War With China

Kick 'em when they're down

 Coming soon to a basketball court near you

The headline over on marketwatch.com a few weeks ago screamed "China rips U.S. on debt-rating downgrade". Apparently, the Chinese, as the US's largest single creditor, now feel that gives them the right to hector us to the effect that we must slash "gigantic military expenditure and bloated social welfare costs” and accept international supervision over U.S. dollar issues." Of all the unmitigated gall.

And just this past weekend we get an absolutely iconic image right here that's worth a lot more than 10,000 words: a Chinese basketball player putting the boot to an American lying on the ground.  You couldn't have posed anything nearly so telling.

Communist China, the country that stole all our jobs, sends us deadly dog food, defective drywlla, toxic toothpaste, dangerous drugs, and cheap garbagy electronics that break the first time you try to use them, suddenly has the nerve to tell us how to run our country? Communist China, the country with the worst human rights record on the planet with the possible exception of their puppet client state of North Korea, the country that is so afraid of freedom of expression that they kicked out Google, the country that mowed down its own citizens in Tienamin Square for having the audacity to conduct peaceful protests, this antisocial rogue nation has the temerity to tell the US what to do? This is simply beyond outrage.

Now the great irony of course is that they're absolutely right. We are wasting tremendous sums of money on all sorts of stuff we obviously simply can't afford.  This can't go on forever.  But gosh darn it all, we don't want to hear it from them.

The lessons of history

In the meantime, I'm going to go waaay out on a limb and at the risk of sounding like a crackpot, predict that World War III is already on the distant horizon.  It's not entirely clear where the lines will be drawn but I'm pretty sure that this time it will go something like this: the US, plus her traditional allies like Britain, the British Commonwealth nations (Canada, etc.), and France, plus our former enemies, now great allies, Germany and Japan, versus Russia, Iran, China, and their hangers-on, ie. North Korea, Pakistan, and Venezuala.

In some sense, the war's already on.  Just look at the picture again.  Then consider all the recent episodes of cyber-hacking against the US originating freom China.  China knows they cannot defeat us militarily (yet) so they are concentrating on other less obvious means.  Just as Sun Tzu advocated a few thousand years ago.  Dodgy exports and computer hacking are the least of it.  China's shameful currency manipulation shenanigans don't get nearly the blame they deserve.

Basically, the Chinese have been cased for the West since the advent of the 19th century missionaries who thought it would be a good idea for them to all become Christians.  That's what the Boxer Rebellion was all about - to kick out the "white devils".  Then America had the misfortune to back the wrong side in World War II.  China has never forgiven us for supporting Chiang Kai Shek and his nationalists instead of Chairman Mao.  Now they're out for revenge.

What can we do?

Not a whole heck of a lot, I'm afraid.  Personally, I've got *.cn blocked at my router.  I also check the tags now of everything I buy for the "Made in China" warning label.  Admittedly,  it's sometimes hard to find an alternative, but I'd rather buy jeans from Mexico or Thailand than anything from China.  Beyond that, God help us.