http://www.onlinejournal.com/Media/Conover041001/conover041001.html
Ratcheting up for a war with China
By Bev Conover
April 10, 2001—As though George W. Bush's belligerence toward the rest of the
world weren't enough, the right-wing is now beating the drum for war with
China.
Chillingly, it is not only the hard-liners and old Cold Warriors in
Washington who relish taking on China and are ratcheting up the rhetoric,
following Bush's declaration that China is now a competitor rather than a
partner, but, in the wake of the spy plane incident, the right-wing media as
well.
NewsMax.com had this headline on Sunday's Inside Cover Story: Cheney Pleads
Ignorance on China War Threat
The thrust of the story by Carl Limbacher was a peppering Vice
President-select Dick Cheney got on Meet the Press from Tim Russert over an
alleged prediction last year by Chinese Defense Minister Chi Haotian that war
with the United States was "inevitable." Limbacher noted that Cheney told
Russert he had no knowledge of Chi's remark.
And the source for Chi's alleged prediction? Why none other than Bill Gertz,
a reporter for the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Washington Times.
Gertz, from the biographical information on his web site, is a darling of the
spook establishment:
"Bill has been a guest lecturer at the FBI National Academy in Quantico,
Va.; the Central Intelligence Agency; the National Defense University at Fort
McNair, Washington, DC; and the Brookings Institution, Washington, DC. He has
participated in the National Security Studies Program at the Johns Hopkins
University School of Advanced International Studies and Syracuse University
Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs."
In addition to being the author of two books, "Betrayal: How the Clinton
Administration Undermined American Security," (1999) and "The China Threat:
How the People's Republic Targets America" (Nov. 2000), both published by the
right-wing Regnery, his bio touts:
"He also has written articles for National Review, The Weekly Standard and
Air Force Magazine. Bill also has been a media fellow at the Hoover
Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University, California."
This is what Chi allegedly told him:
"Seen from the changes in the world situation, and the United States'
hegemonic strategy for creating monopolarity, war is inevitable. We cannot
avoid it.
"The issue is that the Chinese armed forces must control the initiative in
this war. We must make sure that we win this local high-tech war against
aggression and interference; win this modern high-tech war that [the]
military bloc, headed by U.S. hegemonists, may launch to interfere in our
affairs militarily; and win this war ignited by aggressor countries' sudden
offensives against China.
"We must be prepared to fight for one year, two years, three years, or even
longer." ["The China Threat" - Bill Gertz]
Whether Chi ever said this or not, Limbacher now seeks to give it credibility
by writing, "Russert's citation of Gen. Chi's comment was the first
mainstream U.S. news coverage of the Chinese defense minister's war threat."
Remember, master propagandist Goebbels put words into the mouth of Lenin;
words that are repeated today as though they were gospel.
Adding to Bush's insults to China, the Moonie paper Gertz works for, ran a
story from the Moon-owned UPI (April 9) that depicted the Chinese as country
bumpkins when it comes to their understanding of the U.S. and Americans.
Prefacing the article with, "The Hainan incident is not likely to lead to war
between the United States and China. This is not a conflict that can't be
resolved by peaceful means," UPI reporter James C. Bennett went on to say,
"But for the first time in several generations, perhaps, the prerequisites
for a war to fully engage the United States are falling into place."
And it will all be the fault of the "ignorant" Chinese, according to Bennett,
because "It's clear that the Chinese leaders fundamentally misunderstand the
situation."
To heat up the situation more, Bennett wrote, "The greatest likelihood of a
series of such incidents escalating into war stems from the possibility that
the Chinese leaders won't figure it out until too late."
Not to be left out of the chorus of the Rabid Right Us v. Them Saber
Rattlers, Joseph Farrah's WordNetDaily took the opportunity to pour more fuel
on the fire by having Geoff Metcalf interview "China expert" Steven W. Mosher
about "Beijing's dangerous intentions."
Mosher, who heads up the right-wing Population Research Institute, also is
the author of "Hegemon: The Chinese Plan to Dominate Asia and the Rest of the
World."
Metcalf claims the interview took place prior to "the current midair incident
and subsequent hostage taking had occurred." Hostage taking? Even the Sunday
pundits, according to American Politics Journal, avoided using the word
"hostage," while they danced all around it.
"Mosher makes a compelling case that the leaders of Communist China are
dangerous people, that they don't like the United States and regard this
nation as their enemy," said Metcalf.
From the interview:
METCALF: China has made it very clear—you have quoted them in your book, Bill
Gertz quotes them in his book—they are not being shy about what their
long-term plans are. They see us as the enemy and, eventually, they
anticipate they will be at war with us.
MOSHER: And this is not new news. Back in 1991, following the collapse of the
Soviet Union, America turned to China—the elder Bush turned to China—and
said in effect, isn't it wonderful the Soviet Union is now collapsed, you
don't have to worry about the Hegemon to the north. And Deng declared that
there was now a new cold war—not between the Soviet Union and the United
States, but between China and the United States. That was ten years ago. We
have had ample warning that China thinks of us as the dominant power to be
overthrow—the power that it [China] is going to replace in years to come as
our [U.S.] military and economic and cultural decay continues."
And:
METCALF: I have asked you this question before but, come on—the people in the
Pentagon, the people in the State Department, they are not stupid people. How
can they be confronted with the obvious facts already in evidence and think,
well if we're nice to the Chinese, if we accommodate them, eventually they
are going to get more democratic in their approach—and we want their
markets—so if we just play nice with them, eventually they are going to be a
good trading partner?
MOSHER: Well, I don't think most of the people in the Pentagon think like
that. And under Donald Rumsfeld, I think fewer and fewer will if they want to
keep their jobs.
METCALF: There's a new sheriff in town?
MOSHER: Yeah. And I've recently spoken with the FBI and, let me tell you,
they are very, very concerned about Chinese espionage in the United States.
They have a large and growing counter-espionage force specifically targeting
on Chinese agents, trying to prevent this massive theft of nuclear
technology, of missile technology.
Wait. That was 10 years ago. The world has changed. To be sure, the Chinese
have their old hardliners, just as we do and the Russians do. And since our
hardliners, despite the insults GW has hurled at the Russians, can't get a
conflagration going with Russia, why not start a war with China?
If you're asking whether we have lost our collective minds, the answer is no,
but the rabid right hardliners have and they have Defense Secretary Donald
"We Can Win a Nuclear War" Rumsfeld to lead the charge.
Given the Bush family's financial interests in China, and those of their
friends, such as Rupert Murdoch, we might ask if the Connecticut cowboy from
Texas overplayed his hand, thereby unleashing the war hawks now salivating
over the possibility of flinging missiles at Beijing?
A war with China, given its land mass and the size of its population is not
winnable. Every president, including Poppy Bush has known that. That is one
of the reasons Harry Truman relieved General Douglas MacArthur of his command
in Korea. MacArthur, after crossing the 38th parallel, wanted to expand that
war into China.
And what would we fight that war with, since we have gutted our industrial
capacity, shut down most of our shipyards, and allowed our aircraft
manufacturers to eat each other up in mergers? Will the Chinese sell us the
materials to make weapons we can use on them? Pick up just about anything in
our stores today and look where it is made: China. And as we and China bomb
each other to smithereens, Europe surely isn't going to come to our aid, not
the way Dubya has been telling folks there to take a hike. Canada is so
fuming over the Chimp-In-Thief's giving it the finger over its plea not to
drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge—not to mention that Prime
Minister Jean Chrétien had to explain to the White House Squatter where
Prince Edward Island is—that who could blame them if they joined with the
Chinese?
If we have any friends left in this world, thanks to the antics of the
Bushbaby, would they please ask the Chinese to accept, as Media Whores Online
put it, "not an apology for the incident itself. But what about [an apology]
for Smirk and [an expression of] our embarrassment not only to China but to
the rest of the world over his behavior since taking (and we do mean taking)
office? You know... Sending everyone a 'Pay no attention to that silly Bush
boy… We Americans didn't elect him, and he'll be out soon enough'sort of
signal."
