Timothy Birdnow

I generally agree with Spengler aka David Goldman. He's a brilliant man. But I think he's confused in this essay, or at least thinks too highly of the Chinese.

From the article:

In that respect Kissinger is right. We don’t want a war with China. And an all-out trade war would devastate the world economy. But that’s not the choice. Steve Bannon et al. have moved to the political fringe. We're at no danger of war with China.

He's oversimplifying the arguments, and he's overplaying China's abilities, in my view.

First, I don't know about Steve Bannon, but I think we can and should knock China down a few pegs because if wwe do not they we will have China carving us up like the Christmas goose. I mean that literally; China will eventually challenge us, and they will eventually try to dismantle America. It's what Communists do. Green seems to think China is just another nation. He's been seduced by the prosperity theory, something even New Gingrich has dismissed at this point. China does not care about the prosperity of her people. In fact, the Chinese People see little of it; most of it is in the hands of connected individuals. In fact, the Chinese worker is not gettting any of this bounty. Oh, they aren't starving anymore, but they aren't prospering, either.

It should be pointed out that the most dangerous time for any despot is when the economy is booming but the citizenry are not getting any. Modest reform is dangerous. Revolutions do not happen in societies that are dirt poor; rather, they happen when a society is on the rise. The People have rising expectations, and if those are not met - and real reform does not happen - then talk of treason is in the air.

Also, China is becoming more despotic, if anything. Consider the social credit system.

I also disagree with Mr. Green in that I believe China's great success and wealthy is in no small part a function of Western and especially American surrender to cheap goods. China builds cheap stuff. America quit making anything under the internationalist visions of Clinton, Bush, and Obama. They have lots of money because we all stopped building and bought Chinese. But therte are other rising economic powers, like India, and there is no reason we cannot return to a manufacturing economy. Oh, and then there is a rising industrial base in Latin America.

I don't think it would be easy, but I do think China is in real trouble, and it should be. The Chinese military and other insiders have set themselves the task of displacing us, not competing with us. They are planning for war with us, they steal our science and technology, they subvert our political system.

Now I don't deny they have every RIGHT to do this, but we have every RIGHT to do it righ back to them. I want to see the Communists destabilized. The more internal trouble they have the less danger they pose to us.

I'd love to restore the Nationalists in Taiwan to power, but I'm old fashioned.

At any rate, I think Spengler is wrong here. Too many Western elites seem to believe this "inevitability" argument.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 12:22 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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