WORLD BRIEFING: China: Joint Army Exercise With India, By Agence France-Presse, New York Times, June 8, 2007, Pg. 6BRIEFLY: China-U.S. Showdown Predicted By Lee, Washington Times, June 8, 2007, Pg. 16
China continues to confound by refusing the bait.
This is exactly how the China team so infuriated the American team in "The New Map Game": it simply refused to play our reindeer games but nonetheless escaped both isolation and vilification by playing as many sides against our middle time after time.
Taiwan can complain all it wants, but money's always talked. Taiwan had more before because it's a fab market state. Now China has more because even its imperfect (and brutal) markets have unleashed too much genie ever to get put back in a bottle, and that money now talks louder.
Once that money says enough, and the strategic worm turns, "inconceivables" like the first Sino-Indian mil ex become possible, rapidly segueing to routine.
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Comments (3)
Hi Tom,
A better "win-win" strategy for the United States is to lock China into multiple regional structures in such a way that the natural fear of China the 800 pound Gorilla ( which has also been expressed by Lee Kwan Yew and is felt in Australia, Hanoi, Taipei, Tokyo and New Delhi) is channeled into productive rather than destructive efforts at erecting countervailing checks and balances.
East Asian NATO as you have written about many times before is one - how about a Pacific Rim Community from India to South America ?
Posted by zenpundit
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June 9, 2007 12:13 AM
Hi Tom,
Fabulous examples of your thesis at work; in particular, the joint Sino-Indian military exercises.
Could we just conclude that Lee Tung-Hui is an anachronistic nut? Who was more responsible for the economic growth in Taiwan for the last ten years, him or China, that rising tide that lifted all boats, including deflationary Japan and as far away as Peru (copper mines!)?
^zenpundit - are formal regional, political/military organizations, like an East Asian NATO, even necessary? I think that China, along with its Southeast Asian partners, have been able to divorce politics from economics; by doing so, economic organizations, like ASEAN, with the focus on improving economic relationships, pull (along with political and military) ties forward.
Also, pragmatism through economic interests seem to fit Asia's mindset.
When companies in Australia, Taipei, Tokyo are reporting record earnings on China demand, outsourcing to China, who's fearing China other than their respective (professional) politicians?
Bottom line: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson had the right idea that things like "Strategy Economic Dialogue" would jive with China than political issues.
Posted by AriGoldValentino | June 10, 2007 12:39 PM
Are formal regional political/military organisations even necessary?
Rule sets usually last best if they have an institution to look after them. Given that the only operational example we have is the EU-NATO-OSCE-ANZUS/ANZUK-G8 complex, which is very institutional, this has to be treated as a nontrivial fact.
Posted by Alex | June 11, 2007 5:50 AM