Posted by
Stan on Sunday, March 04, 2007 8:05:58 PM
The Chinese Dragon, and their incitement of a new Cold War. It's not really new that China is spending increasingly huge sums toward advancing their military, but it's increasingly looking like a bi-polar world.
China
will boost military spending by 17.8 percent this year, a spokesman for
the national legislature said Sunday, continuing more than a decade of
double-digit annual increases that have raised concerns among the
United States and China's neighbors.
This growing China, if
it can overcome rampant corruption, unchecked pollution, and in twenty
years its one-child-induced-top-heavy senior citizen problem, its
military and economic standing will be second to none. The hurdles on
the way however, make this one-man race to the top have the appearance
of risk, but as with all one-man races, 1st place is guaranteed.
They
learned that the USSR couldn't outspend the U.S., and is why it
collapsed. China has the big capitalist beast on the leash of
communism, and they know better than to let ideology get in the way of
prudence. We need to get in the race, and we need some help.
We
have options. 1) Hope they'll collapse on their own, and risk them
rivaling or overtaking our supremacy, and 2) Bankrupt them now, and
potentially ourselves in the process.
But our choice has already
been made. Thanks to Korea and Vietnam, containment no longer has that
allure, especially without half the world on our side. Thanks to Iraq,
acting before it's do or die risks political suicide.
Even if we
tried to contain China, or outspend them into the poor house, it
wouldn't be another round of U.S. vs. the Soviets, it would be a game
of capitalism. How do you take down a giant in the market?
With luck, we may enjoy option
3) Buy Indian. India is China's main competitor, and right now, we have
an advantage. We all but control the IMF, World Bank, and most global
financial centers which we can use to India's advantage. We need to get
India in the game, and use the two of them to our advantage. We'll need
to support China's competition, and win this war economically. And we
need to do it while we still can save Taiwan.