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Chinese spying, nationalism and the future
Gerard Jackson
Much is being said about Chinese spying in the US and the rise of China’s military. Two facts are being overlooked here. There is nothing new or ominous about Chinese spying on the US. Just about every country spies. Furthermore, if USA counter-intelligence is failing then one should bear in mind the disgraceful role of the Democrats in politicizing intelligence agencies as well as emasculating them.
The second fact is that Bill Clinton probably did more lasting damage to America’s defences than any Chinese spy. It was Clinton who declassified sensitive technology so that his financial backers could sell to Beijing for use by its military. This treason was then innocuously described as “transferring technology”. Naturally America’s leftwing mainstream media went along with this treachery by covering it up.
Even expert technology is useless without the material means to apply it, which was the case with China. However, the ever-helpful Clinton overcame the problem by allowing American corporations to help the PLA upgrade its weapons systems. William Hambrecht and Bernard Schwartz were among the corporate chiefs who benefited enormously from these dealings. (Was it a coincidence that this pair of phoney patriots made heavy contributors to the Democrats, with Schwarze, CEO of Loral, being the largest individual donor to the Democratic National Committee for that year?)
Nevertheless, things should not be allowed to get out of perspective with respect to China. Beijing is not going to launch an attack on the US anymore than the US is going to obliterate Beijing. This not the name of the game. The Chinese regime is a lot more cautious than many commentators seem to realise. This helps explain why it thinks in terms of decades rather than a few years. And why shouldn’t it? After all, the Democrats appalling behaviour and contempt for national security suggests to Beijing that if it waits long enough the Democrats will have destroyed the country’s ability and willingness to defend itself effectively.
While in Shanghai I noticed two things. Firstly, the residents are far more Western in their outlook and ideas than even they realise. The second observation is that the place reminded me of Bismarck’s Germany. Under Bismarck’s leadership Germany became obsessed with overtaking Britain militarily and economically. Then in the 1890s Germany launched a massive naval program. This spurred Britain into rapidly expanding and modernising Royal Navy. Eventually Germany’s hubris gave us the carnage of WW I.
Of course one needs to be careful with historical analogies, and this brings me to Thorstein Veblen. He observed that Germany and Japan stood out from the industrialising countries in that their economic development was not accompanied by a genuine growth in democracy. Political power largely remained in the hands of military cliques whose values really belonged to a pre-industrial age. (Benjamin M. Anderson, Economics and the Public Welfare, LibertyPress, 1979 first published 1949, pp. 26-7).
This is not the situation in China. She does not have anything resembling a Junker class nor does she have a military run by a Samurai-like officer class. Therefore the kind of militarism that led Germany and Japan into war is completely absent. Moreover, time, in my opinion, is on the side of peace which is precisely what the Chinese people want.
Irrespective of the dated thinking of some American commentators China is not a communist state. It should be quite clear to visitors that the country is extremely open. As Jeane Kirkpatrick put it:
Authoritarian regimes really typically don't have complete command economies. Authoritarian regimes typically have some kind of traditional economy with some private ownership. The Nazi regime left ownership in private hands, but the state assumed control of the economy. Control was separated from ownership but it was really a command economy because it was controlled by the state. A command economy is an attribute of a totalitarian state." (Religion & Liberty, Toward Humane Governance, March and April 1992, Vol. 2, No. 2).
And so it is in China: It has now gone from politicising everything to trying to abolish politics. Hence its citizens have enormous access to the West via the net, books, DVDs, television news and visitors. They can freely discuss Western politics and democratic processes. They can even discuss the corruption in the Shanghai's administration. What they cannot do is act politically — at least not yet.
Nevertheless, the West, especially the US, should be on its guard. One thing that the West should not do is implement any economic policies that could have severe repercussions in China. I am, of course, referring to international trade*. There is also the possibility that Beijing would quickly adopt a more aggressive foreign policy stance should the banking system implode. In this case I suspect that Russia’s nineteenth century Far Eastern conquests would become the military target.
*US economy, manufacturing and monetary policy.
Gerard jackson is Brookes’ economics editor
BrookesNews.Com
Monday 12 March 2007