Crying Wolf and such

The US Department of Defense recently published its annual report on the "Military Power of the People's Republic of China" and pundits and analysts are combing through it to determine both what it may mean and what they can make it mean. David Isenberg, whose blog history has very little to do with East Asia affairs, has weighed in that the DoD is inflating China's threat capacity in order to inflate its own budget. While I have not read the annual report in its entirety I have read a number of excerpts, including those in Isenberg's most recent article and am unsure how he came to his conclusions or why he even wrote the article.

Throughout the article he praises the report but repeatedly implies that its true purpose was to raise alarm bells about China. He also reworks the old axiom that in the post-Cold War world parts of the US military industrial complex are determined to turn China into their reason for existing and for the US taxpayer to continue cutting checks. While that certainly describes some officials the "nuanced" and un-alarmist tone of the report belies their influence.

The report states that China leads the region in defense spending, especially considering that more than half of its estimated defense spending is undeclared and unaccounted for. There are even popular rumors on the mainland that the illegal DVD industry is partially run by the PLA as an extra source of income for the military. Isenberg plays down China's defense spending by comparing it to Taiwan: in GDP terms Taiwan's defense spending is only .1% less than China's defense spending. This is an interesting but altogether useless fact. Taiwan's military prepares for a single threat: attack from the mainland. This is something that Beijing repeatedly threatens, nay, promises if Taiwan declares independence. China doesn't even need an expensive invasion force- its got hundreds of comparatively cheap missiles ready to cross the straight! Moreover, Taiwan's GDP is less than one tenth the size of China's- as is its military spending. China has no powerful enemies loudly demanding it cease to exist as a political entity (how many fighter wings does the Dalai Lama have?) Try again Isenberg... and he does in comparing China with India.

India's defense spending, as a percentage of its GDP, is slightly higher than China's but the Indian economy is half of the size and has a running conflict with Pakistan to keep in mind- not to mention that China has defeated India in two wars in the last half of the twentieth century and India is always concerned there may be a third. Add to that an unstable Afghanistan and the recent terror attacks in Mumbai and I might find myself shoveling money to the Jawans too.

The obvious comparison is with the United States- American military spending dwarfs the Chinese. That being said America has military agreements with over one hundred different countries and the threat of American action stabilizes regions all over the world. China, on the contrary, eschews permanent alliances as potential infringements on sovereignty and doesn't give much of a damn about other country's situations.

None of that is to say that China doesn't have security concerns. It has separatist movements in a handful of provinces, a porous border with schizophrenic North Korea, and a semi-recent history of being ganged up on. It's just important to remember that comparing the military budgets of these four countries is like comparing apples to the Jonas Brothers; it's fun to talk about but complete waste of time.

Isenberg's article plays down the perceived Chinese threat to America and depending upon his intended audience that may be appropriate. However, China has made no secret that it wishes to be respected as a great power and a symptom of that is America writing annual reports about its military capabilities. Some analysts may find the United States' overpreparedness distasteful but it is also prudent.

At the moment I'm leaning towards concluding that Isenberg is one of many analysts who see the true threat to America in less glamorous places than a big and scary, nominally Communist country. China can be a boogeyman for some people and a raison d'etre for more than one defense department program but that isn't to say we shouldn't treat them the way they seek to be treated: as a power to be reckoned with and about.

Below: Areas of China where people are not positive that they want to be in China.

The Orient Express

Anyone who saw the front page of the Taipei Times last Friday could be forgiven for believing it was Taiwan's answer to The Onion. Right out in front it declared "China Planning Rail Link to Taiwan." For those of you with a quick head for how geography and/or gravity work and are therefore skeptical you can check the article here.

The Taiwan Straight is approximately 180 km (>110 miles) long. That's one hell of a long bridge/tunnel. That is the distance between Los Angeles and San Diego, except that instead of simply driving through seismically unstable SoCal the Taiwan Straight also forces you to contend with typhoons, undersea volcanoes, and in-transit Chinese and American nuclear submarines (click on my rendition below!)

For comparison's sake the Chunnel between England and France is about 50 km and took six years to complete. The Seikan Tunnel in Japan is about as long and took 17 years to build. The Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland, opening in 2015 will be 57 km long, is taking at least 22 year to build, and has cost $6.4 billion US dollars. The costs involved in building the China-Taipei-Neverland tunnel are hard to imagine and difficult to justify for a nation that still has hundreds of millions of people living like 19th century peasants.

Ignoring the physical problems there are still the massive political considerations. Not even China-friendly Taiwanese President Ma Ying-Jiu thinks it's a good idea at this point. In the event of a military showdown on the island the Taiwanese military is preparing for a protracted ground war and giving the Chinese a pre-existing railway into northern Taiwan would be giving them a suicidally ludicrous advantage. Of course the Chinese are planning this in anticipation of Taiwan peacefully coming back into the Mainland Fold. I'm reminded of South Korea's "Unification Road" that was built in anticipation of eventual Korean Unification.

But hey, they probably said the Great Wall was crazy too...

R-E-S-P-E-C-T doesn't mean to them what it means to me

Originally published in April of 2008 as a response to the Tibetan freedom protests in San Francisco, London, and Paris.

Being the first American that many Chinese people meet, even in a large city like Xi’an, I’m often peppered with questions about how the West perceives China. It’s a complicated conversation to have because most people I run into believe that the West is ignorantly and permanently succumbing to an anti-China bias. In response to this perceived phenomenon I’ve made the focus of classes this last week revolve around how to deal with anti-China protests. It’s been a revealing and occasionally frustrating experience.

The root of these frustrations stems from a very different concept of government vis self in China as opposed to in the West. When I get in front of a group of my students, even the ones I have a very good relationship with, and talk about international politics, I am not viewed as someone with an individual opinion. I’m viewed as representative of my culture, my country, and am intrinsically tied to my government. This is only made worse because of the general feeling that foreign governments are, again, attempting to interfere with and dominate China. This perception, which is encouraged by the media, colors everything I say as suspicious and possibly manipulative.

To try and break through this cultural wall I presented myself not as representative of a country that is protesting Chinese actions but as a citizen of the most protested against country on Earth. In the two months prior to the second Iraq war the United States and the United Kingdom were protested by 36 million people in nearly every country on the planet. It isn’t fun to have your country protested against even if you agree with the sentiments of the protesters… or even if you’re one of the protesters. The comparison between 36 million protesters and the less than 100,000 that have protested China in the last few months impressed some people but was met with objections from others because the anti-China protests are largely aimed at “internal Chinese issues.”

There’s a cultural tradition in China of ignoring anything that happens in your neighbor’s house because it is, well, not your house. This logic follows through to international relations and unfortunately China tends to perceive its house as the least ignored on the planet. This is of course not the case. As far as being the recipients of global scrutiny goes the countries of Europe and North America usually receive a greater amount of criticism than those of East Asia.

The U.S. election of 2004 received not only mountains of media scrutiny but spurred people from all over the world to write letters to American swing voters in an ill-advised attempt to sway them towards voting for John Kerry. This backfired and the targeted group of voters actually swung heavily towards George Bush. There is even a hilarious string of responses from Americans that took umbrage at this interference. On the day after the election a UK newspaper led with the headline of “How can 59,054,087 people be so stupid?” An editorial in the Guardian even went a step further and advocated the assassination of President Bush. (Though this was later retracted.)

This is significant because the United States has no closer friend than the United Kingdom. These two countries express their mutual respect through economic, political, and military cooperation. That’s the love language of the West. We get along well because we know how to pay deference to each other. Unfortunately China communicates respect in another way.

From China’s perspective there’s no respect so long as we freely criticize their internal politics. This irks the United States because of the incredible economic benefits that China receives due to our relationship; a relationship that is often viewed in the United States as unfairly stilted towards China. Indeed, the Chinese response to criticisms and protests, like the current demand for Ed Cafferty to apologize for stating his opinion of the Chinese government, confuses the West because we are so used to criticizing each other and reaffirms preconceived notions that the government is unsophisticated and something of a bully.

It’s going to take time for the government to adjust to criticism but it doesn’t have much of a choice in this matter. The protests will not stop. The only way to avoid international scrutiny is to shut off all contact with the wider world and that would include disrupting the economic benefits which are so essential to China’s relative prosperity.

It’s essential for China and the West to understand each other’s perspectives on respect and that will require a level of sophistication that everyone’s government is currently lacking. It isn’t going to be easy and the most frustrating job is undoubtedly going to be on the side of the Chinese government. This country is gaining admission to the rest of the world due to its economic potential and the larger share of adjustment will be placed on China’s shoulders… it’s a task that we shouldn’t envy. From my perspective Iraq looks a lot simpler.

Hello

For the last several years I've been living in either Taiwan or in Mainland China. I'll be using this blog to relate my experiences as well as my opinions of events that occur within and relating to the Chinese World. Your comments are appreciated!