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Book Reviews

A Master Plan to Counter China’s Growing Military Might?

September 1, 2014

Robert Haddick, Fire on the Water: China, America and the Future of the Pacific (Naval Institute Press, 2014)

 

The Islamic State is on a tear, Russia has launched an invasion “incursion” into Eastern Ukraine, Syria is in crisis, a war in Gaza just ended in a bloody stalemate with tensions still running high, Ebola is on the loose, Libya is falling apart, and Afghanistan is still a complete mess. To put it bluntly, the challenges the United States faces seem to be multiplying like cockroaches. And yet, Washington will soon face an even bigger challenge: a rapidly evolving Chinese military that is focused on defeating Washington if war ever comes.

The challenge presented by China is formidable and is a present-day problem, not something Washington won’t have to worry about for another couple of decades. Soon, formal commitments to defend old partners such as Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines will become worthless — all thanks to twenty years of advances in Chinese military technology focusing on “counter-intervention operations” or anti-access/area-denial weapons (A2/AD). In fact, if trends continue, I would argue that by 2020 — some would say maybe even today — the United States will not be able to credibly deploy high-impact military assets like aircraft carriers in and around China’s coast all the way out to the first island chain in a time of crisis. (Well, it could, however, the risks would be so great, the possible losses so dire, that no commander-in-chief would want to take such a risk.) With over $5 trillion dollars of sea-borne trade transiting through just the South China Sea alone the cost of failing to deter Chinese actions and then not being able to quickly resolve and stabilize a crisis is just too high.

There could be no better time than the present for a new book that not only explores issues surrounding China’s A2/AD weapons and strategy and its overall military modernization, but also digs into the deeper dynamics of the U.S.-China bilateral relationship and what Washington must do going forward. On balance, in his first ever book, titled Fire on the Water: China, America and the Future of the Pacific, Robert Haddick produces a strong volume that lays out not only the historic challenge presented by the rise of China, its growing military and A2/AD strategy, but the history involved when it comes to Beijing rising armed forces.* Haddick even boldly offers his own strategy for managing the strategic dynamic of the U.S.-China relationship and what Washington should do with regards to its own force posture in Asia — something he pulls off reasonably well considering troubling trends in America’s foreign policy decision making. (Sorry, no spoilers here, buy the book!)

But why should we care about another volume on China’s armed forces, overall rise, and what America should do about it? Considering the vast amount of literature on the subject and the tremendous amount of books, peer-reviewed journal articles, and edited volumes one can turn to for guidance, surely Haddick’s work has already been covered, right? I would argue that this is, in fact, not the case.

I recommend Haddick’s book as it offers something that other volumes sometimes lack — a comprehensiveness that is quite shocking. It presents the state of play in Asia as of today — not in 2013 or even further back. It is clear Haddick has done his homework. Just a cursory review of his endnotes reveals Haddick has studied, analyzed, and dissected the major works and authors in his genre — not an easy task considering the amount of research that is out there and how far back it goes. At the same time, he avoids recycling familiar arguments while presenting his reader with an informed snapshot of the strategic challenges America is facing in Asia. His work clearly draws from the U.S. Naval War College’s “brain trust” of A2/AD and defense experts like Andrew Erickson, Peter Dutton, James Holmes, and Toshi Yoshihara all the way to D.C.-based think tankers and scholars such as Ely Ratner, Bonnie Glaser, T.X. Hammes, and Todd Harrison (some of my favorites, by the way). Haddick breaks it all down while offering his own incisive analysis for the reader to stew on. If I were going to recommend one book to someone who is just starting to explore the strategic landscape in Asia and the challenge America is facing, this would be the one.

So besides providing readers with a complete volume that summarizes, dissects, and offers his own take on Chinese military doctrine and strategy, explains what it means for U.S. national interests, and proposes a plan of action, what else does Haddick do? Well, he does something very brave that I found quite refreshing: he attacks the much-loved and hated Air-Sea Battle (ASB) and offshore control (OC) concepts. Likely familiar to readers of this publication, both ASB and OC offer competing ideas of how to wage effective military operations against the People’s Republic of China. The challenge, of course, is neither ASB nor OC deal with the real — and non-kinectic — challenge presented by Beijing in 2014: salami-slicing tactics and pushing its claims more and more with non-military assets of national power. Things like fishing boats armed with Chinese-based GPS systems that can “call for help” when needed, oil rigs parked in disputed bodies of water, and new maps and passports leveraged to push disputed claims all amount to slowly changing facts on the ground and in the water without firing a shot. Will Washington or Tokyo go to war over such slow changes in the status quo? Beijing is gambling no, and so far, has been right on the money.

While the book is clearly a great source of information when it comes to China’s strategic calculus in the Pacific, there are two weaknesses with Haddick’s work. (To be fair to the author, I would have the same problems if I were writing a similar book.) First, the book uses little-to-no Chinese-sourced material. This would have been useful as immense treasure troves of data points are available in Mandarin and could offer the reader the latest ideas of what China intends to do with its A2/AD strategy or growing military might. A great example of what can be mined from Chinese sources comes to us in a recent article published in the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings magazine. This must-read article by Lyle Goldstein and Shannon Knight uncovers multiple Chinese language sourced materials that show Beijing “has deployed fixed ocean-floor acoustic arrays off its coasts, presumably with the intent to monitor foreign submarine activities in the near seas.” Considering a good portion of America’s ASB concept reportedly relies on stealthy submarines being able to strike command and control systems, such submarines could be in danger along the Chinese coastline in the very near future. When one factors in America’s limited numbers of long-range aircraft that can get past China’s dense air-defense networks, Washington could have a big problem on its hands. Haddick relies mostly on U.S. researchers, limiting the analysis largely to an American-centric (and to some extent American allied-centric) view of the challenges in Asia.

The second instance where some would say Haddick might fall short is in the second half of the book where he lays out a broad agenda to counter China’s growing military and strategic might. Haddick advocates big changes to U.S. diplomacy, defense programs, and policies all in an effort to negate China’s budding military challenge. While I disagree with some of his prescriptions (again, no spoilers here) he clearly understands China’s ultimate military goal: to create a range of weapons systems across multiple domains that are designed to take advantage of perceived American military weaknesses. As Haddick notes:

Getting on the right course will not be cheap or easy. But the rewards for doing so will be immense. The risk of war in East Asia is rising. But the United States and its partners in Asia have the power to prevent another tragedy and to shape a better future that will benefit all.

Unfortunately for Haddick, or anyone who offers a guide to tackling China — regardless of what political party or foreign policy school he/she associates with — the biggest problem America will have in crafting any sort of strategy is the reluctance of the American people to become entangled in open-ended foreign challenges in the wake of two prolonged wars (which currently manifests as the don’t do stupid sh*t doctrine). Can America’s foreign policy elites move beyond great marketing slogans like “pivot” or “rebalance” and enact a multi-administration strategy to steward America’s interests throughout Asia? Can the United States move past dealing with the “forest fire” of the moment and think strategically over the long term? Even more difficult, how does one say to the American people that over the long term, with shrinking defense dollars, vital national assets are needed to ensure stability in the Pacific when the Islamic State seems on the march, and a new Cold War in Europe is appearing on the horizon? How can we make China a top priority if we can’t even move past the crisis of the day? This is the true challenge of contemporary American foreign policy — devising some sort of grand strategy for Asia and beyond and not just simply avoiding major mistakes or putting out fires — an issue of “bandwidth” which is something no one can easily solve.

Despite these issues, Haddick has written an important contribution that should be on every Asia-focused defense geek’s desk. In one volume, and in just a few hours, any student of international relations can get a sense of the strategic situation in the Asia-Pacific — not too shabby. I can see quite a few university classrooms using this volume to teach students about present-day Asian geopolitics, likely opening many people’s eyes to the challenges America and its allies face. Let’s hope our most senior military and strategic minds, as well as politicians here in Washington, are paying attention to Robert Haddick as well. I have it on good authority that they are.

 

*Disclaimer: I have published quite a few of Mr. Haddick’s works as managing editor of The National Interest.

 

Harry J. Kazianis is a senior fellow (non-resident) at the China Policy Institute. Mr. Kazianis also serves as managing editor of the Washington, D.C.-based international affairs publication The National Interest. The views expressed in this review are his own.

 

Photo credit: Official U.S. Navy Imagery

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30 thoughts on “A Master Plan to Counter China’s Growing Military Might?”

  1. Two quick points:

    As anyone who has read TX Hammes on drones on these very pages can attest, AD won’t wait for 2020. Simple example: take the DF-21 scenario (satellite-linked ballistic missile) but instead of the DF-21 use battalions of converted SCUDs each loaded with dozens of a knock-off of the “Vulcano Oto Melara & Italian Navy Projectile” (q.v. YouTube) and you will have an effect similar to a man who uses a water hose to keep his neighbor’s dog out of his yard.

    A greater problem with the US confronting China than what Mr. Kazianis notes is the possible combination of China not just engaging in the sort of industrial sprint that the US used to defeat Nazi Germany, but the possible future ability of China to simultaneously drain America’s fiscal swamp to prevent the US from countering an industrial sprint. By manipulating the international debt market to prevent America from cheaply borrowing the money necessary to accomplish such a countering maneuver, China may bankrupt America in the same way that we bankrupted the Soviet Union. As a democracy, the people do not care to keep America’s fiscal powder dry.

    1. I believe that the best strategy to avoid a conflict with China is to promote cultural and economic engagement.

      The growth of China’s economy means that they will have more powerful military in time. It is predicted that their economy will be twice the size of the US economy by 2045.

  2. Counter China’s is very simple. Just give back the Inlands to China. Then China will say thanks to USA and loyal to USA. Then China will feel no need to build more weapons for war because it gets its lands back. Then they will only care is economy and friendship with USA. Maybe then it’s time for them to change to Democracy. I mean there is no reason to counter with USA anymore when the lands are back. This is the most simple and more effect strategy. Why I think like this? I know the Chinese receive something will give back 10 times.

  3. Something not mentioned – China has a huge population, three times that of the U.S. Just as small high schools cannot compete with others that are much larger (hence the divisions that take size into account), China will be able to call on brainpower that we cannot equal. Granted China’s population is not yet highly educated, but talent scouts still have a much bigger field from which to choose.

    1. Quote” Granted China’s population is not yet highly educated, but talent scouts still have a much bigger field from which to choose.” Are you kidding. In 2014 the stats for educational parameters as measured by Maths , Science and English even, the Chinese are probably ahead, Look at the international PISA scores, Even Hinterland Chinese farm kids outperform the equivalent in the US of A

    2. That is not how education works in China, ask any Engineer who interacts with them, in any way. The rule in China is simple, the nail that stands out will be hammered down. That’s how they do education, and much of everything else that matters. In the west innovation is the key, in the China such creative approaches are shunned. The Cultural Revolution gutted Chinese intellectualism, what remained to recreate China was the dregs. That’s why they work so hard to steal data from the West, they can’t do it themselves. Now, they can just buy it too.

  4. Great points all. On marshalling the US populace to resist, there is only one viable way: to demonize China based on what they are doing to the US economy’s jobs. Fortunately, China has provided ample instances of exploitable provocations to the US on this front.

    1. What has China done to US jobs? Outsourcing is a decision by American corporations and your government. When people like you, if ever, realize Americans jobs are not loss because of China but of greedy Americans in corporations and government, then you finally get something done. Did China put a gun to American corporations heads? How come we don’t hear about that? Because China is not the one making the decision to outsource American jobs.

      1. I do not think the U.S. Corporation Chiefs are greedy. It is the average Americans who buy stock demand the CEOS TO OUTSOURCE AND TO INCREASE THE BOTTOMLINE. THE CEOs have no choice except to oblique to keep their jobs.

  5. The longer the US waits for a war with China, the less chance the US has of winning a war. In five years the chance of winning a war will be significantly less than today.

    We are competing over global resources. The winner will maintain first world standard of living. The loser will have a third world standard of living.

    1. Liam,

      This is an insane comment. Perhaps it is a joke.

      And what would America’s objective be in a war waged against China anyway? Too force them to stop shipping cheap consumer goods to us?

  6. I am a Chinese working as a China analyst at a think tank. It is becoming more and more apparent to many people, that the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) knows it is on its last straw of survival.

    The party is facing severe and endlessly increasing systematic stress on all fronts:

    1. Increasing external oppositions from all other countries in the world including all of China’s neighbours. They are forming more and more alliances and becoming more outspoken with rising strengths against China, in addition to increasing anti-China sentiment from people in all other countries. Many countries including Canada and Australia and U.S. have just tightened their immigration policy to prevent Chinese from entering their countries. Even on these casual internet message boards, when you look past the paid Chinese propaganda professional commenters, you notice rising general anti-China feelings from all over the world.

    2. Increasing internal severe and massive violent social unrest and anti-CCP mutiny from people of all Chinese living places. To beat down internal dissent in mainland China, the CCP every year is forced to spend even more money than on its massive military budget. All the semi-external places (Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet, Macau) are fighting harder and harder to break free from China. Taiwan is for all practical purposes already a separate democratic country, with its own army specificly trained to fight the PLA, and anti-China sentiment there (especially among younger Taiwanese generation) is at all-time high after seeing how China violently suppress Hong Kong as an example of “reunification”. This whole situation is continuously worsened by the free flow of information, with Chinese people knowing more and more from travelling abroad and learning about truths from jumping beyond the “Great Fire Wall” on the internet.

    3. Its own economy and social system never able to advance to higher level beyond mass skill-less manufacturing, due to complete absence of law and common morals. High technology and innovations and scientific development all require many citizens working together voluntarily contributing long term in a system they trust, with things like rule of law, no censorship on knowledge, no restrictions on speech and expression, copyrights, open minds, patents, common morals when collaborating and trading with each other etc. These qualities are all destroyed in modern China by the CCP. When was the last time you heard an announcement of technology development or innovations or scientific breakthrough coming from a Chinese organization / company / university? You haven’t because there ain’t any. Unlike mass manufacturing factory work, high level human developments cannot be forced by or bought with a dictator’s central planning. The only way contemporary China gets these things is from stealing and spying from all other countries e.g. using Chinese scientists working overseas to steal secrets, installing spywares in foreign executives’ electronic devices when they enter China etc, but these efforts have become more difficult since the whole world has caught on to their act.

    This systematic fatal flaw is why you do not see even one Chinese brand or company that can compete in the international market in any industry of the human race. For example Lenovo, who is already one of the few Chinese brands some people may have heard of, cannot make either the chips that power their computers or the operating system that run them, so it is just one of many plain vanilla boxmakers without any competitive advantage offering only cheap price. Another example Huawei is blacklisted by many countries and international customers because everyone knows Huawei’s products send all communication data back to the CCP. This CCP weakness is also why China cannot produce even one home-grown science Nobel Prize winner in its history, nor one famous business guru, nor one inspiring leader, nor one cultural icon, not even a third rate national soccer team ( Chinese work hard individually but do not work well with each other ). No rule of law in China also means no people or businesses, both Chinese and foreign, ever invest in China long-term or on a large scale because everything frequently change on a whim along with the political climate. No one trusts any contract or agreement in China because they are always broken by the Chinese and there is no legal protection whatsoever, meaning China can never advance to a knowledge economy or service economy. Your business can be seized from you any second by the military police working for someone with “guanxi”. No rule of law also ensures Shanghai fail to become a financial city despite the CCP dumping huge resources into it for 30 years.

    4. China’s mass skill-less manufacturing itself is going away to other countries due to sharply increasing costs and openly hostile and unfair business environment full of frauds and sanctioned protectionism and government robberies. The labor force is endlessly more demanding in wages and benefits expectations and working conditions. It is further worsened by the rise of robotic automatic manufacturing and 3D printing. This situation is a death knock to the “growth-based legitimacy” of the CCP, which is the only thing CCP can rely on for continuing ruling power. For sure Chinese people tolerate or even “like” the CCP when the economy seemingly explodes, but when one day it crashes and the country’s hopeless bad shape hit them in the face the people’s “support” for the CCP will turn on a dime.

    Since six months ago, all the major economic indicators for China have gone on a continuing nosedive – including manufacturing orders, export volume, commercial investments, graduate employment rate, corporate credits, foreign capital inflow, domestic consumptions, real estate prices, consumer spendings, luxury goods demand, HSBC Service PMI, survey of business sentiments etc. Suddenly all the rich Chinese tourists gobbling up luxury goods at different world cities seem to have disappeared altogether. The CCP is on its last resort of printing literally trillions of worthless renminbi to dump into massive failing and zero-ROI “state projects” that only enrich corrupted CCP officials. China’s gigantic multi-year increase of M2 money supply (it is afraid to publish the figures citing “national security”) causes way more long-term harm on itself than short-term help, and when that is over there is nothing else the CCP can do to prop up the failing economy. China currently ranks 82nd on GDP per capita and that is the highest it can go before falling sharply in the coming near future.

    5. Fierce unstoppable purges and mutually-destructive infighting among different factions within the party, who are imprisoning and killing each other every day. This power grab goes on under the laughable thin guise of “anti-corruption drive” when everyone knows all officials in china are corrupted. No work to manage the country or guide the ship is being done while this is going on.

    6. Its many previously-suppressed fatal problems have all grown too big to be contained all catching up to the CCP e.g.

    – severe carcinogenic poisonous pollution everywhere in air and water and soil and their own food etc, with the WHO issuing multiple warnings on Chinese population having the fastest cancer growth rate in the whole world
    – skyrocketing non-performaing loans, local government bad debts, world’s biggest amount of corporate debt leveraged to the hilt, “shadow banking” liabilities , unrepayable dodgy financial products etc, their true scope no one on Earth knows because all data from China are faked
    – biggest housing bubble in human history, in addition to innumerous crumbling “ghost cities” and shoddily-built vanity project “GDP-creating” infrastructure that cannot and will not be used
    – rapidly aging demographics with a 140:100 male:female ratio and world’s lowest reproductive rate (from one child policy, culture of “leftover women”, and many Chinese families killing their own daughters so as to chase boys)
    – world’s no.1 wealth inequality, with a Gini coefficient rivaling 18th century France just before the French revolution
    – complete absence of soft power / cultural influence / social attraction, partly due to CCP censorship. One result of which is minimal and sharply dwindling number of foreign professionals and tourists and students going to China. It also means the CCP only has force as the only tool to use on the international stage
    – all Chinese chasing foreign-brand goods and services while ditching low-quality Chinese-brands, who have a well known history of poisoning their own food and their own baby formula so as to make more money. This dashs CCP’s hope to build indigenous industries and a domestic consumption economy
    – gigantic need for food, energy, clean water and other vital resources bought from many foreign countries because China make few of them but need more and more of them
    – desperate mass exodus at all levels of Chinese society to escape the country using emigration or buying houses / study abroad or marriage to foreigners or plain old human smuggling, resulting in all able Chinese leaving taking huge amounts of talents and money out of the country
    – global trends of wealth polarization and robots replacing humans mean massive unemployment pressure for vast majority of the 1.4 billion population
    – corruptions and fraud throughout the whole rotten core of a system
    – young chinese today are all single child, many of them spoilt princes and princesses only used to coddling and indulgement by their parents and grandparents. They want all the nice things they see on the internet, they refuse to stoically slave away “for the country”, they will only accept nice-paying cushy office jobs so they can spend all day glued to their smartphones and mobile games, otherwise they would rather live at home on the support of their parents
    – the law of large numbers, “middle-income trap”, “Minsky moment”, “Lewis inflection point” all work against the growth-based legitimacy CCP desperately needs for its survival

    Most importantly, the CCP knows that if 1.4 billion Chinese learn about basic human qualities such as morals, truth, justice, human rights, rule of law, fairness, freedom, universal values etc the CCP will be toppled very quickly. Therefore its state-controlled brainwashing education and propaganda machinations ensure a complete lack of morals and regard for laws in all Chinese growing up and beyond. This casues Chinese not follow any rules or integrate into the system because there is neither internal incentive (moral code) or external restrictions (legal guidance). This results in failure in all basic aspects of human interactions with every modern Chinese, whether it is business trading / personal dealings / technology development / creating innovations / human communications / scientific research / artistic expressions / teamwork collaborations / academic exchange etc. Another propaganda brainwashing technique used by the CCP is to make all Chinese people pathologically nationalistic and very emotional on this issue, so the CCP can always create and point to some “foreign enemies” so as to hide all the domestic crises and government robberies going on. This attention-diverting technique is the same trick magicians have used for more than a thousand years to fool their audience.

    An interesting example would be the Chinese reaction to this report – they are expected to dismiss this report as total rubbish, accuse the author “unpatriotic” for saying the truth, shout China will only become richer and stronger than all other countries, yet they will give no counter-arguments and they will make no acknowledgement to the horrible factual conditions and complete lack of basic human qualities listed above in modern China. Ironically, the longer Chinese people deny or refuse to acknowledge the CCP problem, the longer they are only digging themselves into the hole and hurting themselves for any chance of recovery, causing the chinese economy to crash even further. Consider the example of Google, Facebook, Wikipedia, Youtube, Whatsapp, Twitter, Instagram etc – these services are all completely banned in China while at the same time the rest of the planet are on these services every second communicating ideas with each other, making friends, exchanging knowledge, doing business, working together, improving science and technology and arts, and advancing humanity.

    Some people say China economically developed a lot in past 20 years, but the truth is this “development” is actually debt borrowed against the future. After the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre of their own students, in order to survive and hang on to power, the CCP was forced to pursue short-term explosive economic growth that sacrifice everything else, including a foundation or potential for long-term economic and social development. This “scorched earth” policy is like winning the lottery for corrupted CCP officials who can rob a lot of money from the country in the short-term before escaping to America. The only entity left to suffer is China’s future from this point on, a country that has been turned by the CCP into a place with no law, no morals, no system for future scientific or economic or social development, no spiritual support apart from money, no trust or cooperation among Chinese, no trust or goodwill from foreigners, no other country as friends, all resources sold away cheaply, entire environment and air and water and soil and food fatally polluted, only social recognition is to make a lot of money for “face”, no creativity or personal development for Chinese young people, a populus not allowed to know the truths and not allowed to say the truths.

    The end result is that majority wealth of this “debt borrowed against the future” has gone to the 0.0000001% elite ruling class “princeling” CCP families (about 250 of them) who have already smuggled trillions of dollars abroad along with their U.S. passports and their own children (all Chinese elites and Politburo members hold foreign passports, with U.S. and U.K. being the most sought after choice). For the CCP in 1989, 1.4 billion people is great central-planning asset when the country start from nothing and you order them to do backbreaking mass manufacturing repetitive factory work 20 hours a day without worker protection of any kind. But in the 2014 borderless knowledge economy when that no longer works, 1.4 billion immoral and uncooperative and selfish and undeveloped and angry Chinese contained in a lawless system without any hopes of growth is very, very dangerous liability for the CCP.

    All debts against the future have to be paid back – China is no exception. That moment may arrive a bit later than expected but it surely will come, as it has on 100% of occasions in human history. The reason that moment arrive a bit later than expected is because in normal countries bad conditions correct themselves with short periods of market ups and downs, but in China the CCP suppress all problems and criticisms until inevitable system meltdown. For China the moment has arrived to suffer the consequences for all its own chosen actions in past 30 years. All the festering fundamental systematic problems listed above and much more, are only getting worse and worse everyday until one day when the system can suddenly no longer bear.

    Think USSR in 1989.

    ( Cliff notes summary for the smartphone generation with ADD, ADHD and Asperger’s:

    – The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) signed a deal with the devil to pursue miraculous short-term economic growth
    – Miraculous short-term economic growth has been achieved, now China has hit the wall on its path of no return, many bad conditions have caught up
    – CCP cannot go on externally, it cannot go on internally, economy has no way to go but greatly down, many fatal cancers and huge structural problems from the past now overwhelming the country
    – Something has to break, what happens is anyone’s guess, guaranteed to greatly impact China and the world )

    2. Bystander, you should search for the article written by your Chinese country-man. Google: Double Helix, China & Russia. It will rock your Western propagandized ‘junk’ (if you will excuse the pun)…

    3. holy wall of text batman! – a tad too much…

      this started out with a few believable arguments then went into hate speech and rediculous comments with no basis.

      with respect to chinese intellectualism having NO EXAMPLES, I can think of quite a few examples… here are some
      – yutu rover
      – yutu probe repurposed to leave lunar orbit and flyby a near earth asteroid
      – successfully built a quantum communication pathway
      – innovations are plenty also, such as in super-computing

      you don’t have to be like america to have technology, thats why so many countries are in a panic

  7. If shooting war actually happens between the two big powers, it would mean that both sides failed in their political moves.

    Since TAM and before, America has tried just about every trick in the color revolutions playbook at China, but nothing stuck.

    Time is on China’s side.

    1. Beijing is supported by her people – Pew Research has consistently proven, year in and year out for over a decade, that the Chinese people are hugely optimistic (over 85%) of where the nation is going. American approval ratings of Washington is consistently less than 10% (6% last checked in July?). The heart simply is not there. Moreover, the American system as it stands is incapable of choosing capable leaders (except by luck, ala buying a lottery) – perfectly coifed pols, no governing experience required, go on TV for lying competitions (campaign promises is such an oxymoron that NOBODY expects them to be fulfilled) once every few years, and based on the lying (campaign promises) and racist, xenophobic smear campaigns funded by unlimited Citizens United money – the voters choose “leaders”. Those same “leaders” in office then spend 70% of their waking moments begging for more bribes (legitimized as campaign contributions), plus 35% dealing with the needs of their real constituents (the paying kind). WHY are you surprised by the result? Do you see any real reforms actually possible in the U.S.?

    2. Instead of spending money on wars and world domination like Washington, Beijing planned and executed powerful industrial policies that propelled technology and manufacturing. China is now No.1 in a large number of industries, and the list continues to expand at a healthy clip. With the support of these economies of scale, Beijing deploys resources and optimize the development of competitive expertise. Just pick one area – China has no peer in infrastructure building today. Chinese engineering companies can bid 30% less than American ones and still make money. Chinese building teams, the only ones in the world willing and able to work 3 shifts, 360 days a year, are also the only ones that can most likely deliver projects on time and on budget. Infrastructure is not glamorous. But unlike flighty high tech, it delivers solid good jobs (by China standards, probably $1,500 to $2,000 per month engineer jobs), and lots of them.

    3. Beijing outlaws porn on the internet; America’s most profitable use of the internet is porn (mf, mmf, mmmmmmm, rape, incest, kiddie, bdsm, snuff . . . . ).

    4. Chinese still routinely executes drug dealers; America will most likely legalize pot within this decade (several states already did).

    5. China has one of the strongest gun control regime in action. American gun lobby ensures that there will remain in private hands more guns than there are people. “500 rounds per man, woman, and child alive!” [How many rounds does it require to kill one person? Who are the other 499 intended for?]. America is the most violent modern society in the developed world. Ferguson is just the most recent flareup. Blacks are just as capable as whites in being violent against the other race.

    6. China produces 7 million college grads each year. America produces potheads. R&D costs 1/5th of that in the West from the personnel costs perspective, and R&D remains largely human powered. Already most of the world’s big companies have been or will be setting up R&D shop in China.

    7. And just as China works hard on building industrial production expertise and advantages, America has been dead set on carrying out its post-industrial economic policies. In the last 30 years, with the support of pols on both sides of the aisle, America put the best of the best (Ivy league grads) of American minds on FINANCIAL ENGINEERING, to the detriment of Main Street. Great stuff – DERIVATIVES are not limited by natural resources, labor relations, environmental harm, etc. – all that is required is human intellect to come up with newer and bigger financial products, and full bore political commitment to push the newfangled industry worldwide. A couple of minor details – the entire industry is largely built on FRAUD (contracts of adhesion, outright misrepresentation, etc.): AND despite the size, derivatives trading does not produce anything. It is pure gambling, and rigged gambling at that. Today this financial cancer is already at $1.2 Quadrillion dollars (larger than any other man made financial undertaking in human history), and is expected to double by the end of the decade (and still not a single hamburger produced).

    Time is on Beijing’s side, as the American system is cast in concrete and incapable of reforms.

    1. Well said. I have been trying to get a good explanation on why would good men and women of the western put their hard-earned dollar on financial derivatives. Such a sleazy way of stealing from the greedy and uninformed.

  9. One of the greatest lie of our time is that only the US care about the safety of sea trade navigation. China, of all nations, should care as much as if not greater than the US about the freedom of navigation. After all, China is the greatest trading nation today. What China can’t accept is the freedom of spying and bullying by a nation that thought it is ruling the waves.

    1. You are sugar coding the U.S. The U.S. Is more interested in hegemony than ocean safety. They are building military bases all over the world to confine China and Russia. Do you think that these military bases are for pirates? LOL

  10. I don’t think that China’s A2/AD is a strategy meant for its territorial dispute with Vietnam, Japan and the Philippines. Whatever China will gain by military force in these disputed territories will be problematic and temporary without the recognition by the international community. How are they going to sustain the enforcement of sovereignty in the whole SCS and inhabitable islands and rocks from a defiant International community?

    What I believe is that A2/AD is meant for invading Taiwan, that the Chinese A2/AD isn’t as far reaching and as effective as a US lead alliance sanction and embargo.

  11. The days when the US can coerce China will be a thing of the past.A replay of 1996 when US carriers sail through the Taiwan Straits with immunity is over unless the Pentagon wants to start a war with China.You never know.
    The PLA will make 100% sure any US nuclear ,provoke /unprovoked attack will guarantee Chinese intolerable destruction on US assets as the price for prevailing.
    And don’t give the bull shit China is aggressive.The US is million of miles from China and yet park its navy in China;’s backyard.You do your own thinking.
    The PLA wants to make sure it has the tools to make sure its able to defend China unlike Mao’s time when
    Ike threatened China with atomic bomb destruction.
    Those days are but a distant memory.

    1. Well, let’s just say that 20 years ago, Americans politicians never foresaw that the Chinese military force can grow and prosper organically. Had they known, they might not have surrendered china with military bases to accelerate its development.

  12. Unfortunately the US does not think and plan long term. It is all about today, all about expedience with nary a care about the future. Just consider the American use of proxies to handle messy struggles around the World. How about the Latin American right wing death squads, many of whom trained at the School of the Americas. These American trained monsters destroyed any moral standing the US may have ever had in Central and South America. Then there were al Queda and the Taliban both newly created and supported by the CIA to do America’s dirty work in the Middle East. Now look at how these American creations are harming US national security. I;m sorry but America is laed by fools and that isn’t changing anytime soon so bid your degenerate and decaying empire goodbye and from the rest of us, good riddance!

  13. China may be a PITA for the US but they are doing it little better for themselves by instigating quarrels with mr. Putin at the same time. Why is it so difficult for the US to see that their problems are mainly self-made. A litttle respect for other nations and cultures would get them a long way.

    Fred

  14. A master plan to …….. will generate an equal PLA reaction to counter US might.The US is the greatest security threat to China. China has been under the US nuclear trigger since 1950.
    There is no way China will not develop more nm to retaliate shd it come under Us attack.How can China’s under 100nm be athreat to the US?
    The US has 20000nm and can easily destroy China . The problem is China’s handful of nm can cause significant destruction which is unbearable to the US.
    China will keep on getting more nm not to attack but to retaliate in ameaningful way which will make some
    of the hawkish policy makers in the US pause before pressing the nuclear trigger.