U.S. Alarmed by Harsh Tone of China’s Military

[Purveyor]

Source: nytimes


By MICHAEL WINES

BEIJING — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates met his Chinese counterpart, Liang Guanglie, in Vietnam on Monday for the first time since the two militaries suspended talks with each other last winter, calling for the two countries to prevent “mistrust, miscalculations and mistakes.”

His message seemed directed mainly at officers like Lt. Cmdr. Tony Cao of the Chinese Navy.

Days before Mr. Gates arrived in Asia, Commander Cao was aboard a frigate in the Yellow Sea, conducting China’s first war games with the Australian Navy, exercises to which, he noted pointedly, the Americans were not invited.

Nor are they likely to be, he told Australian journalists in slightly bent English, until “the United States stops selling the weapons to Taiwan and stopping spying us with the air or the surface.”

The Pentagon is worried that its increasingly tense relationship with the Chinese military owes itself in part to the rising leaders of Commander Cao’s generation, who, much more than the country’s military elders, view the United States as the enemy. Older Chinese officers remember a time, before the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 set relations back, when American and Chinese forces made common cause against the Soviet Union.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/world/asia/12beijing.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

[Francesca9]

1. That is what Japan told the Us in 1938i

[Odin2005]

2. surplus of young men = trouble.

[Psephos]

4. They have a big surplus.

China has added millions more men than women since the One Child policy went into effect in the late 70s. China never lost its cultural "son preference," which has led to greater frequency of abortion for female fetuses, female infanticide, and greater childhood illness and death rates for girls. Over the past 30 years, the ratio of male to female infants has increased to 117:100.

This is already a huge cultural and political problem, and it is going to grow steadily worse. As you rightly observed, young men without a family or even a girlfriend will find other outlets into which to channel their emotions.

[proteus_lives]

5. Importing brides from other parts of Asia is a big deal in China now.

But it's not enough.

This will lead to serious economic, social and military trouble.

[MattSh]

10. So I guess the US has a surplus of young men too...

Since we're stirring up a lot more trouble around the world than the Chinese are...

[gateley]

3. And they're buying all our debt. They own us. nt

[proteus_lives]

6. It's M.A.D.

They own us but if we don't pay, they're screwed.

[Francesca9]

8. We can afford to pay - as long as we cut health care

[Francesca9]

7. But they need our debt, there isn't enough without us

[girl gone mad]

11. A very clueless interpretation of our trade relationship.

They certainly don't "own us" just because they've purchased interest-bearing bonds with the fiat dollars we've given them in exchange for finished goods.

ETA: it's precisely this type of rhetoric that is creating problems. Making China the scapegoat for our failed economic policies is foolish on so many levels.

[gateley]

16. I'm not saying China is the scapegoat for our failed economic policies and I

hardly think it's "this type of rhetoric" that is the cause of our problems. We're solely to blame for that, IMO. And I'm not blaming China for anything, merely trying to express my concern that they could have us financially over a barrel if they chose to go that route.

Go pick on somebody else who's comments actually MEAN something, rather than a clueless poster like me.

[zenprole]

9. Dong Feng with a side of decline, please.

Payback's a bitch. Check out China's new Dong Feng 21D anti-ship ballistic missile. Since China has the technology to successfully target a satellite from the ground (instead of skewing and/or falsifying a few decades worth of test results, like some countries I could mention), it seems a logical leap to say the USN is shitting their pants.

Domestically, this adds a problem as well: huge expenses are central to military budget infighting and carriers are the biggest-ticket item for the Navy. If a missile costing perhaps $20m can take out a ship costing 200 times as much ($4bn+) that kinda takes off the shine. Watch for admirals with begging cups outside your local Starbucks.

And if China can mount the Dong Feng on a surface ship or submarine, fuhgeddaboutit.

[SkyDaddy7]

13. Despite your cheer leading for China...

You obviously have no clue what the US Military can do not only in defense but on offense when it comes to fighting other state military. NO CLUE WHATSOEVER!

Keep cheering but China has a decade or two plus a few wars to understand exactly how to use what they have in real time battle before they are on level ground with the US...Not that I am in favor of war, QUITE THE OPPOSITE, but I am not delusional either.

[northernlights]

12. wierd...

“Why do you sell arms to Taiwan? We don’t sell arms to Hawaii,” said Col. Liu Mingfu, a China National Defense University professor and author of “The China Dream,” a nationalistic call to succeed the United States as the world’s leading power."

Um, when's the last time Hawaii called you up looking for arms, Col. Mingfu? :shrug:

As to our meeting with the Dalai Lama...we don't tell you which spiritual leaders you can or cannot meet with. What makes you think you can extend your censorship outside your borders?

As to military exercises with S. Korea, your pals in N. Korea keep threatening us and S. Korea.

[lunatica]

14. Alarmed by their tone?!

Why, because they sound a lot like we do now?

[tinymontgomery]

17. That was my first thought

we don't say anything different. What did we say to the leader of Iraq?

[bemildred]

15. Welcome to the clue train Bob. nt

[Rex]

18. Since when did we fall in love with Communist China?

Oh right, since Karl Rove started taking money for them as a US Chamber of Commerce whore! Maybe our military needs to talk to the CofC to see whois side they are on!