PEOPLES PRESS INTERNATIONAL (PPI) - - - a public service of CADRE (Citizens for a Democratic Renaissance) http://cyberjournal.org - - - ppi.034-India & China: lining up to start Uncle Sam's war? rkm essay including excerpts from postings of Informed Voter Project (I-VOTE) - - - Republication permission granted for non-commercial and small-press use with all sig & header info forwarded appropriately, please. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dear Friends, In ppi.010, in my essay "Elites & the science of history", I concluded with: > thing[s] you really need to know about the elite [are] that > (1) they have power, > (2) they make plans, > (3) they are [pursuing] a program. > > The further details/data are more readily and reliably obtained > from the daily news than from covert revelations. To this •••@••.••• (I N Cognito) responded, in part: > So, what are you waiting for, science boy, publish some predictions. Mr. Incognito may be endeavoring to `call my bluff' but long-time readers would recogize that I _love his kind of challenge. I will return to this in another posting with an outline of predictions, but first I'd like to look in more depth at a particular prediction, made some time ago, about the inevitability of a major confrontation between Çhina and the US. (You might want to look at the article, "China vs Globalization, the Final War and the Dark Millenium", found on "http://www.iol.ie/~rkmoore/cyberjournal", under the name "China_vs_Globalism.txt"). One problem with claiming this particular `prediction' is that many others have made a similar prediction, in fact I first adopted the thesis after reading a "Foreign Affairs" issue which focused on the topic. With justice or not, you decide, I count among my `predictions' not only ones that I figure out for myself, but also ones that I select (and refine!) from others: the point is the _accuracy of the final list and the validity of the _analysis used to justify the predictions. The basic fact is that China is the only nation remaining in the world, other than the US, which at the same time: a) is a major nation, what in the old days was called a `great power' b) has a nation-centered economic-development policy c) has a considerable military, an independent foreign policy, and nuclear weapons d) has designs on a national `sphere of influence' (ie, Asia) China has made it very clear that it considers itself to have an inherent right to Asian hegemony, and that the US Navy cannot forever treat Chinese waters as its own lake. US policy planners, on the other hand, proclaim, with seemingly the same finality as the Monroe Doctrine: "China's goal of achieving paramount status in Asia conflicts with an established American objective: preventing any single country from gaining an overwhelming power in Asia. The United States, after all, has been in major wars in Asia three times in the past half-century, always to prevent a single power from gaining ascendency." - Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro, "The Coming Conflict with America", Foreign Affairs (March/April 1997) Here we see a congruence between the requirements of globalization and the requirements of classical (pre-1945) US imperialism. US Foreign-policy circles still use the terminology of the classical age, long after US economic planners have abandoned that perspective in favor of neoliberal globalism. This schism in US national thinking, strangely enough, seems to go universally unnoticed. China is a threat to the smooth operation of globalization. Globalization is the unifying of all markets globally, with order to be maintained by a single global policing force, currently being fashioned out of US and NATO elite forces. China threatens both the vision of unified markets and the vision of a unified global policing force. If globalization is to succeed, China must submit or be demolished, as Germany and Japan learned c. 1945, and the USSR learned c. 1990. The digestion of China into the global regime will be the final `mopping up' of strong nation-centered powers, other than the US, and the US forces only _pretend to be (and to some extent _believe they are) pursuing `US national interests' -- in fact their hidden agenda since at least 1942 has been the creation of globalization's platform -- a non-partitioned global marketplace -- on behalf of TNC's generally. The US is frantically preparing for a military confrontation with China, with its intensive program of "C4" research and development. "C4", "Command, Communications, Control, Countermeasures" (or something to that effect) is an all-digital global system based on satellites, computers, lasers, sensor planes, unmanned craft, stealth, night warfare, cruise missiles, tactical nukes, etc, whose preliminary prototypes were tested in Desert Storm. With a more advanced version of C4 the US hopes to disable Chinese systems, gain complete `control of theater', and thus demolish China while avoiding a wider nuclear conflagration. But of course the US will arrange this confrontation by some means that exonerates it from aggressive intent. It pulled the same trick in WW-2, when its aggressive designs against Japan and the USSR were well-masked. We all remember Uncle Sam as the `defender of democracy against fascism and Asian imperialism', but the less-publicised historical record shows clearly that the US systematically funded and supported nazism and supplied Japan with all it needed to build up its imperial forces. (Did you know a General Motors plant operated in Germany before and during the war, and manufactured the planes that bombed Britain?... and that General Motors collected damages from the US government because some of its plant was bombed by the US Air Force?) If we see that Germany is winning we should help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany and that way let them kill as many as possible . . . - Harry S. Truman, 1941 If the US is true to form, it will encourage China to get into a war with someone else, as it encouraged Iraq to invade Kuwait. Then Uncle Sam will mount his white horse, put on his white hat, and the world will cheer as he rides to the rescue of whichever pawn was intentionally sacrificed to the China strategy. Will the pawn be India? I can't predict this with any certainty, because it's a tactical issue, not a strategic one. Strategic developments _can be predicted confidently, because they are derived from the clearly stated goals of elite planners, but tactics depend on varying conditions, chance opportunities, etc. But India is a very good candidate. It is too large for an invasion of it to be ignored, as was that of Tibet; the world would _expect the US to `do something'. Below we read in the first article... Defence Minister George Fernandes has declared China as the "potential threat number one" with its military and naval involvement beginning to "encircle" India along the border with Pakistan, Myanmar and Tibet. and in the second... BEIJING (AP) - Arms suppliers from around the globe touted their wares - everything from submarine gear to military computers - Tuesday at an exhibition showcasing the technology China covets for its huge but backward military. ...The prospect of peddling to the world's largest army drew weapons and support systems suppliers from 14 countries, including the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Israel, Italy and Sweden. Before China can be conquered, it must first be allowed to build up a `credible threat' and to become confident enough in its strength to fall into the American / globalist trap by invading perhaps India, perhaps Taiwan, or perhaps some pawn #3. predictively yours, rkm ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 May 1998 From: Gene Woltz <•••@••.•••> To: Informed Voter Project I-VOTE <•••@••.•••> Subject: China is threat No.1, says Fernandes Bcc: •••@••.••• vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv Informed Voter Project (I-VOTE) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TRAITOR IN THE WHITE HOUSE The Consequences Begin . . . --- Start of Document --- The Hindustan Times NEW DELHI, May 3 (HTC) http://www.hindustantimes.com/ht/nonfram/040598/detfro02.htm China is threat No.1, says Fernandes Defence Minister George Fernandes has declared China as the "potential threat number one" with its military and naval involvement beginning to "encircle" India along the border with Pakistan, Myanmar and Tibet. "Any person who is concerned about India's security must agree with that fact," averred Mr Fernandes. In support of the perception, he drew attention to the transfer of missile technology and nuclear know-how to Islamabad by Beijing besides the nuclear weapons stockpiled in Tibet along the borders with India. The Defence Minister disclosed that over the last six months, there has been a lot of elongation of military air fields in Tibet, where the latest version of the Sukhoi aircraft were going to be parked. On the eastern frontier with India, the Chinese have also trained and equipped the Myanmar Army, whose overall strength has gone up from 1,70,000 to 4,50,000. This scenario of a Chinese involvement along the Indian borders from Pakistan right up to Myanmar, including Tibet, extended to the Indian waters, continued Mr Fernandes. He said Myanmar's territory of Coco Islands, on the northern tip of Andaman and Nicobar, has been taken on loan by Beijing and converted into a monitoring post (for keeping track of India's activities) through installation of "massive" electronic surveillance equipment. "There is no doubt in my mind that China's fast expanding navy, which will be the biggest navy in this part of the world, will be getting into the Indian Ocean fairly soon," contended the Defence Minister. He pointed in the same breath to Beijing's plans to transform Coco Islands into a major naval base - which would be a direct threat to India - and the construction of harbours on Myanmar's western coast where Chinese ships can be towed in. "Their (the Chinese) senior officials have said that the Indian Ocean is not India's ocean," remarked Mr Fernandes. In support of the view that New Delhi has often underplayed, even ignored, the potential threat from China, he said: "To underplay the situation across the Himalayas is not in the national interest... I think there is a reluctance to face the reality that China's intentions need to be questioned. This is where our country has made mistakes in the past - in the early fifties and in the sixties, for which we paid the price." In an interview to 'In Focus With Karan,' to be telecast tomorrow by Home TV, Mr Fernandes, while terming China as a bigger threat to India's security than even Pakistan, remained unconvinced about Islamabad's claims of possessing a (nuclear) bomb. The threat posed by Beijing to New Delhi's security interests also figured in the V. K. Krishna Menon Memorial lecture the Defence Minister delivered here this evening. ----<snip>---- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 May 1998 From: Gene Woltz <•••@••.•••> To: Informed Voter Project I-VOTE <•••@••.•••> Subject: World's top weapons firms court Chinese military -- the world's largest --- Start of Document --- Associated Press 1.08 p.m. ET (1709 GMT) May 12, 1998 http://www.foxnews.com/news/wires2/0512/n_ap_0512_154.sml World's top weapons firms court Chinese military -- the world's largest By Elaine Kurtenbach BEIJING (AP) - Arms suppliers from around the globe touted their wares - everything from submarine gear to military computers - Tuesday at an exhibition showcasing the technology China covets for its huge but backward military. The defense electronics trade fair in Beijing is China's first to focus solely on sales of military technology. The prospect of peddling to the world's largest army drew weapons and support systems suppliers from 14 countries, including the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Israel, Italy and Sweden. Even Japan, which bans weapons exports, was represented by one firm: Y-Max, a maker of hardware and software for portable test equipment. Deluxe displays of the latest avionics and air traffic control systems set up by U.S. firms Raytheon and Lockheed Martin were evidence that although U.S. limits on sales of most military technology to China remain in place, warming diplomatic relations have made the issue less sensitive. China needs advanced technology to remake its 2.9 million-member armed forces into a modern fighting force. Its People's Liberation Army is believed to lag a decade or more behind in many areas. Command and control systems and combat training are inadequate; airborne reconnaissance and early warning systems are lacking. Hoping to leapfrog several generations of technology, the sponsors of the trade show, the Ministry of Information Industry and the General Equipment Headquarters of the PLA, are focusing on developing defense-related electronics, telecommunications, aviation, nuclear power and shipbuilding. The PLA's shopping list also includes such basics as long-range bombers and fighters, in-flight refueling capability, airborne early warning systems and anti-aircraft missile systems. Many of the products on display at the show could be used for both civilian and military purposes. But most items - radar; command, control, communications and intelligence systems; navigation and early warning systems; microwave components; military computers; test equipment and simulators; artillery training systems - clearly were intended for military use. Trade shows are just one part of China's larger effort to bring its fighting force up to date. Beijing has been cultivating closer ties between its armed forces and the militaries of many other countries, including the United States. Such exchanges have enabled top Chinese generals to tour U.S. defense complexes and to observe demonstrations of the kind of technology they want for their own troops. China's purchases of advanced submarines, aircraft and other leading edge technology have unnerved its neighbors, who in turn are beefing up their own militaries. © 1998 Associated Press. All rights reserved. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Seeking an Effective Democratic Response to Globalization and Corporate Power" --- a workshop retreat for those committed to systemic change June 25 <incl> July 2 - 1998 - Nova Scotia - Canada --- Restore democratic sovereignty Create a sane and livable world Bring corporate globalization under control. 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