THE 21st CENTURY POPULIST-An Agenda For Real National Security: PRIORITY THREE

October 7 2003 THE 21^st CENTURY POPULIST

"AN AGENDA FOR REAL NATIONAL SECURITY:

PRIORITY THREE"

by Don Schellhardt

"The next great war will be fought and won on five different battlefields:

land, sea, air, outer space -- and the electromagnetic spectrum."

From a 1990's Statement of Official Chinese Military Doctrine

Do these words sound to you like the proclamation of a nation with purely economic ambitions, or with plans to become at most the leading power in her one corner of the planet? The words don't strike me that way, either. They sound like the words of a nation that is determined to gain whatever economic, technological and military resources she needs to challenge the leading incumbent superpower -- that is, the United States -- in every one of its areas of current strength, including outer space operations and electronic warfare.

The same Chinese determination to challenge America for world leadership extends to every area of the globe as well.

Turning to the Middle East:

Did you know that China has been, for years, a primary supplier of missiles and other armaments to the Islamic jihadist nations of the Middle East, including Iran, and to Saddam Hussein's former government as well? If you do know this, I commend you. The American mass media has mentioned it occasionally, in passing, but has hardly spotlighted it -- even though this trade may well be the germination of a world-shaking alliance of Chinese military might with Middle Eastern oil and Islamic jihadist fanaticism. It is an emerging alliance that could, in time, stretch unbroken from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean and the Pacific -- potentially containing within its parameters several trade route "chokepoints", notably including the Straits of Hormuz and the Straits of Malacca, plus a large majority of the oil left on this planet.

Unless, of course, we in the Western world start paying much closer attention ...

So far, however, at least in the United States, our leaders would rather "swat at the gnat" of Saddam Hussein, or make various implied threats of pre-emptive strikes against North Korea, while we "swallow the camel" of a re-emerging, and hostile, empire in China: an empire that is already armed with more nuclear warheads and missiles than Iraq or North Korea could acquire on their own in 20 years.

Yes, the United States has made an occasional "diplomatic protest" over this, that or the other transfer of Silkworm missiles, or other weapons, from China to the Middle East. Still, these protests never seem to lead to actual sanctions, in either trade or aid. Nor have these scattered "protests" kept a string of American Presidents from persuading Congress to support China's admission to the World Trade Organization and to approve "normalized" trade relations with China. Incidentally, "normalization" and other changes in U.S./China trade policy have led, at last report, to an annual trade deficit with China of $500 billion: the largest trade deficit ever recorded, in the history of the world.

Looking closer to home:

Did you know that, thanks to an agreement with the government of Panama, China now controls two naval facilities along the Panama Canal, with one at the Pacific end and the other at the Atlantic end? Did you know that China also runs the pilot boats that guide ships through the Canal? I bet you didn't -- and I hereby award you a Don Schellhardt Gold Star if you did. The American mass media may have reported very little about Chinese missiles sold to Middle Eastern enemies of America, but it has said even less about the fact that China now has more control over the Panama Canal, both officially and unofficially, than the United States does.

On paper, these facilities and services have been leased by the government of Panama to Hutchison Whampoa, a "private Chinese corporation" based in Hong Kong. In practice, however, no large corporation based in Communist China is totally private -- and Hutchison Whampoa has a long history of contracts with the People's Liberation Army and other Chinese military agencies. Functionally, then, we have moved out of the Panama Canal and agents of the Chinese military have moved in.

When President Jimmy Carter's Administration negotiated the treaty that transferred ownership of the Panama Canal to Panama, the American negotiators were wise enough to include treaty language that gave the United States a continuing right to block actions by Panama that could undermine America's national security. This treaty language could have been used, and should have been used, to prevent the leasing of Panama Canal facilities and operations to agents of the Chinese military. But it wasn't.

Instead, President William Clinton, whose Presidential campaign had received illegal campaign contributions from agents of the Chinese government, and who down to his last day in office was calling China "a strategic partner" with the United States, knowingly refused to pursue this option. Indeed, he actively suppressed a critical National Security Assessment, advising him to oppose the arrangement, which had been prepared within his own Administration -- but which was only unearthed, later, through a formal Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) Request.

The second President Bush began his Administration with enough time to have blocked the Chinese entry into Panama. His Presidential campaign, however, had suggested little if any real concern about China's expansion. Unlike President Clinton, he had referred to China as "a strategic rival", rather than "a strategic partner", but this had more or less left him breathless. Words such as "adversary" or "potential enemy" were still far from his lips as he took office -- and afterwords, despite urgent and public pleas from such leading conservative Republicans as Senator Trent Lott (R-MS) and Representative Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA), the second President Bush took no action to keep China out of Panama. In fact, he appointed to his circle of White House advisors a woman named Nancy Dorn, who had been a registered lobbyist for Hutchison Whampoa: the corporate "front" for the Chinese military presence in Panama.

Of course, barring the collapse of civilization and/or a major pre-emptive nuclear attack by the United States or the Soviet Union, China's rise to superpower status is inevitable. The United States cannot stop this rise and should not try. What we can still influence, if we do not continue to waste time while China's power grows, is the kind of superpower that China will become -- including whether or not it will try to become "the world's only superpower", at our expense.

Although it is beyond our power to assure such a result, we can hope to persuade China to become more libertarian and democratic internally. However, we stand the greatest chance of success in trying to influence the nature of China's relations with the rest of the world -- including us.

Through the ways in which we engage China, and especially in the ways that we react (or fail to react) to her more aggressive moves, we can help to teach China what kind of behavior her neighbors and rivals will and will not tolerate -- even in a superpower. How well "the new China" learns this lesson could determine how peacefully she behaves in the future: the lesson could make the difference between war, possibly including even nuclear war, and peace.

Right now, we are repeatedly sending China the dangerous signal that we will adapt to almost anything she does, even if the actions are clearly threatening or harmful to our own national aspirations -- and/or to the aspirations of those democratic republics we call our friends and allies.

Through our inaction, as noted above, we have been telling China that she can arm our enemies in the Middle East and pay no price for it, in aid or trade. We have also been telling China that she can take control of a strategic trade route "chokepoint", within our own hemisphere and indeed right on our metaphorical doorstep, without experiencing even diplomatic resistance -- let alone military resistance -- from us.

The story doesn't end there, however. In addition, our leaders, and for that matter many of our citizens, have failed to react to:

O The knowing misrepresentation and exploitation of export deals between American-based corporations and the government of China,

notably including the illegal technology transfer of American missile guidance mechanisms disguised as "ball bearings" -- and the

illegal transfer of advanced missile accuracy technology under the guise of civilian sales to the Chinese space program.

O The outright theft of advanced nuclear weapons technology, by identified agents of the Chinese government, from the National

Laboratory at Los Alamos.

O The initiation of intimidating "missile tests" and wargames by the Chinese government just beyond the territorial waters of Taiwan,

coupled with a long history of rhetorical threats against Taiwan by China.

O The known influx of millions of dollars in illegal campaign contributions from agents of the Chinese government into the Clinton

Presidential campaign and into the national Democratic Party as well.

O The strong possibility that leaders of the national Republican Party never made the most of these reports, politically, because of their own

party's reliance on campaign contributions from megacorporations with strong financial links to China.

The lack of any meaningful American ACTION in response to these various aggressive moves, and indeed the scarcity of even purely verbal expressions of outrage, sends a bone-chilling message to our friends in Asia and a "green light" to our potential enemies there. We can forgive the leaders of China if they conclude that most Americans don't know -- or perhaps just don't care -- that democratic republics in Asia, who have stood by us and now look to us for protection, may someday be invaded by China, or even that our own children may someday be threatened directly.

Let us hope it is only the lack of knowledge -- and not something far worse -- that has kept so many everyday Americans silent.

For now, I will close by mentioning a high compliment that was paid to me last year by a law student from Asia: a law student, ironically enough, from Vietnam.

"You are not like other Americans," she told me. "You do not have 'round eye blindness'."

"Round eye blindness?" I asked.

"It is a malady," she replied, "associated with the Chinese military buildup." She paused. "Only Caucasians fail to see it."

Next month's article: CONSTRUCTIVE RESPONSES TO CHINA.

*****************************************************************

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT TO THE 21st CENTURY POPULIST: