STANDING UP TO CHINA

Singapore.  Let’s first talk about money, the Chicoms and ours.  We have heroes of humanity pictured, like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Benjamin Franklin.  On every denomination of theirs, they picture the greatest mass murderer (as listed in Guinness) in human history.

This week saw the publication of Mao’s Great Famine, a work of impeccable scholarship by Dr. Frank Dikötter, a professor of history at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. 

Mao engineered a genocidal famine, which he called "The Great Leap Forward," from 1958-1962, by having his soldiers seize a third to a half of China’s grain harvests to sell for export that would pay for steel mills, cement kilns, glass factories, and oil refineries.  Rice became cheap in East Germany while Chinese ate tree bark.

The massive evidence assembled by Dr. Dikötter is proof that Mao, as the literary reviewers of his book put it, was "a monster in the same league with Stalin and Hitler," "a demented megalomaniac who laughed his way through the deaths of more than 45 million Chinese."

Mao laughed his way through the deaths of millions more of his fellow countrymen, who were tortured and died in his Laogai – the Chinese Gulag in which millions languish to this day – or shot like this peasant woman for being "counter-revolutionary":

Stare hard at this picture.  This happened to countless Chinese.  This is the image that should come to all of our minds whenever we hear any story or news item about Red China.  For it’s still Red, and always will be until it removes the most evil human being who ever lived off its money – and apologizes to the world for his existence.

Which is why China’s truculent demand that Japan apologize for seizing a Chinese fishing boat and arresting its captain for poaching in Japanese waters, after the boat rammed a Japanese Navy patrol vessel is so ludicrous – yet no laughing matter to all of China’s neighbors.

Here in Singapore, the papers are full of stories about the incident, for it so clearly highlights China’s increasing imperialist aggression and bullying.

The ramming incident occurred on Sept. 07 off a group of small uninhabited islets called the Pinnacles (Senkaku in Japanese, Diaoyu in Chinese – the largest of them is all of 20 acres).  In all of Chinese history, there is no record of any Chinese ever living on them or any Chinese government ever physically occupying them. 

In 1895 after a series of surveys, the Meiji government of Japan declared them terra nullis (land belonging to no one or no man’s land) and claimed sovereignty over them.  After WWII, America controlled them until 1972 (using them for bombing practice), when it returned them to Japan.

Prior to that, however, China recognized Japan’s sovereignty over them.  A 1969 Chinese government map labels the islets Senkaku (not Diaoyo) and shows them in Japanese, not Chinese, territory. 

Yet when large natural gas fields were discovered in the East China Sea, which China suspects may extend to the Pinacles, the Beijing Foreign Ministry announced with typical duplicitousness:

"China has indisputable sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands and adjacent islets which have been China’s inalienable territory since ancient times."

Here is a map of the East China Sea depicting how it is territorially divided by Japan (white line) and China (red line).  Which looks more reasonable and less imperialist to you?

The East China Sea is north of Taiwan, while the South China Sea is south of Taiwan.  China claims all of it too.  You won’t find a better example of arrogant imperialist aggression on the planet than China’s red line of claim to the entire South China Sea:

Whenever it is pointed out to the Chicoms that the South China Sea – through which 80% by value of the world’s shipping passes – does not belong to them, they explode in anger and have their Foreign Ministry announce:

"China has indisputable sovereignty of the South Sea, and China has sufficient historical and legal backing to support it."  In fact, it has none of either.

Look at these maps again, and you’ll understand why China has not got a single ally (save for North Korea and Burma) in this part of the world.  South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam:  their government and their people look upon China now as an imperialist bully.

The Vietnamese in particular have hated the Chinese for millennia, as China subjugated them from 207 BC to 905 AD, and brutally albeit briefly again in the early 1400s.  You can imagine how they feel about that South China Sea map.  It makes them want the US Navy back in Cam Ranh Bay, the finest deepwater shelter in all Southeast Asia.

That map is making the Filipinos very remorseful over what they now realize was an amazingly stupid decision to kick America out of its naval base at Subic Bay in 1992.  They’d love to have the US Navy back.

Here in Singapore, the US Navy has been here for decades, basing at the Changi Naval Station.  It’s a strong presence, with deep cooperation between the US and Singaporean militaries.  Nonetheless, it’s all we have between Japan and Diego Garcia in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

Meanwhile, out in the Indian Ocean, China is busy surrounding India.  It has built major Chinese naval bases at Gwadar and Ormara west of Karachi in Pakistan;  a nuclear submarine base on the island of Marao in the Maldive Islands;  a bunkering and refueling facility for the Chinese navy at Hambantota on the south coast of Sri Lanka;  a major Chinese naval base at Chittagong in Bangladesh; and a substantial electronic intelligence station plus naval base on Burma’s Cocos Islands.

This is what Chicoms call their "string of pearls" around India’s neck to choke it.  Does India have a counter-strategy?  No.  Do we have a counter-strategy for China’s growing imperialism in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean?  No.

George W. Bush did – a military alliance with India that included helping India build a blue-water navy, and a military alliance with Vietnam (no permanent enemies in geopolitics – we have to get over the "Vietnam trauma" as Bush put it) that included a joint US-India naval base at Cam Ranh Bay.

Bush also considered the idea of pulling out most of our 30,000 troops in South Korea and putting them back in Subic Bay after he brokered a deal with the Filipinos.

His plans were never realized, while the Chicom military – the PLA, People’s Liberation Army – grows in strength with every passing day.  Here’s a sobering assessment:  China Builds Its Own High-Tech Military.

The Chicom PLA will continue to strengthen while America under Zero will continue to weaken.   No matter how large the GOP victory is in November, Congress is not in charge of foreign policy.  We’ll have to wait until 2013 when a Conservative Republican president can start putting some real spine into US foreign policy – such as having John Bolton as Secretary of State.

Can we wait that long?  It’s not smart to take the chance that we can.  China is an extremely dangerous threat to us, and to most of its neighbors.  Congressional Republicans had better start the day of their swearing in as the new majority (January 24) to exercise what leverage they have to force a weenie White House to stand up to Beijing.

They can do so by applying the Other Golden Rule – he who has the gold makes the rules – such as zeroing out State Department budget requests unless the White House pursues alliances with China’s neighbors.

The opportunity to do so is being handed to us on a silver platter.  Japan Inc., for example, made a decision a couple of years ago to pull out of investing in China and invest in India instead, which will now accelerate.  India has a rule of law and respect for contracts that China does not.

It should be easy for Congress to encourage American business to do the same via incentives, although, granted, it’s no slam dunk given the infuriating prickliness of Indian bureaucrats and politicians.  Since Japan has led the way, the obvious move would be to promote US-Japan joint ventures in India.

It should be even easier to make deals with Vietnam.  Its economy is booming, tourists are all over the place, and it’s in a state of both rage and fear regarding China.  The Congressistas who will run the International Relations and Armed Forces Committees could go to Hanoi and New Delhi to start seriously discussing a Joint India-US naval presence in Cam Ranh Bay.

They could do the same in Manila regarding Subic – then fly out to the Spratly Islands with a press entourage in tow in a Philippine military helicopter to announce that the South China Sea is international, not Chinese territorial, waters.

In other words, now – as soon as we have a GOP Majority in Congress – is the time to start forging solid protective alliances with South and Southeast Asia countries that are desperate to have them with us.  It has become gin-clear to them that China is not their friend, is a truculently dangerous bully who means to hegemonize them.

Japan has showed real courage in standing up to China’s bullying regarding the Senkakus.  Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan response to China’s demand for an apology was:

"Senkaku is a Japanese territory. From that point of view, apology or compensation is unthinkable. I have no intention at all of meeting China’s demand."

All the countries in this region threatened by China are looking to America to support Japan and support them.  The opportunities are many for a Republican Congress to do so.

None of these countries want an antagonistic relationship with China, and neither do we.  They, and we, simply want an end to the arrogance, bullying, military threats, and claims that international waters belong to China.

Yet they also realize that the only guarantee of peace is superior firepower, and only we have it.

The bottom line from here in Singapore is that November 2^nd is not just about lowering taxes and government spending, not just about defunding ObamaCare and Zero’s other fascist programs, not just about protecting our borders and stopping amnesty for illegal aliens, not just about our domestic issues as crucially important as they are.

November 2^nd is also about America in the world.  China is a far bigger threat to America than a bunch of moon god-worshipping wackos with tiny zibbs who are afraid of women and want to live in the Middle Ages.  November 2^nd must have consequences for that threat.

That is certainly what folks here in Singapore hope.  As a Singaporean friend of mine pointed out to me:

"80% of China’s oil imports pass through the Malacca Straits (between Malaysia and Sumatra, ending in Singapore) – a critical chokepoint that could easily be choked off in case Beijing went after Taiwan. 

"But that is the last thing we want.  It could destroy our economy.  War with China has to be avoided, and we want to avoid it not by capitulating to and be in effect colonized by China.  We want to avoid it by persuading the Chinese to abandon their imperialist desires. 

"Such persuasion can only come with sufficient strength, and only America can provide it. Your current president does not have this strength.  This is why we in Singapore, and people in every country in this region, are watching to see what happens on November 2^nd.  We are all hoping your new Congress will help us stand up to China."