As our enemies wage cyber warfare, financial terrorism, and currency warfare against our nation and commit acts of aggression against other countries, this is not the time to appear weak and indecisive. This is not the time to appease our enemies for that will only invite more aggression against our nation and could end in our destruction and enslavement.President Barack Obama needs to be more forceful in dealing with Russia, China and Islamic terrorists.
- The Chinese political and economic system
- Xi Jinping, the new dictator of the People’s Republic of China
- How China and America see each other and the strength of the Chinese economy and Armed Forces
- Chinese warships are harassing United States Navy ships in international waters
- China´s foreign policy in the era of Xi Jinping
- China and the United States are engaged in a currency war
- China is conducting cyber warfare and stealing our military and industrial secrets
- Panic in the United States and other nations over cyber theft from China
- Russian engine components are used in some of our airplanes and Chinese raw materials have been placed on U.S. aircraft and missiles
- The summit
- The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)
- Multinational companies investments in China and China´s investments in the United States may not be in our national security interest
- China attacked the United States without a declaration of war in 1950
- President Obama gave Russia unilateral concessions
- The Obama administration and Congress reduced significantly the budget of the Pentagon and sends a message of weakness to Russia and China
- Is the United States in relative decline as a global superpower?
- Conclusion
The People’s Republic of China (PRC), according to the CIA World Factbook 2013, has a population of 1,343,239,924 (July 2011 estimate), the largest in the world. The PRC’s inhabitants represent close to 20% of the world’s population. China’s economy is growing at a rapid pace. The gross national product (GNP) grew at a rate of 9.2% in 2009, 10.5% in 2010, and 9.2% in 2011. The age for compulsory military service is 18 to 24, with a two-year military service. The manpower fit for military service is as follows: males age 16-49, 385,821,101 and female age 16-49, 363,789,674 (2010 estimate). Obviously, it would be very difficult for any nation to fight a successful land war with China, unless it uses nuclear, space, and cyber weapons.
The country has 22 million more males than females between the ages of 16 to 49. This is the result of the one-child policy that China has implemented for many years as well and the desire of families to have a male child. There were many instances of female babies being abandoned and in some cases killed. Recently, China relaxed this policy but by now most people are used to having one child.
China is the world’s fourth largest country, after Russia, Canada, and the United States. China’s coastline along the Pacific is 9,000 miles long and is bounded by the Sea of Japan, Yellow, East and South China seas. China’s total area is 3,705,407 square miles, according to the CIA World Factbook.
China borders with 14 nations, the same as Russia, more than the rest of the countries of the world. China has a boundary with Vietnam, Laos, and Burma in Southeast Asia; India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Pakistan in South Asia; Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan in Central Asia; and Russia, Mongolia, and North Korea in Inner Asia and Northeast Asia.
The People’s Republic of China is divided into 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four direct-control municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau). The PRC claims Taiwan as its 23rd province. The PRC has a population made up of 91.5% Han Chinese and the rest is made up of 56 ethnic groups.
China is a very ancient civilization, one of the earliest in the world. During thousands of years its political system was based on monarchies, known as dynasties. For centuries China stood as a leading civilization, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences. However, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, China suffered civil unrest, military defeats, and foreign occupation.
In 1912, the Manchu government, the last dynasty, was overthrown and the Republic of China was established. The six-year-old Emperor was forced to abdicate. Sun Yat-sen became president. After his death in 1925, General Chiang Kai-shek took over as president of the Republic of China. General Chiang’s Kuomintang or Nationalist Party government fought a civil war with Mao Zedong’s Communist Party until Japan invaded China during the 1930s and a truce was declared.
After the end of World War II, the Civil War was resumed and the Communist Party led by Mao defeated the Kuomintang Party government in the mainland. The PRC was proclaimed in Beijing on October 1, 1949. General Chiang Kai-shek’s government relocated to the island of Taiwan. The Chinese communists were successful in convincing Secretary of State General George Marshall that Mao was “an agrarian reformer” and that a communist China would not be a threat to the United States. Later on, Deng Xioping would deceive our nation and the West again. Upon taking power, the bloody dictator Mao Zedong would assassinated and starved millions of Chinese with his failed economic policies and repression.
1. The Chinese political and economic system
The PRC is one of the few remaining nations that endorses communism. It is an authoritarian nation that denies free access to the Internet, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, the right to have children, and the formation of social organizations. Property rights are poorly protected for its citizens.
Human rights organizations have condemned the PRC’s human rights record. Among the human rights violations cited were religious persecution, detentions without trial, forced confessions, torture, forced abortions, excessive use of the death penalty, violent police crackdowns, and a multitude of human right abuses perpetrated against opponents and minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang provinces. The economic system has been described by China’s leaders as “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and as a “socialist market economy.”. China’s system is basically state capitalism.
2. Xi Jinping, the new dictator of the People’s Republic of China
Xi Jinping, who was born on June 15, 1953, is the Secretary General of the Communist Party of China, the President of the PRC, and the Chairman of the Central Military Commission. He is the son of Xi Zhongxun, one of the founders of the Communist Party and as such he is a “princeling.” As a princeling, Xi has a sense of ownership of the country.
In 1968, when Xi was 15, his father was jailed during the Cultural Revolution, and he was sent to work in a remote village in the countryside. Xi joined the Communist Youth League in 1971 and three years later the Communist Party of China. When he left in 1975, he was 22 years old. For the next four years Xi studied chemical engineering and later he graduated from law school.
Xi married folk singer Peng Liyuan, who has the rank of Army general, in 1987. The couple have a daughter named Xi Mingze, who according to an article published in BBC News China on June 5, 2013, is studying at Harvard University. She enrolled as a freshman at Harvard under a different name in 2010.
Xi served the Communist Party in different provinces and in 2007 he became the new party chief of Shanghai. On that same year, he was appointed to the Politburo Standing Committee. Xi was elected vice president of the PRC on March 15, 2008. Soon after, that he visited North Korea, Mongolia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Yemen. In 2009, Vice President Xi Jinping visited Mexico, Jamaica, Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil to promote strong Chinese relations with Latin America. Later that year, he went to Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Japan, South Korea, Cambodia, and Burma.
In February 2012, Xi came to the United States and met with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden at the White House. He also stopped at Iowa, to visit the family that had hosted him during his 1985 tour as a provincial official. On November 15, 2012, Xi was selected to the post of General Secretary of the Communist Party and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, and became the leader of the Communist Party in China. On March 14, 2013, he was elected president of the PRC replacing President Hu Jintao, who retired after serving two terms. Although the presidency is a ceremonial post, it has become customary for the general secretary to assume the presidency as confirmation of his rise to power.
Arthur R. Kroeber wrote an article entitled “After the NPC: Xi Jinping’s Roadmap for China,” which was published by the Brookings institution on March 11, 2014. Kroeber explained that Xi has emerged as an extraordinarily powerful leader in a very short time. He now has more authority than any Chinese leader since Mao.
In his first speech as president, Xi introduced a new term, the “Chinese Dream” to lay out his vision of a stronger nation and a stronger military. He also announced that he wants China to become a “cyber power.”
3. How China and America see each other and the strength of the Chinese economy and Armed Forces
Nina Hachigian the editor of a very revealing and interesting book, Debating China: The U.S.-China Relationship in Ten Conversations (2014). The author of Debating China paired one leading American expert on China with a Chinese counterpart to debate a specific bilateral issue. Nina Hachigian moderated the conversations by asking key questions that the participants addressed. The debaters expressed their opinions and, in a second round, focused on their disagreements.
The book then summarized the positions of both sides on issues such as human rights, climate change, military affairs, and regional security. A reviewer of this book for the March/April 2014 issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, Minxin Pei, wrote that it is “illuminating but disheartening, for those optimistic about the future of the United States-Chinese ties who will find little to cheer in these pages.”
The United States and China have the most important bilateral relationship in the world. If that relationship deteriorates in the years ahead into open conflict, the whole world will be impacted negatively. Whether the United States or China chooses to cooperate or confront each other will affect billions of people throughout the world.
For many years most observers believed that the two countries were neither friends nor enemies. However, the remarkable expansion of Chinese power (military, economic, and diplomatic) and the global financial crisis that impacted the United States and Europe in 2008 have led Chinese and Russian leaders to believe that the United States and the West are declining.
Mitt Romney wrote a book entitled, No Apology: The Case for America Greatness (2010). He stated the following: “Another of President Obama’s presuppositions is that America is in a state of inevitable decline. He seems to believe that we have entered the post-American world predicted by Fareed Zakaria’s best-selling book of that name… He therefore sees his task as somehow managing that decline, making the transition to post-superpower status as smooth as possible, helping Americans understand and adjust to their new circumstances… Among the dangers is that if the President believes this, it is likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy”.
Paul D. Miller, an analyst at Rand Corporation wrote the following: “The inexorable rise of China is the largest shift in the distribution of world power since the fall of the Soviet Union. China’s large urban population and industrial base can be harnessed in wartime… So when China unilaterally attempts to impose an air defense identification zone over a disputed area, the United States should understand that China is attempting to rewrite the rules of international diplomacy in its favor. That really is a threat to the United States and the global order it has underwritten since the second world war”.
Miller explained that “with every passing day, China’s power grows relative to that of the United States.” He concluded that “if there is ever a confrontation between the United States and China, it is to U.S. advantage for it to happen earlier rather than later, while the power of the differential is still very large and in the United States favor”.
David Roche, a Morgan Stanley analyst, said, “Wall Street’s crack-up presages a global tectonic shift; the beginning of the decline of American power.” The huge budget deficits and extremely high national debt mean that there is a risk of an economic collapse and the loss of credibility of the United States dollar. The ability of the United States to project power will depend on bringing its financial house in order and reviving the economy. Additionally, the United States needs to become energy independent. This nation has the largest natural gas reserves in the world.
The gap between the United States and Chinese power, which was narrowing before the financial crisis, has closed even further. In 2007, for example, the economy of the United States was four times as large as that of China, but by 2012, it was only twice as large. China’s GDP was $202 billion in 1980, today, it is over $7 trillion. The United States and China have the two largest economies and military budgets in the world. They lead the planet in Internet users. Obviously, a large shift in the balance of power between China and the United States will bring a change in the attitudes and behavior toward each other by the people and their leaders.
China’s rapid modernization of weapons and expansion of its military, as well as the current cyber and currency warfare against the United States, have created a great deal of concern among Americans. Over the last few years, China has stolen our nation´s most valuable military and industrial secrets. The cyber attacks conducted by the People’s Liberation Army have increased in spite of the complaints of our government to the Chinese leaders.
China is implementing a more aggressive and assertive foreign policy since 2010. The PRC is engaging in territorial and maritime disputes with its neighboring countries. In addition to claiming all of Taiwan, China has been involved in many other international territorial disputes with India, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea. China is claiming ownership of several small islands in the East and South China seas as well as the airspace. In the East China Sea, China is claiming ownership over the Japanese Senkaku Islands (called Diaoyu in China).
China has claimed 90% sovereignty of the entire South China Sea, which includes Paracel and the Spratly islands. The waters around these small islands and rocks in the East China Sea and the South China Sea are known to have enormous reserves of oil and gas. China is violating international law and the United Nations Law of the Seas Treaty which it signed. The U.N. treaty gives nations an “exclusive economic zone” that expands 200 nautical miles from their coastline, with the rights to resources in the water or under the seabed. China is drilling oil and gas close to the coast of Vietnam in violation of the treaty and sending its fishing fleet. It is also harassing Vietnamese ships.
Incredibly, China is claiming ownership of almost the entire maritime and space of the South China Sea. Beijing has seen the response of the United States to its new imperialism–the so-called “pivot” and later known as “rebalancing”–as an attempt to contain Chinese power. China wants to push the United States Navy further out into the Western Pacific.
Geoff Dyer, author of the book The Contest of the Century: the New Era of Competition with China- and How America Can Win (2014), explained that according to a professor at Beijing University, it is a major humiliation to see American warships sailing so close to China’s coasts, specially near to the enormous naval base in Hainan Island. Dyer described how Captain James Fanell, Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence for the United States Pacific Fleet, stated the following: “They (Chinese) are taking control of maritime areas that have never before been administered or controlled in the last 5,000 years by any regime called China… China’s conduct is destabilizing the Asian maritime environment.”
The author of the book Debating China explained that American and Chinese scholars agreed that the United States-Chinese relationship is full of distrust, especially as nationalism in China has increased dramatically. The Chinese debaters believed that the distrust will persist as long as China’s domestic political system remains unchanged. There was complete disagreement among the American and the Chinese scholars with regards to China’s military modernization, human rights, and regional security.
A Chinese scholar insisted that China does not agree with the United States and the West on human rights because the Confucian order is based on “prescribed codes of ritual behavior” rather than fundamental individual rights. The American scholar rejected this claim saying that China needs to comply with universal norms of human rights. It is well known that China is governed by an authoritarian and oppressive communist dictatorship which violates fundamental human rights.
Another area of irreconcilable differences is with regard to the rapid military modernization of the Chinese armed forces. Over the last few years, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has built stealth attack nuclear submarines that carry intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). China has more submarines than the United States. It has mobile nuclear missiles, all types of drones, carrier-killing missiles (DF-21D), an aircraft carrier, (the Liaoning), strike fighter jets (J-15), and advanced stealth jet fighters (J-20 and J-31). It is estimated that China’s Air Force has 2,556 jet fighters. According to a Pentagon intelligence report, China’s military has the world’s “most active and diverse ballistic missile program.” Currently, the Chinese nuclear stockpile is estimated to be between 50 and 75 land and sea ICBMs.
The arsenal includes new submarine-launched JL-2 ballistic missile that will “for the first time allow China to hit the United States from operating areas located near the Chinese coast.” China is “developing and testing offensive missiles, forming additional missile units, qualitatively upgrading counter ballistic missile defenses.” The PRC can already target the United States with a relative small force of intercontinental ballistic missiles.
China landed a space capsule on the moon and one of its lasers destroyed a satellite in space. China has tremendous capacity to wage cyber and space warfare. Cyber warfare is a valuable because it is an asymmetric technique. The Chinese military has 2.3 million and is the largest in the planet. However, the U.S. military is still stronger than China’s.
A Review of China’s Military Assets
Stewart Leavenworth wrote an article entitled “Amid Tension, China to Hike Defense Budget,” which was published in The Miami Herald on March 6, 2014. The reporter explained that China is planning to increase its military budget by 12.2 % this year. Last year, China increased by 10.7% the budget of the Armed Forces. Many believe that China’s increased military spending is much greater than reported. The announcement was made on March 5, 2014 on the first day of the National People’s Congress in Beijing. Speaking to about 3,000 delegates in the Great Hall of the People, Chinese premier, Li Keqiang, explained the need to “build China into a maritime power.” He also said, “we will strengthen national defense mobilization and the reserve forces, place water preparations on a regular footing and enhance border, coastal and defenses.”
Stewart Leavenworth wrote that the state-run China Daily newspaper published a provocative interview with the top Chinese military advisor, Major General Qian Lihua, a former head of the Defense Ministry’s Foreign Affairs Office. He stated that a conflict with China’s neighbors could not be ruled out, with Japan being a particular problem. Denny Roy, a scholar from the East-West Center in Honolulu, said that the increase in military spending “will reinforce the image of China being assertive, of preparing to force its will upon some of its neighbors.”
According to IHS Jane’s, China’s military budget for 2014 is $148 billion in comparison to $575 billion in the United States. However, it must be remembered that there is great salary differences in the pay, benefits, and retirement for soldiers between the two nations.
Judging from the Debating China, there is clearly deeper disagreements that will play a larger role in determining the nature of the U.S.-China bilateral relationship. Minxin Pei wrote that “the United States and China should forget about trying to resolve their conflicts over China’s military modernization, Taiwan, human rights, and East Asian security and should instead find a way to manage them.” Debating China shows that the relationship between the United States and China is heading in an increasingly competitive and confrontational direction. The disputes among the two nations will remain unresolved for the foreseeable future. China and the United States have failed to develop trust in the long-term intentions of each one towards the other.
The Chinese scholars argued that it is Washington that needs to change its Asia policy since China is becoming more powerful. The Chinese scholars mentioned that the Chinese economy, according to the International Monetary Fund, will likely overtake that of the United States economy between 2020 and 2025.
The revelation in the book that should concern Washington the most is the degree to which the insistence by United States that it does not seek to contain China has fallen on deaf ears. The Chinese scholars, as well as Xi Jinping, the dictator who rules China, believe that the United States “will never willingly cede its global hegemony and allow China to become a great power in its own right.”
The American scholars were surprised as to how China “can accuse the United States of trying to block China’s ascent when the United States has opened its markets to China, trained hundreds of thousands of China’s best and brightest at American universities, invested billions in Chinese manufacturing, and supported Beijing’s accession to the World Trade Organization.” The Chinese scholars remain unconvinced and believe that the United States support for China is entirely for self interest.
4. Chinese warships are harassing United States Navy ships in international waters
Dyer explained that in March 2009, the U.S. Navy ship, the Impeccable, a surveillance ship, was sailing around 70 nautical miles from the new submarine base in Hainan Island when it was confronted by 10 different Chinese ships. The Chinese dropped planks into the water and forced the U.S. ship to stop. Chinese sailors using long poles smashed the surveillance instruments that were being towed behind the ship. The Impeccable was harassed for some time until it retreated from the area. To add injury to insult, the Chinese crew of one boat dropped their pants and showed their bare bottoms in the direction of the Americans.
Bill Gertz wrote an article entitled “Chinese Naval Vessel Tries to Force U.S. Warship to Stop in International Waters,” which was published on the Washington Free Beacon on December 13, 2013. The reporter explained that on December 5, 2013, the guided missile cruiser USS Cowpens was sailing in international waters in the South China Sea, which China has illegally claimed as its territory. The U.S. warship was following the Chinese aircraft carrier the Liaoning at the time. According to American officials, a Chinese Navy vessel ordered the cruiser USS Cowpens to stop. The cruiser refused the order because it was operating in international waters and continued on its course. Suddenly, a Chinese tank landing ship sailed in front of the cruiser and stopped, forcing the U.S. Naval vessel to abruptly change its course in what became a dangerous maneuver.
This incident is the result of China’s illegal declaration of an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) and sovereignty over vast portions of the East China Sea and the South China Sea. Both of these seas are called by China the Near Seas. Bill Gertz wrote that General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had stated that China’s new air defense zone was destabilizing and that this increases the risk of a military “miscalculation.”
China has dispatched fighter jets to the ADIZ to monitor the airspace that is used frequently by the United States, South Korea, and Japan surveillance aircraft and ships. The United States, South Korea, and Japan do not recognize China’s air defense identification zone. The United States sent in November 2013 two B-52 bombers, which flew through the ADIZ but not over the disputed islands of Senkaku/Diaoyu. However, the United States informed U.S. commercial airlines to notify China when their airplanes fly over the ADIZ. This writer believes that this was a serious mistake by President Obama since by doing so, it has acknowledged the legitimacy of the Chinese air defense identification zone. Defense Department officials have said that China’s declaration of the ADIZ is geared primarily at curbing surveillance flights in the zone, which China’s military regards as a “threat to its military secrets.”
Bill Gertz wrote that Rick Fisher, a China military affairs expert, said that it was likely that the Chinese deliberately staged the incident as part of a strategy to pressure the United States. Fisher believes that the encounter with the United States cruiser appears to be part of a pattern of China´s signaling that it will not accept the presence of American military power in its East Asian theater of influence. Fisher stated the following: “In this early stage of using its newly acquired naval power, China is posturing and bullying, but China is also looking for a fight, a battle that will cow the Americans, the Japanese, and the Filipinos.”
The United States and Japan should also step up their rearmament of the Philippines. China has spent the last 20 years building up its Navy and now feels that “it can be used to obtain its political objectives.” The reporter said that the United States military has been increasing the surveillance of China’s naval forces, including the growing submarine fleet, as part of the U.S. policy of “rebalancing forces to the Pacific.” It is obvious that China is seeking to control illegally large areas of international waters where the ships and airplanes of many nations travel. The United States and its allies need to make sure that these major sea lanes, where an enormous amount of international traffic occurs, remain free. The United States needs to defend freedom of navigation at all cost.
The reporter explained that China’s state-control media reports on a regular basis that the United States is seeking to defeat China by encircling the country with enemies while working with dissidents within China to overthrow the communist regime. The Obama administration has denied the accusations of seeking to “contain” China and has made it clear that he wants to continue close economic and diplomatic relations.
5. China´s foreign policy in the era of Xi Jinping
Geoff Dyer explained in the Contest of the Century (2014) that after the Tiananmen Square massacre, where Chinese soldiers killed hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of students who were peacefully protesting in 1989, the Chinese dictator Deng Xioping created a slogan to define Chinese foreign policy which was “hide the brightness and nourish obscurity.” Deng meant the following: “Observe calmly; secure our position; cope with affairs calmly; hide our capacities and bide our time; be good maintaining a low profile; and never claim leadership.”; This was translated in the United States as a threat that China will bide its time until it is strong enough to confront the United States.
This writer attended the National Associations of Secondary School Principals and stayed in the same hotel in Houston, Texas as Deng Xioping. He came to Houston to visit the Johnson Space Center in February 1979. One day this writer saw the Chinese dictator, which was less than five feet tall, walking out of the lobby of the hotel surrounded by very tall Chinese bodyguards. Deng Xioping was born in 1904 and died in 1997 in Beijing at the age of 92.
Deng knew that a stronger Chinese economy would create anxieties in the United States and across Asia. That is why he wanted to emphasize humility and a willingness to cooperate so that China could develop its economy without provoking a “regional and international backlash.” In other words, Deng Xioping wanted China to keep a low profile in order not to scare the United States, Europe, and Southeast Asia countries. During two decades, China looked inward and focus on building its economy by attracting foreign investment from the United States and the West. However, that time is now over for China.
Dyer stated the following: “China has started to make the crucial shift from a government that accepts the existing rules to one that seeks to shape the world according to its own national interests, from rule taker to rule maker… China would like to erode the basis of American power from control of the oceans in Asia to the currency that is used in international business.”
Dyer explained that the Chinese Communist Party has been “suffering a legitimacy crisis” since it abandoned Marxism and embraced the market in the late 1970s. It is for this reason that China’s leaders are now appealing to nationalism by constantly reminding their citizens how China suffered a “Century of Humiliation” by the Western nations and the atrocities committed by Japan during World War II. Domestic insecurity is feeding the desire to have a more aggressive and confrontational foreign policy. The author of the Contest of the Century described how, after Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008 and a global financial crisis deeply impacted Europe and the United States, Chinese leaders now believe that there is an inevitable American and Western countries decline. This author has written a book entitled America in Decline (2014) but thinks that there is time for this decline to be reversed.
Dyer believes that China’s aggressive foreign policy has been counterproductive. He thinks that the United States can work closely with a coalition of Southeast Asian nations in order to restrain China. There is no question that China is challenging the global order imposed by the United States after World War II, which includes free trade, freedom of navigation, and other international rules. Like the title of his book, Dyer thinks that the 21st century will become a new era of competition and confrontation between the United States and China for supremacy. He thinks the United States can win, if it puts quickly its financial house in order and end the dysfunction and paralysis in Congress and the White House. Let us hope that with God’s help the United States can do it.
David M. Lampton wrote an article entitled “China’s Foreign Policy,” which was published in the 2014 edition of Great Decisions. He explained that China’s leaders find legitimacy in nationalism, and that they sometimes respond to excessive domestic public opinion. Like others, Lampton saw how Xi Jinping assumed dictatorial powers very quickly. Xi said that he wants “a new type of major-power relationship” with the United States, a relationship built on “mutual respect and win-win cooperation”, yet he has taken actions that lead to conflict and even war with the United States.
China’s leader has entered into serious conflict with Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines, which are allies of the United States. Due to the security commitments that the United States has with these three allies our nation could “be conceivable dragged into conflict” with China.
Lampton explained that the rapid modernization of the Armed Forces of China, which includes “anti-satellite weapons, stealth aircraft, cyber capabilities, maritime power projection, and moving robustly into space, has greatly concerned the Pentagon”. Additionally, China’s assertiveness in making territorial and space claims in the East and South China seas against its neighbors has brought these nations closer to the United States. David M. Lampton stated the following: “Managing the U.S.-China relationship is becoming ever more complicated as Beijing and Washington increasingly rubbed up against each other in air and cyberspace, on the high seas, and at the world’s four corners… The U.S.-China relationship can be managed, but it will be far from easy.”
P.W. Singer wrote an article on defense technology for the 2014 edition of Great Decisions. He described the United States as a “status quo” power and one that is not a rising power, but one that is trying to figure out how to “maintain dominance as the world shifts around it.” Singer explained that the journal Foreign Affairs noted, “the rise of China will likely be the most important international relations story in the 21st century, but it remains unclear whether that story will have a happy ending.”
Singer wrote the following: “China’s rise raises a variety of questions, including issues of military tactics and doctrine. Will the Pentagon be able to counter China’s new, extended-range ballistic missiles that might be able to sink the same U.S. carriers that once ruled the waves?… Will an era of U.S-Chinese tension be as dangerous as the Cold War? Will it be even worse, because China, unlike the Soviet Union, will prove a serious economic competitor as well as a geopolitical one?”
6. China and the United States are engaged in a currency war
Currency war, also known as competitive devaluation, is a situation where countries compete against each other to achieve a relatively low exchange rate for their own currency. As the price to buy a particularly currency goes down so does the real price of exports from the country. Imports become more expensive and that helps the domestic industry increase sales. Of course, a currency war triggered by one nation could bring retaliatory action by other countries which in turn can lead to a general decline in international trade, harming all countries.
Guido Mantega, the Minister of Finance of Brazil, announced on September 27, 2010, that the world is “in the midst of an international currency war.” His view was accepted by numerous other government officials and financial journalist from around the world. During this time the United States complained over the devaluation of the yuan in China.
The United States accused China of keeping the price its currency artificially low in order to keep United States and other nations exports out of China, thus creating an enormous trade imbalance against the United States and other countries. Of course, the United States was not an innocent bystander since it engaged in massive quantitative easing (QE). Quantitative easing is the practice in which a central bank, such as the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States, tries to fight a recession or to stimulate a slow-growing economy by increasing the money supply of the nation.
James Rickards, an advisor to the CIA and the Pentagon, wrote Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis (2011) describing the dangerous battlefield of global finance. He pointed out how China is purchasing secretly up to 4,000 tons of gold. Some believe that China has already over 5,000 tons of gold since it is acquiring gold mines throughout the world and continue to purchase secretly more gold. Rickards also wrote on the hidden agendas of sovereign wealth funds of nations that hate us which may attack the United States financially. Rickards is convinced these two situations are a very real threat to the collapse of the dollar.
James Rickards wrote that the Federal Reserve attempts to prop up economic growth could be devastating for our national security. He argues that a financial attack against the United States could destroy the confidence in the dollar. He believes that the policy of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve would lead to a lack confidence in the dollar which could create chaos in the global financer markets.
Rickards argues that we are currently going through a third currency war based on competitive devaluations. He believes that competitive devaluations are in race to the bottom, and those instruments are a sort of warfare. He argues that the continued depreciation and devaluation of the dollar will ultimately lead to a collapse, which will come about through a widespread abandonment of the U.S. dollar.
Rickards explained that the two previous currency wars ended badly. The first one brought about the Great Depression and World War II. It was started when Germany, unable to pay back the enormous war reparations to Great Britain, France and other countries after being defeated in World War I, decided to seriously devalue the German mark. The other countries did the same with their currencies as well as the United States. Soon high tariffs were imposed and world trade collapsed. The world-wide Great Depression resulted in Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini coming to power in Germany and Italy.
The second currency war of 1971 was started by Charles De Gaulle in France. President Richard Nixon was forced to abandon the gold standard and imposed for a while price controls in order to protect the value of the dollar. While the outcome of the current currency war is still uncertain, our nation needs to prepare to make certain that our economy and our currency are not destroyed by nations that wish us harm.
Geoff Dyer wrote a book entitled The Contest of the Century: the New Era of Competition with China–and How America Can Win (2014). Dyer is a former British Financial Times newspaper bureau chief in Beijing and who lived in China for many years. He argued that the real currency war for the next few decades is the contest between China and the United States over which currency will prevail as the global currency.
Dyer described in detail the ambitious plan to allow the Chinese currency to play a larger role in the global economy. A HSBC’s Chinese economist stated the following: “We could be on the verge of a financial revolution of truly epic proportions. The world is slowly, but surely, moving from greenbacks to redbacks.” Another Washington-based economist said that the Chinese renminbi could become “the premier reserve currency by the end of this decade, or early next decade.” China has designated Hong Kong and the international place for the world’s new global currency, the renminbi. HSBC predicts that by 2015 at least half of China’s trade with the developing world, approximately $2 trillion, will be in renminbi.
Dyer, explained that the issue of whether the renminbi will supplant the dollar is one of the central contest that will determine the shift of power from the United States to China over the course of the next few decades, a combination of high finance and geopolitics. He wrote that the National Intelligence Council, which publishes the United States government’s official intelligence estimate stated the following: “The fall of the dollar as the global reserve currency… Would be one of the sharpest indication of the loss of the United States global economic position, strongly undermining Washington’s political influence.”
Both China and Russia have announced that they want to destroy the dollar as the global reserve currency. If they were to succeed in displacing the dollar with the Chinese currency, America will no longer be a superpower. Both China and Russia believe that the United States under the Obama administration has become “a paper tiger” and that the United States is a superpower in retreat and decline.
Hillary Clinton shortly after she became Secretary of State stated “how do you deal toughly with your banker?” China has the largest foreign exchange reserves in the world, at around $3.3 trillion. It is estimated that China owns between $1.3 to $2 trillion of United States government’s debt. Never before has the United States depended on a single country’s government for so much financing. Obama’s irresponsible annual deficits and his refusal to reform the entitlements have put our national security in serious danger. Our nation is facing a fiscal abysm.
When the United States announced in 2010 that it wanted to sell more weapons to Taiwan, three generals of the People Liberation Army said that China should retaliate by selling U.S. government debt, which could lead to a sharp rise in the United States interest rates. Reporters have written in Chinese newspaper what they call “the nuclear option”, which is a threat to dump dollar bonds in order to change American policy.
There is no question that China wants to destroy the dollar as an international currency. China’s President Hu Jintao said in 2008 that he wants a “new international financial order that is fair, just, inclusive and orderly.” Dyer explained that by the end of 2012, around 15% of China’s trade was being conducted in renminbi. He wrote that one Chinese academic said that ending the dominance of the dollar is as important for China’s ability to project power as was China become a nuclear power.
During the 2007 war games in Russia, with the leaders of the military alliance the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member nations in attendance, including Chinese President Hu Jintao, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin stated the following: “We now clearly see the defectiveness of the monopoly in world finance and the policy of economic selfishness. To solve the current problem, Russia will take part in changing the global financial structure so that it will be able to guarantee stability and prosperity in the world and to ensure progress. The world is seeing the emergence of a qualitatively different geopolitical situation, with the emergence of new centers of economic growth and political influence.”
Geoff Dyer, author of The Contest of the Century (2014), wrote the following: “There certainly is no shortage of reasons for thinking that the United States could be heading for the sort of crisis that would shake the foundation of the dollar era. The litany is a familiar one– high debt levels, chronic budget deficits, political gridlock, spiraling entitlement spending, and crumbling infrastructure… It is not completely out of the question that the United States will suffer a financial convulsion. The downgrading of the United States government debt by Standard and Poor’s was a stark warning about the potential erosion of the confidence in the dollar. Ever since then, Washington has been living from one budget crisis to another.”
7. China is conducting cyber warfare and stealing our military and industrial secrets
General Keith Alexander, the director of the National Security Agency, has described the cyber theft from China, and perhaps from other nations, as “the greatest transfer of wealth in history” and has estimated our loss to be a trillion dollars. Former Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, as well as former Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Joe Lieberman, warned us several times of the great danger that the United States is facing of an impending surprise Pearl Harbor-like cyber attack coming from space and that could devastate our electrical grid, banks, financial institutions, water and sewer systems, and military and government computers.
On January 24, 2013, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, speaking at the Wilson Center, a think tank, said that we are facing an impending threat of a cyber attack equivalent to the attack of September 11, 2001. She said that many of our banks have experienced many cyber attacks. Similar other officials, she is concerned that our electrical grid, water and sewer systems, as well as our armed forces are facing a clear and present danger. Napolitano explained that our Navy is being subjected to 100,000 cyber attacks per hour. She wanted Congress to approve laws on cyber security since cyber attacks are coming from everywhere and are increasing in number and sophistication. China has also penetrated U.S. computer systems that regulate our oil and natural gas pipelines.
China stole the design of the F-35, our most modern aircraft, which cost us $392 billion to develop. Now the Chinese will improve the design of our most modern aircraft and develop one that could be superior to ours.
Only a few years ago, China’s military was extremely weak and did not have a space program or cyber warfare capability. After stealing our military technology, China’s armed forces were modernized rapidly and now they have a great capability to conduct space and cyber warfare. It did not help our national security when many U.S. multinational corporations, such as General Electric, General Motors, and Boeing, established research and development centers in China. The PRC was able to acquire our highly sophisticated technology for free, in addition to the technology that it continues to steal through spying or cyber theft from the United States and other developed Western nations.
Unfortunately, the Obama administration, as well as previous administrations, has been unable to stop China’s increasing cyber warfare against our nation. Fred Fleitz, a former CIA analyst and senior House of Representatives Intelligence Committee staff, wrote an article called “High-Level Panel Sees Trouble Ahead for China” in the February 2013 issue of Newsmax magazine. He explained that Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA and a retired four-star general, warned that China had been trying to catch up with the U.S. military for several years, especially after the first Gulf War. Hayden said the following regarding China: “I stand back in awe about the Chinese espionage effort against the United States. We have a nation-state successfully attempting to steal secrets not just from our nation-state, but from American industry.”
Michael Hayden, Jon Huntsman, former U.S. ambassador to China and Utah governor, and other experts were also concerned of the growing threat posed by a possible serious downturn of the Chinese economy. Fleitz pointed out in his article that if China´s economy goes into a recession, China may escalate tensions with our nation. Hayden said that the Chinese will put up with the Communist leadership as long as the economy is growing. However, a serious slow down of the Chinese economy could provoke its Communist government to act in an overly nationalistic manner and this could lead to a confrontation with our nation. In fact, Lignet, a national security firm, wrote on June12, 2013 that China is preparing for war.
Richard A. Clarke, who served several presidents in the Security Council of the White House, wrote a book entitled Cyber War (2011). He described how China has sold the United States “chips, routers, and hardware” for our computers and digital networks that have “logic bombs, trapdoors, and Trojan horses.” The Chinese government can press a special button and our Chinese computers and parts will no longer work. Our country purchased 84,000 false electronic parts from China and installed them in airplanes, helicopters, and missiles. General Patrick O’Rielly, director of the Agency of Missile Defense, stated the following: “We do not want that a missile interceptor of $12 million will not function due to a $2 false electronic part.” How could the Obama administration purchased anything from China for our defense when that nation is engaged in cyber warfare and currency warfare against us?
8. Panic in the United States and other nations over cyber theft from China
Dyer in his book The Contest of the Century (2014) explained that the American business community, which was once the most important supporter of strong ties with China, has become greatly concerned over cyber theft of American multinationals and businesses. Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, who has placed factories and research and development centers in China, is now having regrets. He stated “I am not sure that in the end they (Chinese) want any of us to win, or any of us to be successful.” Some companies, such as the Canadian Nortel, have been subjected to cyber theft for many years. Nortel discovered that it was being hacked in 2004. This company eventually went bankrupt in 2009. When businesses and multinationals are subjected to constant cyber theft over the years, there comes a time when they can no longer compete with Chinese companies.
Mandiant, a U.S. Internet-security company, has stated that it has traced hacking attacks on 141 companies in the United States and 15 other countries to one particularly Chinese military unit based in Shanghai. The hackers are actually part of a People’s Liberation Army group called the unit 61398.
Richard Clarke, who served in the National Security Council of the White House, stated the following: “What has been happening over the course of the last five years is that China-let’s call it for what it is-has been hacking its way into every corporation it can find listed in Dun & Bradstreet. Every corporation in the United States, every corporation in Asia, every corporation in Germany. And is using a vacuum cleaner to suck data out in terabytes and petabytes.”
Dyer wrote that as the result of China’s cyber warfare against the United States, “Congress has started introducing restrictions in some areas for all Chinese information-technology products, from computers to smart phones.” This writer hopes it is not too late for our nation to defend itself from China’s outrageous cyber warfare attacks.
9. Russian engine components are used in some of our airplanes and Chinese raw materials have been placed on U.S. aircraft and missiles
It is very difficult to understand why Russian engine components have been it been purchased for the United States Air Force. At the March 2014 hearing of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee this issue was brought up by members of the committee. The recently appointed Deborah Lee James as secretary of the Air Force told the committee that the Pentagon has a two-year supply of the Russian equipment. After all, it has been evident for several years that Russia is a potential enemy of the United States. Now that the United States may be imposing economic and trade sanctions against Russia for its aggression and likely annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, the purchase of Russian components appears to have been ill advised.
Even worse, after the Pentagon purchased 84,000 false electronic parts that came from China, the Pentagon is using titanium mined in China and other rare earth minerals from that country, as well as magnets, and it is installing them in our best aircraft fighters, bombers, and missiles. Who is supervising the Pentagon? Why are these officials with extremlye poor judgment not being fired? It is really outrageous!
Andrea Shalal wrote an article entitled “Chinese raw materials also found on U.S. B-1 bomber, F-16 jets,” which was published in Reuters on March 10, 2014. The reporter wrote that after it was discovered that China-made components were placed in our most advanced fighter aircraft, the F-35. A Pentagon investigation has uncovered Chinese materials in other major weapons. Chinese raw materials were used in the Boeing Corporation B-1 bomber and Lockheed Martin Corporation F-16 fighter aircraft. Titanium mined in China may also have been used to build part of a new Standard Missile-3IIA being developed jointly by Raytheon Corporation and Japan. Federal laws prohibit weapon makers from using materials from China and a number of other nations since there is great concern that reliance on foreign suppliers could leave our armed forces vulnerable in some future war.
Reuters reported in January 2014 that the Pentagon permitted Lockheed Martin Corporation to use Chinese magnets on the F-35 program in spite of the fact that Pentagon officials were deeply concerned about China’s cyber theft of our most valuable military and industrial secrets as well as espionage. Department of Defense officials stated that these unwise purchases, which were given waivers by Frank Kendall, the Pentagon’s chief arms buyer, point out the great need to scrutinize carefully what materials are being purchased by weapon makers and to make sure they comply with federal law.
Kendall initiated a review of all systems on Lockheed Martin Corporation aircraft programs after Northrop Grumman, which installed the active electronically scanned array radar for the F-35, found it may have used noncompliant Japanese magnets. It is a major problem when our multinational corporations have placed their research and development centers and built factories in China. Not only China receives our technology for free, but they may ship to us defective equipment for our armed forces.
As China becomes more aggressive against its neighbors and challenges our Navy ships and aircraft in international waters and over airspace in the East and South China seas, it is sheer folly to install any electronic parts and minerals from that nation in our advanced aircraft and missiles. Our multinational corporations need to start building factories and research and development centers in the United States. In the event of a future war, we cannot depend on Russia or China to supply the United States with needed materials. Indeed, some day we could be at war with Russia and China.
10. The summit
On June 7 and 8, 2013, President Barack Obama held a summit meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping on the Sonnylands estate in Rancho Mirage, California. David E. Sanger wrote an article on June 9, 2013 in The New York Times entitled “Obama and Xi Try to Avoid a Cold War Mentality.” The reporter explained that Obama in 2009 said in a speech delivered on his first trip to China that the United States was not seeking to contain Chinese power. Obama´s intention was to make clear that he did not want to have a confrontation with China as a rising global power with the United States, an established global superpower. Sanger, however, pointed out that by 2010 the Chinese military made it clear that it viewed the president’s overture as an expression of American weakness.
Sanger explained that the president spent one morning describing to the Chinese leader the specific episodes involving China’s theft of our intellectual property. The president told the Chinese president that the United States considers these cyber attacks a very serious issue. Previously, the president had sent the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to meet with the chief general in charge of the Chinese Army and the White House national security director to discuss this issue with other Chinese officials. China ignored both American officials.
During the summit, the Chinese leader did not acknowledge that its government and the People’s Liberation Army Unit 63198 were and still are responsible for stealing our nation’s military and industrial secrets and endangering our economic well-being and our national security. The president tried unsuccessfully to get China to agree to norms of behavior with regards to cyber warfare. Unfortunately for the president, Edward Snowden, the 29 year-old leaker of the National Security Agency´s world-wide surveillance, stated on June 12, 2013 to the South China Morning Post newspaper of Hong Kong that the National Security Agency is hacking everyone everywhere, including China. If true, This writer would be very pleased if our nation is hacking computers in China, . We need to defend our nation from China´s increasing cyber warfare.
Obama was also unsuccessful in stopping China’s imperialistic territorial claims over many islands that belong to Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippines. These two issues were the most important ones for the United States and the president failed to make any progress.
Sanger wrote in his article that the Chinese military sees the United States technological power as one “more form of pressure to be countered, just like the American naval presence in the Pacific.” The reporter concluded his article by saying that “there is no guarantee that the two leaders will work out what Mr. Xi calls a new type of great power relationship!”
Lignet, the security analysis firm, concluded on June 10, 2013 that Obama failed to secure a commitment from the Chinese leader to take action to stop cyber attacks from inside China. The failure to reach any agreement to stop cyber attacks made the two-day summit a failure.
Trevor Loudon wrote an article in his website New Zeal on June 10, 2013 regarding the summit meeting. He said that according to the Communist Party of China website, Xi made several proposals, to which Obama “responded actively” and that the United States is willing to “construct a new state to state cooperation modal with China.” Loudon explained that the Chinese wanted the United States to relax restrictions on high tech exports to China and that “China finds it onerous having to steal U.S. technology, and now wants it handed to them on a plate.” He concluded in his article with the following statement: “What kind of a new type of military relations mean? This can only be to the gain of the Chinese. The Western alliance has little to gain by military cooperation with its most likely adversary in the next major war. Such cooperation will not make war less likely, only give the Chinese and their Russian allies a better chance of winning it. What’s the bet that Obama gives the Chinese communists most of what they want?”
11. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)
Wikipedia has an excellent description of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The description that follows comes mainly from Wikipedia. The SCO is a military and economic alliance which was founded in 2001 in Shanghai by the leaders of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Except for Uzbekistan, the other countries had been members of the Shanghai Five alliance, founded in 1996. After the inclusion of Uzbekistan in 2001, the member nations renamed their alliance.
The headquarters of the SCO is in Beijing, China and the official languages are Chinese and Russian. In addition to the six member nations, SCO has five nations designated as Observers: Iran, Afghanistan, India, Mongolia, and Pakistan. Iran has applied for full membership since March 2008. However, because of the ongoing sanctions imposed by the United Nations, it has been blocked from admission as a new member. Should the SCO were to accept Iran as a full-fledged member in the future, an attack upon Iran by the United States or Israel would bring war with China, Russia, and the rest of the SCO member nations.
The SCO also has three nations called Dialogue Partners: Belarus, Sri Lanka, and Turkey. How is it possible that Turkey, a member of NATO, could belong to such an anti-NATO alliance? The Islamist Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan has stated that he has discussed the possibility of abandoning Turkey´s European Union membership candidacy in return for full membership in the SCO. This anti-Western alliance holds annual summits in the capital of a member nation. In July 2005, at a summit meeting in Astana, the president of Kazakhstan, the host nation, greeted the leaders of the countries in attendance by saying “the leaders of states sitting at this negotiation table are representative of half of humanity.”
Over the past few years, the SCO has expanded military cooperation, intelligence sharing, and counterterrorism among its member nations. There have been numerous SCO joint military exercises. China and Russia held large-scale war games in 2005. Since then, Russia and China have continued to conduct joint military exercises, including the use of air forces and precision-guided weapons. The United States applied for Observer Nation status in the SCO in 2006, but it was rejected.
During the 2007 war games in Russia, with the leaders of SCO member nations in attendance, including Chinese President Hu Jintao, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin stated that Russian strategic bombers were going to resume regular long-range patrols for the first time since the Cold War. Putin said the following: “Our pilots have been grounded for too long. They are happy to start a new life.” At that same meeting, an Iranian official said the following: “The SCO is a good venue for designating a new banking system which is independent from the international banking systems.”
An Iranian writer, Hamid Golpira, wrote the following: “According to Zbigniew Brzezinski´s theory, control of Eurasian landmass is the key to global domination and control of central Asia… Russia and China have been paying attention to this theory since they formed the SCO… Most probably with the real objective of counterbalancing the activities of the United States and NATO in central Asia.” There is no question that the SCO is an anti-Western military and economic alliance.
Both Russia and China have announced that they want to abandon the dollar as an international currency. This is a major national security threat against our nation, which has hardly been discussed by President Obama or the national media. In fact, the media or President Obama have seldom discussed the threat of the SCO to our nation and our NATO allies.
12. Multinational companies investments in China and China´s investments in the United States may not be in our national security interest
In a 52-page report released on October 8, 2012, the House of Representative Intelligence Committee, after a year-long investigation, concluded that two Chinese telecommunications firms, Huawei Technologies, Inc. and ZTE, Inc., present a great threat to our national security since their equipment could be used to spy on Americans. Congressman Mike Rogers, Republican from Michigan, Chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, said “we simply cannot trust such vital systems to companies with known ties to the Chinese state, a country that is the largest perpetrator of cyber espionage in the U.S.” Huawei’s U.S. sales were $1.3 billion and ZTE´s sales were $30 million in 2011.
The Obama administration has allowed China to buy oil companies and land that has gas and oil in our nation, in spite of the fact that we are not energy self- sufficient. We are only producing 60% of the energy that we consume. The Chinese company Sinopac has invested $17 billion in oil and gas companies in Colorado, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, and Wyoming. Recently, China purchased Nexen, Inc. from Canada for $15.5 billion. This company extracts oil and gas in the deep U.S. territorial waters. What would happen if this Chinese company were to spill oil on the Gulf of Mexico similar to what BP did?
China now wants to buy 80% of International Lease Finance, a division of American International Group. This corporation possesses the second largest fleet of airplanes in the world. During the Gulf War, the U.S. used civilian airplanes to transport 60% of our soldiers. If the United States is ever involved in another war, are we going to ask China to lend us some of their planes to move our soldiers when China opposes anything the U.S. tries to accomplish at the U.N. Security Council?
This purchase needs to be authorized by the Foreign Investment Committee in Congress as it is a national security issue. The George W. Bush administration turned down requests similar this one from China.
Boeing and Airbus corporations have built many factories in China as well as research and development centers. China is now using the free technology of the United States and the European nations and with the help of General Electric and other U.S. corporations wants to build a new passenger airplane which China will call C-919. China hopes to put out of business both Boeing and Airbus by building a superior airplane. How stupid can the multinationals of the United States be in the pursuit of profits in a country that wants first to dominate Asia and then, perhaps, the world? Lenin once said the give the capitalists enough rope and they would hanged themselves.
13. China attacked the United States without a declaration of war in 1950
It is important to recall that China attacked the United States without a declaration of war on October 16, 1950 with one million soldiers and airplanes during the Korean War. The U.S. Army and our allies had already defeated North Korea. The Chinese Army was led by General Lin Piao, who began crossing the bridges across Yalu River in secret. Our army had reached the Yalu River, which separates North Korea from China, and were about to unify the Korean Peninsula under a non-communist government. China’s entry in the Korean Peninsula prolonged the Korean War for another 33 months and brought the world to the brink of World War III.
President Harry Truman sent General Marshall as his representative to China in November 1945 to try to stop the Civil War between the communists and the nationalists. Secretary of State General George Marshall (1880-1959) was led to believe that Mao Zedong was an “agrarian reformer” and that China under communist rule would not present a threat to the United States.
Later on General Marshall served as secretary of state from 1947 to 1948. He disagreed with many officials in the Pentagon and the Department of State that the nationalist government of General Chiang’s success was vital to U.S. interests. Yet, a year and 16 days after the establishment of the People´s Republic of China, the United States was at war with that nation.
Constantine Menges explained in his book, China: The Gathering Threat (2005), that China sees the United States as its number one enemy. As explained earlier, China is becoming more imperialistic and has territorial disputes with several Asian nations, including Taiwan, India, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Japan and the Philippines. The PRC invaded and annexed Tibet in 1950. The PRC went to war with India in 1962 and with Vietnam in 1979 over border disputes. China wants eventually to annex Taiwan, our ally, and has threatened the United States with nuclear war if the United States comes to the defense of Taiwan. General Chi Hoatian, Minister of Defense, stated in 1999 that “war with the United States is inevitable.”
14. President Obama gave Russia unilateral concessions
The unilateral concessions that Obama has given Russia, China´s ally, has also endangered our national security. Soon after his election in 2008, Obama gave in to pressure from Russia and did not deploy the antimissile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic that President George W. Bush had negotiated with those two nations. In essence, Obama abandoned all of Eastern Europe to Russia’s sphere of influence, which went against our national security interests. Obama did this without asking Russia for a quid-pro-quo or something in return. If the United States and the European nations had accepted Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, the Russian dictator would not have dared to invade those two countries.
It is no surprise that Putin wanted Obama to win in 2008. Putin was delighted that Obama was reelected in 2012. Why? The Russian dictator believes Obama will give in on missile defense and continue to use “flexibility” to eliminate our nuclear arsenal. On March 1, 2014, Putin sent the Russian’s Army to invade Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. President Barack Obama called him prior to the invasion and requested him to respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Putin ignored Obama’s warnings.
Obama’s subsequent threats of economic sanctions have also been ignored by the Russian dictator, who has no intention of ever abandoning the Crimean Peninsula. Unless damaging economic sanctions are imposed upon Russia, the Russian dictator would probably commit further aggressions in the future. This is exactly what happened in Europe when Adolph Hitler took over the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia and England and France acquiesce at the Munich conference.
An appeasement policy by the United States and its NATO allies would make future wars inevitable. Bullies like Vladimir Putin need to be punished quickly and effectively. China and Russia now consider the United States a superpower in retreat. A world superpower, like the United States, needs to be respected by its allies and feared by its enemies. Sadly, the United States is neither.
Obama’s request to Dmitry Medvedev, while they were meeting in South Korea, to ask Putin to grant him “flexibility” and “space” until he would get reelected, was extremely dangerous. The president did not realize that his secret conversation was being heard due to an open microphone.
Obama has stated more than once that he wants to eliminate completely our nuclear arsenal. He has reduced significantly the Pentagon’s budget. These actions are seen by China and Russia as a sign of extreme weakness. Obama’s Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, has stated several times that those severe cuts would endanger our national security. Panetta stated that “the United States would be left with a force that suffers low morale and poor readiness and is unable to keep with potential adversaries. It would invite aggression.”
15. The Obama administration and Congress reduced significantly the budget of the Pentagon and sends a message of weakness to Russia and China
In March 2013, sequestration was implemented and $55 billion was cut from the Pentagon annually for the next 10 years. This massive cut represented 10% of the entire Pentagon´s budget. The U.S. Navy will be reduced from 286 ships to 230 ships, leaving our Navy the size it had in 1915! The U.S. Army will be reduced from 569,000 soldiers to 420,000. The last time our Army was so small was in 1940! The 1,990 fighter aircraft of the U.S. Air Force will be reduced to 1,512, the smallest it had ever been in decades. The U.S. Marines will be reduced to 175,000 soldiers. Tens of thousands are losing their employment in defense-related industries.
Thom Shanker and Helene Cooper wrote an article entitled “Pentagon Plans to Shrink Army to Prewar Levels Equal to that of 1940,” which appeared in The New York Times on February 24, 2014. The reporters explained that Defense Secretary Chuck Hegel would like to shrink the United States Army to its smallest force since before World War II buildup.
Under Hegel’s plans the U.S. Army would be reduced to about 420,000 soldiers over the next couple of years. The entire fleet of Air Force A-10 fighter aircraft would be eliminated. The Navy would be allowed to purchase two destroyers and two attack submarines every year. But 11 cruisers will be ordered into reduced operating status during modernization. The Navy will be allowed to keep the 11 nuclear aircraft carriers for the time being. However, the George Washington aircraft carrier would be brought in for lengthy repairs.
Pentagon officials acknowledge that these budget cuts “will impose greater risk on the armed forces if they are again ordered to carry out two large-scale military actions at the same time.” They believe that victory will take longer and there would be a larger number of casualties. Further, these officials said that a smaller military could invite adventurism by our enemies. For many years, the Pentagon and the White House have argued that the United States needed a military large enough to fight two wars simultaneously, for example, one in Asia and one in Europe. With these cuts it would be impossible to do that. If this is such a great concern of officials in the Pentagon, why is the Obama administration making these severe cuts to our military?
Secretary Hegel defended those severe cuts as necessary “in order to sustain our readiness and technological superiority, and to protect critical capabilities like special operation forces and cyber resources.” Of course, it is important to maintain a technological superiority through research and development as well as spend more money on special operation forces. Our cyber command needs to be expanded and strengthen. However, severely cutting the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and the Marines will not “sustain our readiness.” This writer has seen all the chiefs of the Armed Forces testified before Congress and all of them are in agreement that the cuts are very severe and damaging to our national security.
Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that to cut military spending by 10% “would be catastrophic” considering the enormous threats that the nation is facing around the world. In February 2014, Director of National Security, Lieutenant General James Clapper, told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that “looking back over my more than half a century in intelligence, I have not experienced the time when we had been beset by more crises and threats around the globe.” Obama’s proposed budget cuts, combined with sequestration, would cut the Pentagon’s budget by more than 10%.
Governor Romney had stated during the presidential campaign that he would have increased defense spending $150 billion a year in order to make our armed forces stronger and more capable of protecting us from our enemies. While China and Russia drastically increase their defense spending and modernize their armed forces, Iran continues to enrich uranium in order to build nuclear bombs, North Korea continues to build nuclear weapons and improve its missiles, Al Qaida and other Islamist terrorist groups continue to get stronger; obviously, this is not the time to cut the Pentagon’s budget and disarm unilaterally.
On March 17, 2014, the Obama administration imposed sanctions on 11 Russian and Ukrainian officials after the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin signed a decree recognizing Crimea independence from Ukraine. However, the Russian dictator wasn’t among those sanctioned. The previous day an illegal and rigged election took place in Crimea which was boycotted by Ukrainians and Tartars. Those receiving the sanctions laughed them off. The deputy Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin tweeted “I think the decree of the president of the United States was written by some joker.”
Senator John McCain, Republican from Arizona, who has blamed Obama’s Russian policy for emboldening Putin in Crimea, called the response “wholly inadequate.” Senator McCain stated the following: “In the absence of a stronger U.S and Western response to this aggression, we run the risk of signaling to Putin that he can be even more expansive in furthering his old Imperial ambitions, not only in Ukraine, but also in Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltic countries and in parts of Central Asia.”
Russia´s military invasion and annexation of Crimea and the Chinese confrontational actions in the seas around its coast cannot be ignored by the United States. Instead of cutting the budget of our Armed Forces, President Obama and Congress need to increase it. The president needs to send immediate military assistance to Ukraine. He needs to impose strong economic sanctions that would hurt Russia hard, including the value of the ruble. Additionally, the United States should place the antimissile system in Poland and the Czech Republic. Taking these actions would send a message of strength to China and Russia. Failure to take action will encourage both Russia and China to commit further acts of aggression.
16. Is the United States in relative decline as a global superpower?
Paul Kennedy wrote a bestseller book entitled The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (1987). Professor Kennedy explained the current international problems by comparing them to the great empires of the past that have gone under because they were unable to sustain the cost of their international commitments. History shows that all empires eventually decline and fall. Towards the end of his book, Kennedy argued that the American share of world power has been declining over the past few decades. “The United States as a great super global power”, according to Kennedy, “cannot avoid confronting the two great tests which challenge the longevity of every major power that occupies the number one position in world affairs: whether, in the military/strategic realm, it can preserve the technological and economic basis of its power from relative erosion in the face of the ever shifting patterns of global production”.
Kennedy pointed out that the United States, like imperial Spain around 1600 or the British Empire around 1900, has inherited a vast array of the strategic commitments acquired decades earlier, when our nation´s political, economic, and military capacity to influence world affairs seemed so much more assured. Kennedy wrote that the United States is now running the risk, so familiar to historians of the rise and fall of previous great world powers, of what may be called “imperial overstretch.” In other words, Kennedy was saying that our current global international obligations and commitments may be far larger than our nation’s power to defend them all at the same time. Has the United States overextended our commitments? The answer may be yes.
This writer believes that our war in Iraq that has cost the nation many lives and casualties of our brave soldiers, marines and pilots as well as of over one trillion dollars, has turned not to have been in our national interest. The United States replaced a Sunni government under Saddam Hussein with a more democratic Shiite government. Unfortunately, the Shiite government in Iraq, now seems to be very friendly with our enemy Iran, which is also a Shiite country.
Iraq denied our request to leave some military bases and armed forces in its nation. Additionally, China is getting the bulk of the oil contracts in Iraq. Our multinational energy companies are not getting most of the oil and gas permits and contracts. So again, was our enormous effort to bring democracy to Iraq worth the cost? This writer believes that it was not. In 2003, this writer was opposed to the Iraq War and he also opposed the prospects of attacking Syria in 2013.
The United States also spent over one trillion in the long-lasting Afghanistan War which produced many casualties for its armed forces. As the United States is now beginning to withdraw its armed forces from Afghanistan, China is moving in and investing in mines and other businesses in that nation. Obviously, our nation was attacked by Osama bin Laden´s Al Qaeda terrorists in 2001. Al Qaeda was given permission to move to that nation and received assistance from the Taliban government in Afghanistan. The United States had to go to war to overthrow the Taliban government in Afghanistan and go after the terrorists of al Qaeda. But now that the United States is withdrawing its armed forces from that nation, will the Taliban or other Islamic terrorist groups regain power in that nation?
While the United States was spending billions and losing the lives of many soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, China was spending billions improving its armed forces and its infrastructure. China was expanding its economy and building highways and skyscrapers in many of its largest cities, constructing new ports, and so forth. With the extra cash of a very favorable balance of trade, China was and is purchasing businesses, land, etc. in our nation and throughout the world and becoming a rising powerful superpower. China has also been acquiring technology and improving their space and cyber warfare capacity.
17. Conclusion
In this writer’s opinion, China is definitely a gathering threat to our national security. Russia, as Mitt Romney said in 2012, is a geopolitical foe as well. Both China and Russia see the United States as a superpower in decline. This writer believes that China is a gathering threat to our national security. It is a great mistake for the United States to seriously cut the budget of its Armed Forces as it is currently doing, since both China and Russia are increasing the size of their armed forces and modernizing their weapons.
It is a policy which sends a message of extreme weakness not only to China, but to Russia, Iran, North Korea and other countries that dislike the United States. It is not helpful that the president has stated more than once that he wishes to abolish the nuclear arsenal of the United States since that also sends a message of weakness.
It is obvious that China would like to change the existing world order and that it will confront and challenge the United States in the near future. The United States needs to improve its alliances with China’s neighbors and strengthen its military force in order to counter any Chinese action that might threaten to undermine the existing world order. China declared an air defense identification zone in November 2013 that overlaps with those of Japan and South Korea. This has increased the risk of conflict with the United States and its allies. China should not be allowed to get away with claiming most of the South China Sea as its territory in violation of international law.
More importantly, President Barack Obama and Congress need to quickly put our financial house in order. The nation cannot continue to endure enormous annual deficits and growing federal debt. Allowing China to continue to purchase our debt, which now holds between $1.3 trillion and $2 trillion in U.S. treasury bonds, is against our national security. As Hillary Clinton once stated, “how do you deal toughly with your banker?” As China continues to grow stronger, it will seek to modify the existing world order. Both China and Russia have already stated that they want to replace the dollar as an international currency. If they succeed in this endeavor, the United States will be seriously hurt. The United States cannot allow China to continue stealing its most precious military and industrial secrets.
The nation needs to move aggressively and reduce its enormous annual deficits and the ever-growing federal debt, which is now over $17.3 trillion. The value of the dollar needs to be protected. The real national debt, when one includes the debts of the states, counties, and cities as well as the unfunded entitlements, is estimated to be over $150 trillion. Failure to act will create hyperinflation, increased unemployment and a possible economic recession.
China will surpass the U.S. economy in the next few years and China will continue working together with Russia to replace the dollar as the world’s international currency. Our nation needs to act now and reform all entitlement programs since all of them are unsustainable in the long-term. The United States needs start living within its means. It is important to remember that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, who served from 2007 to 2011, stated that the greatest threat to our national security was the ever increasing national debt.
As our enemies wage cyber warfare, financial terrorism, and currency warfare against our nation and commit acts of aggression against other countries, this is not the time to appear weak and indecisive. This is not the time to appease our enemies for that will only invite more aggression against our nation and could end in our destruction and enslavement.
President Barack Obama needs to be more forceful in dealing with Russia, China and Islamic terrorists. The president has given too many concessions to both China and Russia. National security is a matter that Democrats, Republicans, and independents must be greatly concerned. This writer is convinced that the United States will continue to decline unless the misguided economic and foreign policies of our president are reversed quickly.
Third article of a series of 3.
