CHINESE COMMUNIST INVASION OF TAIWAN --
A QUESTION OF "WHEN"?
...And the Possilbe Decline of the U.S. as a Super-Power
August 17, 2004
By Toby Westerman
Copyright 2004 International News Analysis Today
www.inatoday.com
Repeated warnings of a Chinese Communist invasion of the island are coming from the democratic government on Taiwan, while ominous threats issue from the China's mainland. China has long planned for an attack, and now Beijing is closer than ever to launching an offensive which will shake the world.
China's threats of attack, and its years-long preparation for the assault, provide eloquent testimony to Beijing's determination not just to capture Taiwan, but to supplant the United States as the major power in the Pacific - a position the U.S. has held since World War II.
In the increasingly likely event that China attacks Taiwan, only two choices are possible for the U.S. Navy: either come to the aid of the 50 million hopelessly out-gunned Taiwanese, and risk serious loss or even possible defeat at the hands of the evermore sophisticated Chinese land, air and naval forces; or watch as a democratic people fall under Beijing's iron hand.
WILL THE EAST BE RED?
Should the United States Navy be humiliated in the Pacific - through forced inaction or actual loss -- the shock waves would travel around the world. In the U.S., a mind- numbing sense of disbelief and confusion would quickly overwhelm the complacency brought on by some sixty years of U.S. naval supremacy in the Pacific.
China's close neighbors in the region, including Japan and the Philippines, would be forced to weigh their traditional ties to the U.S. in favor of cooperation with the Chinese dragon. U.S. military and economic ties in the region would soon collapse.
China is already seeking to become the economic leader of the Asia-Pacific region, a concept some observers find reminiscent of Japan's promise of a "co-prosperity sphere" in the early 1940s. Any American humiliation or defeat would insure the triumph of China's plans for hegemony in the region, and America's eventual swift decline as a global power.
FINANCED BY THE U.S.
America, the land of liberty, has ironically and tragically provided the money for much of Communist China's decade-long campaign to modernize its armed forces. Much of the technology over those ten-plus years has come from Russia, America's purported ally in the war on terror.
From the presidency of Richard Nixon up to this day, the United States has sold itself on the idea that capitalism and the "free market" will drown Communist theory, and that freedom will overcome Marxist totalitarianism.
Chinese goods proliferate in U.S. stores, American businesses prosper in China, and many "experts" paint a picture of a soon-to-be-capitalist China. Some even believe that a "Christianized" China is within sight.
COMMUNISM ON THE MARCH
Virtually ignored in this analysis are China's militarization, threats to its neighbors over territorial disputes, and the iron control of the Chinese Communist Party over the people of China.
It is that overwhelming Communist control, brought upon by a swift, technologically sophisticated, brutal, and thorough assault, which threatens Taiwan at this moment.
The Communist elite in Beijing remain committed to the extension of their version of Marxism: "socialism with Chinese characteristics."
The people of Hong Kong know from bitter firsthand experience the reality of what some "experts" call the "new" China.
Hong Kong reverted from British to Chinese rule on July 1, 1997, with the promise from Beijing that democratic principles inherited from Britain would be respected. China declared that the former colony would be governed under the principle of "one country, two systems," a concept first announced by former Chinese Communist leader Deng Xiaoping in 1984.
THE REALITY OF CHINA
Seven years after the end of British authority over Hong Kong, the population of the former colony is witnessing the continuing destruction of traditional liberties and the end to hope of any independence from China's all-powerful central government.
The people of Hong Kong are finding out what "one country, two systems" actually means: the Communist elite in Hong Kong have a firm grip on the island.
Strip away its "capitalist" veneer - businesses run by the Peoples Liberation Army, corporate and sophisticated financial structures connected to the military or the Chinese Communist Party -- and "socialism with Chinese characteristics" looks very much like old-style totalitarian Communism preparing for war.
While America's war on terror is real, the U.S. must also recognize that there are other deadly threats to its existence, and denying this reality will not make them disappear.
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