Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton
Subject: Re: Taiwan, Bush & China
From: demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man)
Date: 9 Sep 92 12:24:09 EST
Organization: Demonic Possesions, Inc.
Summary: long

In article <1992Sep8.181806.21506@midway.uchicago.edu>, wag5@quads.uchicago.edu (john peter wagner) writes:
> 	This is regarding Bush's policy of allowing defense contractors
> to sell jets to Taiwan.
> 	I asked a graduate student in the Sciences who is from mainland
> China what he thought about the matter.  His response was that the decision
> by Bush was not a good one because it would worsen relations with China,

	!

	Too bad!  China has gotten away with a boatload of crimes because Bush
has a warm fuzzy spot in his heart for the country where he spent his
ambassador days.
	It's about time we let Taiwan have the ability to defend themselves. 
(Again, really.)

> and would cause a sort of 'cold war' in the Pacific, whereby there would
> be mutual escalation of military might.    His opinion on China, one which
> I have found echoed by other Chinese, is that the people inside China
> basically do not concern themselves much with the government; they just
> try to stay out of its way and live their lives.  The peace talks
> and diplomatic actions which have cooled the defensiveness of the
> Chinese government has given the Chinese people a degree of increased
> freedom.  In that sense, hopefully communism would in theory be defeated
> or overthrown by degrees from within, as the people throw off its shroud
> in daily activity.  Southern China is experiencing a great deal of
> 'capitalist' renovations.  When Hong Kong is absorbed it is expected
> to be an added factor in the direction of the Chinese free-market.

	Good.  They have nothing to worry about from a few F-16s in any case.

> 	So, his argument is that the America should rock the boat as little
> as possible, allowing a slow and unseen revolution from within.

	Seems to be that is the major cause of criticism here in the US.

> 	However, I would like to address these issues from another point
> of view, and address some issues which netters have brought up.
> 	1)Bush's selling of jets to Taiwan is spending the governments
> or increasing taxes or borrowing.  This is false.  Bush is merely allowing
> the private companies that create these jets to sell to Taiwan.  No
> governmental expenditure is involved.  What this means is that defense
> contractors will not be completely reliant upon the U.S. defense
> expenditure and will not be immediately laid off by teh cut in the
> Defense expenditure.  By keeping the companies which create these
> advanced technologies alive, the U.S. also keeps its technological
> lead in the area of high-tech weaponry.

	True.  He's trying to win Texas.

> 	2)Allowing Taiwan to buy Jets, or Taiwan increasing its number
> of jets in no way poses a threat of invasion of mainland China.
> The Taiwanese government is completely incapable of sending in an infantry
> which can hold a ground area against the Chinese army for any length of
> time.  Thus an increase in Taiwan's military might only decreases
> the vast military advantage which China has over Taiwan.  This would
> be a threat to China if China plans on invading Taiwan, reclaiming
> Formosa.  Thus a threat to China in this sense is actually not a bad
> thing.

	There is no reason Taiwan has to be a part of China, no matter who is
in control of the mainland.

> 	3)It is undeniable that this would have some effect upon
> diplomacy with regards to China.  However, anything we do which
> would increase the defensive capabilities of any of the Pacific
> rim capitilist countries would hurt our relations with China to some
> degree because it lessens Chinese military hegemony.  If the Chinese
> hd the plan to inavde the U.S. and we stepped up defense production,
> that would also hurt our diplomatic relations.

	China is mainly inward-looking.  You could dance up a diplomatic storm
and have an equal chance of being ignored as listened to by China.

> 	4)Soon Hong Kong will be absorbed by China.  The Chinese
> government realizes that some radical things will have to happen
> when this happens.  Either the government will accept the notion
> of private property completely, and go the road of decentralization,
> or it will have to impose serious changes in Hong Kong's structure.
> Nevertheless, the Chinese people have been 'corrupted' by the
> free-market.  They look to their neighbors the South Koreans and
> the Japanese and Hong Kongers and they might get jealous, or they
> might get ideas.  In any case, a strong business-dominating central
> government is dialectically opposed to a true free market(Japan notwithstanding
> ).  Thus, it is realized that the bourgeois will be opposed to the
> Chinese government eventually, and will have the means and the people
> to support it in a counter-revolution.  Thus it is a threat to the
> present government.

	China is already allowing free-market economic zones.  I'd look for
much of south-eastern China to be free-market by 2000.

> 	What could the Chinese government do to preserve its existence?
> It would probably clamp down on the Hong Kong lightly at first.  Then,
> when the Hong Kongers avoid the lightly imposed regulations, and the
> Chinese begin flocking to Hong Kong for its freedoms and thus form
> a threat, the government will have an excuse to clamp down very severely.
> It will be seen as a threat to the state.  Such 'clamp-downs' are often
> explained away as necessary behavior to unite the state when in time
> of war.  Thus, Hitler could assume internal censorship during his
> campaigns and have an excuse for it.  Thus the Japanese were put away
> in detention camps during World War 2 in America, by FDR.  I think
> it is very plausible that shortly after China assumes Hong Kong that
> it will mount an invasion of Taiwan.  This is not as crazy as it may seem.
> Formosa has, after all, been a piece of China and might be taken with
> the same excuse that the Japanese want their islands from Russia or
> that Germany wanted control of part of Czechoslovakia.  Given
> such a war the Chinese government could impose martial law and the
> associated justification for the Hong Kong clamp-down.  The clamp-down
> on Taiwan after it is captured would be similar to any other communistic
> clap-down after military capture.  The Chinese government would probably
> not be able to clap-down on Hong Kong immediately because it was given
> to the Chinese, rather than taken by the Chinese.  The Chinese would
> want to minimalize intervention by the U.S. in its campaigns; angering
> the U.S. would make an invasion of Taiwan much more difficult and
> possibly impossible.  Thus there would have to be some semblance of an
> excuse for its actions towards Hong-Kong, as I outlined above.

	As long as the government controls the economic strings, I don't see
any major military moves.  They'll let people produce more, and keep more, as
long as the government gets the credit for doing it and receives a hefty cut.

	As long as Taiwan stays loyal to the US, China won't risk a general war
over it.

> 	So, to sum it up, I think that by allowing Taiwan to increase
> it arms does not cause an arms race any more than Lichenstein buying
> jets would cause an arms race with Germany, but it gives the Taiwanese
> a better chance to defend themselves in a possible invasion which I would
> guess would take place around the year 1999 AD.  Given 4 years of lukewarm
> foreign relations, the country would be ripe for another Woodrow Wilson
> in 1996 who might give the Chinese enough lee-way to invade Formosa.
> Once the Chinese have controlled a joint, have troops down, so to speak,
> it takes a bloody war to remove them, if that is even possible.  So,
> Bush's policy 1)Preserved defense jobs, 2)Defended Taiwan, and
> 3)angered hegemony minded Chinese officials with invasionary plans.
> I am happy.

	2) I like.  1) at the expense of the economy is bad (but that is not
the situation here) and 3) should be done carefully, if at all.

Brett                                                      
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