The Strange Case of China
You can’t swing a cat right now without hearing about Google’s decision to ‘self-censor’ itself in order to do business in China. It’s indeed a troubling thing; bad enough that a government should hinder the free flow of information, but should an American success story like Google facilitate it? Oh, sure, it’s China, and that means the biggest developing economy in the world…it’s not hard to understand WHY Google did what it did…but it brings up many, many questions of an ethical and political nature.
What does this episode tell us about China itself, though? How long can the Chinese government play the dual game of capitalist economy and communist social policy? As a person with a B.A. in economics, a love of the Internet, and a hardcore thing for Western-style capitalism, this question touches several of my geeky hot buttons. Anyone who takes their economic cues from Adam Smith and Milton Friedman, as I do, believes in the liberating power of the free flow of goods and information. No doubt the Chinese government does, as well, and that’s why it worries that open debate about, say, Tiananmen Square, might lead to a repeat.
I seriously question, though, whether this is a balancing act that can be kept up for long. It would be far, far simpler to just shut out the outside world entirely, in the manner of North Korea, than to attempt to shut it out selectively…but the result would be a disaster economically. Make no mistake, politically, China prefers the North Korean model to that of Western democracies…but there are those billions of Chinese mouths to feed, and to the credit of its rulers, China has learned the lesson that Communism is an economic catastrophe of major proportions.
Recognizing the need for transparency, then, to lure worldwide investment forces China into such unenviable tap dances as the recent one surrounding the absolutely staggering health threat it faces from polluted groundwater:
The state of the water supply came to world attention last month when a chemical plant explosion sent 100 tons of benzene into the River Songhua in the north.
After a cover-up, the government eventually had to acknowledge the disaster when the city of Harbin, with three million residents, had its tap water cut off for more than four days.
The slick of poisoned water then travelled downstream, reaching Khabarovsk in Russia in the past week.
A similar disaster was averted by closing a dam in the southern province of Guangdong, near Hong Kong, after a cadmium leak.
The longterm trends would appear to be in the favor of the heirs of Tiananmen Square, but the question is how to get from A to B, first politically, then economically.
To break out of the Communist rut will require the rise of a Chinese leader charasmatic and powerful enough to overthrow decades of dogmatic adherence to the dead text of Marxism; the danger is that such a leader would also be powerful enough to pull a Putin and replace one authoritarian regime with another.
We must do our best to engage China and bring her peacefully into the 21st century, because she is far too large and powerful to do otherwise, and this is the real danger of the Google approach. To deny the inevitable is not only morally questionable, it’s just not good business…
It’s probably been done, but this practically screams for a comparison to CNN’s admissions about its reporting of Saddam’s Iraq.
We’ll be at war with China soon enough. That will also be the day the draft comes back
I really don’t think so…it’s hard for me to imagine that either government would ever let things get to that point…as the world’s biggest economy, currently, and the world’s biggest economy, inevitably, there’s just too much to lose and very little to gain…
China has been preparing military for an invasion of Taiwan for long time now. Thanks to the Taiwan Security Act, the US is obligated to intervene against China.
Hokie-
That could certainly happen, but there’s zero chance that we’ll actually have a ground war against them — legal obligations notwithstanding. If it reaches the point where they’ve occupied Taiwan, it’s over, and we won’t be landing our entire Marine Corps to try and take it back. Conversely, if they make an attempt, and we get a carrier group into the gap before they’ve got more than a few thousand troops onto Taiwan, it’s also over, and we won’t be landing ground troops on mainland China or Hong Kong to try to retaliate.
(I suppose, hypothetically, if they marched ground troops into Mongolia or India or Afghanistan we would send ground troops — but those seem much less likely than an attempt to take Taiwan.)
I agree that ground intervention would be unlikely. But when we’re talking about Taiwan specifically I disagree. Mainly, because there are already US personnel in the country.
I think it would be a large naval battle in the straight of Taiwan. The Chinese probably still can’t go toe-to-toe with the US Navy but that is within range of their land-based aircraft so that would complicate the battle plan quite a bit.
Hokie-
No “probably” about it. The purpose of China’s fleet isn’t to defeat the U.S. Navy — it would take the combined ships of the next 17 largest navies in the world even to match the total weight of our ships, to say nothing of our superior training and technology. We have more carrier groups than the PLAN has destroyers (their largest surface ships), and any one of those groups could make mincemeat out of the entire PLAN. (Their air force would be a minor irritation, their surface-to-surface missiles would be the real threat — or at least concern.)
No, the purpose of China’s fleet (primarily of subs) in this case would be to surreptitiously lay mines to slow down our fleet’s advance long enough that they could present us with a fait accompli — an occupied Taiwan that we could either live with or accept tens of thousands of casualties for a chance of taking it back. They’d be making the (quite reasonable) assumption that we wouldn’t be willing to engage on those terms.
We may be forgetting two potential trump cards in this scenario – the increasing capability of Taiwan’s forces to repel an intial attack (until the US battle groups get there), and the more robust nature of the Japanese military.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/8/5/103132.shtml
Had a better source for this, but can’t access the Jane’s Defense Weekly article that outlined this new dynamic. Also – both the Taiwanese and Japanese have superior Subs in the area presently, which could also give the Chinese pause before an invasion.
…not to mention we could shut down their exporting businesses (which their economy relies upon almost exclusively) for many months in protest, which would lead to massive domestic unrest in China (and that’s already happening in the rural areas today).
Net result – they lose, either way the invasion goes.
Clint I disagree with your assessment of our naval capabilities.
Yes, the Chinese navy is a brown water navy and they do not have any large surface combatants. But, the navy isn’t really the concern. It is simply there to get the troops across to Taiwan like you said.
As for your comment about the next 17 fleets or whatever… thats not really the case. I’m sure you were probably exaggerating a little bit
. The Russian navy during the Cold War, the only other blue water navy in the world, was much larger and extremely capable of direct confrontation with the US navy. Despite budget problems some of their combatants would still be a very even match to US ships to this day.
The Chinese air force would pose a very serious problem for a US navy task group operating in the Straight of Taiwan. I think you are grossly underestimating the modernization program that China’s air force has been going through. They are equipped with late model Russian aircraft such as the Mig-29 and Su-27. Those aircraft have been compared to the F-16 and F-15 respectively in terms of capabilities. The electronics suite on the Super Hornet is probably superior but the force multiplier that provides is eventually offset by the superior numbers of the Chinese air force. Also, land based SSMs could be a nightmare. The PLA has some third generation diesel submarines as well which would further complicate the matter. Mini-subs mining the Straight would be silly because they would probably end up killing themselves. They might do mining as a retrograde action though.
For those reasons, I would not put the fleet in the Straight. I’d park it on the other side of Taiwan and fly over if necessary. Taiwan is only 85 miles wide, it wouldn’t be a problem. Although, I would make sure my operating envelope for the aircraft was well away from the Chinese mainland to avoid SAMs. Especially the S-300 missile system. It would put a physical and military barrier between the US navy and whatever China might throw at Taiwan.
Taiwan’s ability to defend itself should be pretty good considering the billions and billions of dollars of weapons we sell them.