Chinese General Threatens U.S. Over Taiwan

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5142916,00.html

Think about this on your next trip to Wally World...

Thppppppppt. I like the Chinese. They're very polite. I shop Walmart in support of China.

Well, okay, I shop at Walmart 'cause I'm cheap. I admit it. You shop there too. Yeah, you....the fat guy in front of the monitor! Admit it...you got bills to pay, a mouth to feed, a gas tank ta fill. We want our good life, and we will sell ourselves to the Orient to do it.

Just means that someday we'll all be swearing in Chinese. Shiny!

Haha, you make my laugh! All the shiny you could possibly want at .99 a bling! Oh and I completely agree -- the Chinese are very polite while taking over the world.

Oh, and bet your bippy that _I_ personally do everything possible not to shop at Wally World. Target, yeah, when I gotta. I object to Wal Mart more on principle, as they aggressively drive domestic manufacturing to China so their little yellow smiley guy can slash a few pennies off the price points of pantyhose.

The gist of this is, of course, that we westerners are cheerfully funding the Chinese military build-up every time we buy that must-have trinket with the made in China label. Chinese companies -- even if not out-rightly state-owned -- are assessed heavy export taxes. In either case, the Chinese government is the primary beneficiary of our Wally World gluttony.

Interesting thought though - if a US boycott were to destabilize China's economy would they be more peaceful? Or less?

Come on people we know the Wal-mart does not sell stuff from China. China cost to much, it’s all from Indonesia and Radical Moro (Muslim) controlled Philippines you know the next place we are going to war at.

Doh, I completely forgot. I stand corrected!

Good question. I personally think that there is a point of diminishing return. I think it is a very good thing, actually, for the US and China to have a healthy trade relationship. However, when it becomes as woefully one-sided as it is now, I think it emboldens the trade partner (read:China) to push an self-serving agenda.

The U.S. tried that strategy - and others - in the 1930s with Japan. The outcome was - you guessed it - Pearl Harbor.

LOL good now that we got that out of the way lets start dropping bombs.

... again?

Yeah that was the case i was considering. Japan had heavy industry which needed material we decided to no longer provide , although it could be argued the US had good reason - war with Japan should have been thought of as a possible outcome.

Our hands are tied with Taiwan - we signed a treaty and agreed to suport them.

If we withdraw from the treaty the world will see us as giving it up for sacrafice to China.

But China sees it as land that unlawfully suceeded from them when they didnt have the ability to stop it.

As long as the General isn't thumping the table with his shoe

The Chinese don't need to drop bomb on the US. They just need to stop financing our outrageous debt.

Shhhh-HHH-hhh! Don't say that too loudly! Big Brother might hear you.

Well, we definately won't see the last. We were on edge with the Chinese for awhile there, (I can't remember which year, where the spyplane landed in Chinese territory under Clinton). Yes that was very smart.

It just seems like China is trying to represent itself as the 'other Russia'.

Strangely, the U.S.'s "good reason" was the Japanese invasion of China....

Lest anyone forget, China was the most powerful state in the world between 200 BC and about 1650-1750 AD. Dynastic cycling and the inability to keep up with the Europeans technologically and commercially led to the fall of the empire in the nineteenth century, and the near-destruction of Chinese culture during the Taiping Rebellion, the Sino-Japanese War, the failed Republic, the Warlord period, the Second World War, the civil war of late forties, and Mao's various misadventures like the Cultural Revolution.

2000 years of dominance ended a little more than a century ago, and the Chinese blame the West. Likely they will be the world's only other "superpower" besides the U.S. (the Soviet Union never achieved that status), and whereas Americans and Russians shared a cultural heritage, the Chinese literally and figuratively come from "the opposite end of the earth". Misunderstandings are very common and very dangerous.

On the other hand, the Chinese recognize the importance of commerce and contracts, and are a very practical people. Solid, ruthless diplomats, too. The general's comments are likely a small part of the controlled diplomatic game that the U.S. and China have played over Taiwan for the last forty years.

Of course the USSR was a superpower at the time. They probably could have pushed us back out of Germany and beyond after WWII, or at least given us a very hard time, and they only gained strength after that. If NATO, which included much more than just the US "superpower", was concerned about the USSR, how could the Soviets not be one? Sounds like wishful thinking to make "the old days" seem better than they actually were to me.

This general's tough talk is just routine crap though. The US "could" do alot of things too, it's all a big political power struggle game to keep the other side guessing, same as the Cold War was.

Depends, is genocide on the approved list of good reasons?

It happened on April 1, 2001. That was during the administration of our current president, not Clinton.

http://www.time.com/time/asia/news/printout/0,9788,104692,00.html

Our response to this incident was extremely strong. I think Bush said something like, "Pretty please Chinese people, give us back our spy plane."

Something like that. Like I said, I couldn't remember what year it happened in. Anyway, twas pretty dumb on our part.

Historically we've always had a trade imbalance with China. Even in the 1700's we were trading gold, silver and furs (only things they wanted) for whole fleets of tea, porcelain and furniture. The only problem is that our demand for cheap imports is, in turn, creating a huge consumer culture in China. Every week more than 10,000 Chinese are buying their first car, and they are going to be buying gas and driving the cars, rather than bicycles. Our economy is primarily based on high technology and access to cheap energy. When those are gone, we are going to have to rely on something else. What will that be?

The definition of a superpower is this:

a) The ability to project overwhelming military power anywhere on the planet. With the possible exception of nuclear warfare, the USSR never had that capability. They did, however, have the capability of projecting that kind of power in Eurasia.

b) The ability to project overwhelming diplomatic and political power anywhere on the planet. Again, the USSR had that power in some areas of the world, but not in all.

c) The ability to project overwhelming industrial and commercial power anywhere on the planet. The USSR was never even close. Anywhere.

d) The ability to project overwhelming cultural influence anywhere on the planet. Outside of Russia? No.

The Soviet Union had a formidable military capability in certain parts of the world. That's not what it takes to be a "superpower".



I don't know what you mean. The Soviet Union was the most dangerous adversary ever faced by the United States. In some ways, more dangerous than China may prove to be.



I think I said that.



Sure. And the Japanese committed genocide in China, at Nanking and other places. However, the U.S. did not have a clear picture of what was going on in China when the embargoes and other actions where put into place. That picture emerged when reports by German diplomats were published later.

Are you arguing that this is good? Because I can see some good in it. It was the public demand for a consumer culture in the Soviet Union that largely led to the Gorbachev reforms and the eventual downfall of the USSR.

I think the Chinese leadership are smarter than the Soviet leadership, and may be more adaptive to public demands, as well as more ruthless in putting down what they regard as "excess". That's both good and bad - but may ultimately work to maintain stability in Sino-American relations.

I've heard that the reforms were brought about by an economic downturn brought about by a failure to acquire sufficient supplies of oil.

~Ulrika~

The thought of war with China is rather unnerving. I know for a fact, they won't hesitate to use nuclear weapons in their arsonel. I watched a documentary about their nuclear testing programs (or at least one of them).

Theyre insane! Their military actually goes in after the 'bomb' blows off... I wouldn't even know what the purpose of that is..