mistakes, shuffle the books around. But empty high-speed train cars, cities built for no one, factories subsidized with loans from banks that borrowed the money that will never be paid back, artificial currency rates. It will eventually sort out. I agree with the other post, our problems are more our doing than China's.

Celestine| 2.16.12 @ 5:52PM

I have no love for and substantial fear of China, but I must admit that, apart from basic human rights, they do things well and intelligently. Is your technology not up to your competitor's, steal your competitor's technology. If your competitor bases much of his military power on satellite technology, develop anti-satellite missiles. Lack oil; buy in on every oil development project, even provide a substitute buyer for Keystone pipeline oil. Worried about the US ability to shift naval forces from the Atlantic to the Pacific; contract with Panama for control of the facilities on both ends of the Panama Canal. Does your opponent's economy run off the internet; hack into it. And on and on. I don't know if China plans to do us in, but they are doing everything a smart antagonist would do if that were the plan. Scared yet? Don't worry, we have Barack "Who Needs Nukes" Obama.

e track from saq| 2.16.12 @ 6:48PM

When the eastern core
The western one absorb
Then the declining track
Must of itself move back
With a worthy enemy
The current bunch of fools in DC can't be

Richard Baker| 2.16.12 @ 7:44PM

Gee, Communists who act like Communists. What a concept. Of course, Skippy the Wonder Horse at 1600 Pennsylvania thinks this is just...grand. Is there any foreign leader to whom this clown HASN'T bowed?

POST American| 2.16.12 @ 9:27PM

----AS the Rockefeller-CFR cabals walk
FREE ---indeed, TAX FREE, even in this the
11th hour of the Globalist RED China
TREASON OP-----consider:

"By 2000, EUGENICS had shed most
of its NAZI baggage."
-ENDGAME
(video online)

NOW, with the Globalist created,
National Corporate Socialist , US taxpayer
funded RED China 'mere--ICK--CULL'
being positioned to be 'world 'model'
and enforcer

---time to admit!---

NAZI-ism itself has shed much of its
NAZI baggage.

----Keep folowin' them Globalists
-------------------------them 'FREE traitors'
----------------------------them EUGENISTS
-------------------------------and PSYCHOPATHS

------JUST KEEP ON GOIN'

----------BECAUSE YOU'RE AS GOOD AS THERE

POST American| 2.16.12 @ 10:20PM

-----BTW

BEWARE the Tavistock stealth
neutralization posts above ours.

RED China was set up, with OUR money
---by EUGENICS Globalists ---and OUR
entire economy has been deliberately
handed over in an act of TREASON
that even eclipses the ROT-child's
betrayal of British manufacturing in
the 19th century with slave goods from
India.

And keep before you NOT ONLY the
fierce EUGENICS issue ---but also,
the FACT that the media here and worldwide
REFUSES to take up the issue of appalling
work conditions, and slave wages across
the Rockefeller China 'Mere--ICK---CULL'.

A RED China that was forced to introduce
western style wage scales and conditions
would --overnight-- end the wage slave
imbalance which has been used to destroy
the REAL economies EVERWHERE.

"Understand, at the TOP of all this
we're dealing with MONSTERS
----------------------------------MONSTERS!"
-ALEX JONES

WHY ALEX JONES is reaching for #1
while the Bill Gates bought off and owned
'regular' media -----is failing.

Time to shed the long programmed
love affair with DISINFO, compliance
and FEAR.

We are dealing with MONSTERS.

MAKE NO MISTAKE

-------------------------------TIME TO MOVE

Gr0w1er601| 2.18.12 @ 10:52AM

Jeezuz... a picture of Oblama bowing to a ChiCom... Sez it all... This clown has GOT to be defeated in November.

POST American| 2.22.12 @ 12:26AM

---The Bushes/--Clintons/ --Gores/ --McCain
--Gingrich/ --Pelosi/ --Kissinger-Brzezinski
---------------------Obama-------------------------
-----------------ROCKEFELLER-------------------

"DID you just HEAR ME?
-----------THIS IS TREASON!"
-ALEX JONES