All War All The Time

Via Scott Horton, Congressional Quarterly's Jeff Stein notes that the geniuses in the Defense Department seem to have been deliberately courting US-China conflict:

While Bush publicly continued the one-China policy of his five White House predecessors, Wilkerson said, the Pentagon “neocons” took a different tack, quietly encouraging Taiwan’s pro-independence president, Chen Shui-bian. “The Defense Department, with Feith, Cambone, Wolfowitz [and] Rumsfeld, was dispatching a person to Taiwan every week, essentially to tell the Taiwanese that the alliance was back on,” Wilkerson said, referring to pre-1970s military and diplomatic relations, “essentially to tell Chen Shui-bian, whose entire power in Taiwan rested on the independence movement, that independence was a good thing.”

This is, of course, no surprise. Francis Fukuyama has recounted that during the 1990s doldrums Bill Kristol and Bob Kagan discussed the fact that their "Neo-Reaganite" foreign policy required a new enemy, and that people in their circle debated whether to make the enemy China or Islamism. They reached the conclusion that China was the best option, only to reverse course after 9/11 and put the emphasis on Islamism. In either case, they regard US-China conflict -- and, indeed, conflict between the United States and other countries generally -- as something to be encouraged.

Comments

Which is interesting, because big-business conservatives like Rupert Murdoch are so pro-China. This will hopefully be another source of conservative infighting...

Posted by Mr. Noah | June 3, 2007 12:20 PM

We all know this is true. How can it not be a major scandal, that the Bush Administration basically adopted the thinking of people who:
1) Incorrectly identified the threat &
2) Had no plan aside from generating a threat?

Posted by MDtoMN | June 3, 2007 12:33 PM

The differences are: there's no organised civil society support for hostility for china, as Israeli lobbies and Christian Zionism provide for hostility to Islam, and, two, the Chinese are two strong for us to get into a war with them casually. So while there are insiders who want a US-China confrontation, there isn't the same facilitating environment as there is for colonising arabs.

Posted by otto | June 3, 2007 1:08 PM

What is interesting is that the "strong denials" aren't.

Strong Denials

Feith, now teaching and working on a book at Georgetown University, responded that Wilkerson’s “remarks are not even close to being accurate.

In other words, there is some nit that can be picked in them.

They are phrased so vaguely and sweepingly that it is impossible to deny them with precision, but they are not right.”

Which means nothing.

Rumsfeld’s former spokesman Lawrence DiRita called Wilkerson’s allegations “completely ridiculous—clear and simple . . . absurd.”

They may have been ridiculous and absurd, but he doesn't deny.

“The idea that there was some kind of DoD attempt to favor some faction in Taiwan, as described by Wilkerson ... is just crazy,” DiRita said in a brief telephone interview.

The idea is crazy, but no denial.

Posted by Bengt Larsson | June 3, 2007 3:40 PM

Failing to suck up to murderous tyrants by supporting their territorial ambtions at the expense of neighboring democratic states is now "deliberately courting conflict" with them? Next you'll describe failing to hand over your wallet as "deliberately courting conflict" with muggers.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | June 3, 2007 3:47 PM

I have some sympathy with Brett here. Given that a majority of Taiwanese people favor independence if it can be achieved peacefully, it seems entirely consistent with American values to support them peacefully and via diplomatic means. It shouldn't escalate to war and it shouldn't be a major goal of American policy, but it does seem like American policy should be tilted in that direction.

Posted by william | June 3, 2007 3:59 PM

Failing to suck up to murderous tyrants by supporting their territorial ambtions at the expense of neighboring democratic states is now "deliberately courting conflict" with them?

Yes it is, coming from a country with 150 military bases worldwide and 600,000+ dead bodies in Iraq.

Posted by BP | June 3, 2007 4:10 PM

william, what is your opinion on the American relationship to Saudi Arabia and Egypt? Do you think that supports American values?

In fact, in what way would it be worse for China to take over Taiwan, than the US supporting the Saud regime?

You Americans really have to face up to the fact that America supports tyrannies.

Posted by Bengt Larsson | June 3, 2007 4:26 PM

You Americans really have to face up to the fact that America supports tyrannies.

I agree...but as for supporting tyrannies, what's the real alternative? Invade them? That doesn't work, obviously. "Isolate" them, hit them with sanctions, and give them the cold shoulder? That hasn't been very successful either.

So there's really nothing to do with dictatorships except deal with them as an unpleasant fact of the world, engage with them, and encourage them to change. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't...but what's a better alternative?

Posted by Mr. Noah | June 3, 2007 4:41 PM

Given that a majority of Taiwanese people favor independence if it can be achieved peacefully, it seems entirely consistent with American values to support them peacefully and via diplomatic means.

The majority of Hawaiians support independence (and have 1000x better historical reasons), I think if the Chinese started supporting these factions it would *not* be seen domestically as some real, concern on the part of the Chinese for the aspirations of the Hawaiian people.

Posted by Ed Marshall | June 3, 2007 4:42 PM

Given that a majority of Taiwanese people favor independence if it can be achieved peacefully...

A majority of American people favor hot-fudge sundaes, if they don't make you fat.

Posted by Davis X. Machina | June 3, 2007 4:42 PM

Ed - do you have some references for Hawaiian support for independence?

Posted by otto | June 3, 2007 4:47 PM

China is a repressive police state, and Taiwan is a thriving democracy.

This is OK.

And I too would like to throw the bullshit flag over the notion that "the majority" of Hawaiians support independence.

Posted by KevinA | June 3, 2007 5:15 PM

otto -

the pro-defense-spending-as-usual forces are benefiting from the anti-china stuff. follow the defense spending by district and you can peg the districts the DOD/Congression defense caucas has targeted. china is needed to justify all the big ticket spending on weapon systems and keeping the war funding coming in supplementals.

Posted by john | June 3, 2007 6:11 PM

Incompetent black Muslims, like the peckerheads arrested over the JFK plot, and the ones arrested in Miami last time (the guys who aspired to blow up the Sears Tower) are not helping Giuliani's candidacy. They make Al Qaeda types look more pathetic than scary.

Posted by Harry | June 3, 2007 7:24 PM

The fact is that the US and china are going to have conflicts over access to oil, given the escalating Chinese demand and the prospect of peak oil. The fact is that China realizes this fact and is undertaking a buildup of its military capability in anticipation of a possible conflict. The time may be approaching when the US will be unable to prevent China from taking over Taiwan by force is the latter refuses to be taken over peacefully. A link is provided to an article in the Washington Post last week on this topic.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/24/AR2006052402431.html

Posted by SLC | June 3, 2007 7:45 PM

china is needed to justify all the big ticket spending on weapon systems and keeping the war funding coming in supplementals.

Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner!

Posted by Col Bat Guano | June 3, 2007 7:51 PM

Golly, yes. We're the only superpower in the world. We're so big and strong NOBODY can stop us. Let's have a little war with China. That'll show them not to mess with shining lights of democracy and freedom, especially after our little Iraqi adventure has concluded so brilliantly. Good gracious me, let's just provoke a little action over Taiwan to cleanse the palate. It might be just what it takes to send whatever is left of this great nation of ours straight down into the proverbial toilet. Oh, yes, indeedy.

Posted by Delia | June 3, 2007 11:50 PM

Have any of you folks ever considered some alternate possibilities? For example:

1) A key purpose of a strong military is to deter threats and potential adversaries.

2) Decades of peace between Japan and China, and China and Taiwan owe something to the U.S. Navy's presence in the region, and our security guarantees.

3) Most countries in East Asia are glad we remain the dominant military power there, especially given their experience with a certain previous local hegemon.

4) The status quo has been good for Taiwan, Japan, China, Australia, etc. as they have been able to grow their economies and trade with each other in peace.

Posted by Fred | June 4, 2007 12:50 AM

Most countries in East Asia are glad we remain the dominant military power there, especially given their experience with a certain previous local hegemon.

"Most countries" = South Korea. The rest either have piles of corpses donated by the US army (Vietnam, Cambodia, Japan), or have piles of corpses which the US Navy did nothing to stop (Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka)

Posted by BP | June 4, 2007 1:10 AM

Actually, from what I've read, Adm. William Fallon, who'd been head of the Pacific Theater during most of this period, felt the neocons/Bushies were nuts, and quietly established excellent working relations with his Chinese military counterparts.

This is the same Adm. Fallon whom Bush recently put in as commander in the Mid East Theater, and who has since been quoted in the media as saying "there will be no attack on Iran" on his watch.

Fallon seems like a pretty reasonable guy. I think what he should really do is dispatch a flotilla to the East Coast, have it bombard Washington, and once the DC Republicans (and most of the DC Democrats) were all dead or in prison, establish himself as William I of America.

Not only would that eliminate the dangerous irrationality of our current foreign policy, but he'd certainly see no practical need for the more bizarre intrusiveness of our growing police-state, and also vastly reduce the burden of the gigantic corruption which seems to have become DC's only real industry.

And since he'd certainly send all those random innocent farmers at Guantanamo home to their families, he'd have plenty of room down there for any surviving DC politicians or lobbyists.

Betcha the Swedes would give him the next Peace Prize for all this...

Posted by RKU | June 4, 2007 1:28 AM

Matt,

I used to read you all the time when you had your own unaffiliated blog. You were so interesting to read and even if I didn't agree with you. Now you just seem to have become another "bush this bush that" blogger whos sees neocons everywhere. It's really a shame. You really used to have inciteful things to say instead of being a well read Kos.

Posted by Dave | June 4, 2007 3:36 AM

Dave,

I used to care what anonymous bores
thought about my blog.

Posted by Matt | June 4, 2007 4:39 AM

One thing this thread reveals is that the "China split" is just as likely to divide the left as the right. On the one hand most of the "Free Tibet" people, most of the (sadly very few) people upset by the way the PRC government is devastating Turkestan (Xinjiang) and brutally supressing muslims, and most of the people concerned about China's increasingly exploitative role in Africa are on the left. It is also the left who tends to see the issues with China's awful environmental record and horrific labor abuses. But oddly when it comes to Taiwan, a democratic society, a territory that has never been controlled by the PRC government, an island that historically was only under fairly loose Chinese control for about 200 years (less than Tibet, and far less than Vietnam for that matter), many on the left seem to lose all perspective - as the frankly ridiculous remarks of Ed and Bengt reveal. I understand Matt's concern that the Neocons are needlessly trying to stir up trouble, but one shouldn't follow anti-Cheneyism so far as to reflexively support China's ugly policies.

Posted by vanya | June 4, 2007 6:31 AM

"We're so big and strong NOBODY can stop us. Let's have a little war with China. "

Geeze, has it occured to you that, to a great extent, whether we have a little war with China is also up to China? Sooner or later China is going to finish digesting the last victim of it's teritorial agression, Tibet, and decide to take another bite out of it's neighbors. Who we happen to have mutual protection treaties with. Including Taiwan, even if some people like to pretend that one doesn't count because they've decided the country we made it with isn't really a country.

If we're going to renege on those treaties, maybe our partners in them deserve enough notice that they have time to build up their militaries to provide the defense we're withdrawing.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | June 4, 2007 6:42 AM

"Given that a majority of Taiwanese people favor independence if it can be achieved peacefully, it seems entirely consistent with American values to support them ..."

The worst course of action for the establishment of an independent and democratic Taiwan is to pursue such openly. The Chinese want Taiwan, intact and prosperous. They will not destroy it unless they are convinced it is the only way to keep it.

The status quo strengthens the independence movement. Each year, trade ties between China and Taiwan grow larger. Each year, China grows more fond of industrial wealth, and less paranoid about western interference in its affairs. Each year it becomes more likely that China will recognize that an independent Taiwan is better than the alternatives.

Taiwan is independent and democratic. Anything that destabilizes the situation is bad.

Posted by Njorl | June 4, 2007 9:07 AM

The reason to support backing Taiwan while still not buying the spreading democracy in the Middle East nonsense is that Taiwan is a democracy and has been for a long time.

And there's a big difference between wanting to guarantee Taiwan's independence and wanting to use it as a stick to poke China to push them into a corner where they become adversarial with us.

In 2000, this was amoral folly. Today it's something closer to wishing for detente with the flying monkeys under William Kristol's desk.

Posted by witless chum | June 4, 2007 9:14 AM

Cambone (Phd Claremont, Jaffa), Kristol (Phd Harvard, Mansfield), Fukuyama (Phd Harvard, via Bloom at Cornell), Wolfowitz (Phd Chicago, via Bloom at Cornell). Truly amazing how concentrated the Straussianism is in this particular brand of war-mongering.

Posted by bjkad | June 4, 2007 11:47 AM

vanya, you didn't respond to anything I wrote. I think it's ridiculous that you are so one-eyed that you can only see dictatorship when it is in China.

Posted by Bengt Larsson | June 4, 2007 12:34 PM

1. There are lots of thing about China that I don't like. I don't like the way they support Sudan in regard to Darfur. I don't like the way they oppress and engage in a vile form of Colonialims in Tibet and the Xinjiang Autonomous Region (Western China). I don't like the way they threaten Taiwan, a true democracy, and probably with as much right to independence as any country in the word, but:

2. The Chinese people, as much as the Goverment see Taiwan remaining, at least formally, part of China, as a matter of national pride and something, like nuclear missiles in Cuba, they would go to war over. War would be a catastrophe for Taiwan, a catastrophe for China, and a catastrophe for the United States (there are a enough nukes from China that would cure the United States of any taste for war for a long time to come). As the current status quo ante allows Taiwan to remain free and democratic, we should do nothing to encourage a faction of the Taiwanese to risk that catastrophe. I think we have enough enemies at the moment, although the Dick Cheney and the neocons apparently disagree.

Posted by Rick Kane | June 4, 2007 1:42 PM

Bengt,

There's nothing to respond to in your post. Most of us here probably agree with you that the US support of tyrannies like Saudi Arabia or Egypt is indefensible on moral grounds alone. So far fine, but then I'm not sure why your outrage at the US leads you to feel that Taiwan is fair game. To write something like In fact, in what way would it be worse for China to take over Taiwan, than the US supporting the Saud regime? is a false moral equivalence. Starting with the fact that the Saud regime is at least an indigenous tyranny with some popular legitimacy if not popularity, whereas a Chinese occupation would in every sense be a foreign conquest of an independent nation, despite what PRC propaganda would have you believe. Njorl above does a good job of laying out what the right approach should be.

Posted by vanya | June 4, 2007 3:27 PM

"In fact, in what way would it be worse for China to take over Taiwan, than the US supporting the Saud regime?"

Bengt, you have to face up to the fact that asking this question makes you look like an idiot.

Taiwan is currently an economically successful liberal democracy. If China took over, it is possible that they would regress economically and it is certain the government would become a whole lot more authoritarian.

The US supports an illiberal Saud regime. The question is, what is the alternative? How much better would it be if Saudi Arabia looked like Egypt or Iran? More importantly, would this be the actual result, or would we go through an Iraq phase first? Additionally, this would probably not be beneficial to the world oil market. Many would suffer greatly, including non-Americans. Pretending to be unconcerned about economic issues is not a luxury that many people of the world possess.

This is the answer to your question. That is is not evident is disconcerting. This is obvious to those people who still believe that is better for the Taiwanese people that the US government not attempt to use Taiwanese independence, as others have noted, as a stick to poke the Chinese with.

Posted by mpowell | June 4, 2007 3:52 PM

china is needed to justify all the big ticket spending on weapon systems and keeping the war funding coming in supplementals.

This is the correct explanation. Too much stability is bad for the defense industry. China must be a threat, so the region must militarize and buy US weapons.

Posted by Horatio Parker | June 4, 2007 4:06 PM

If most people in Taiwan want independence, I tend to think they have a moral right to it. I don't think the red fascists in China have a moral right to rule Taiwan. Maybe it's just me, but I would want as few people as possible to be ruled by a regime with 60 million murders to its credit. I have this aversion to apartment and block political officers, secret police, labor camps, and mass executions. Excuse my bourgeois morality.

Posted by Barton Paul Levenson | June 4, 2007 5:39 PM

Had U.S. ever signed a treaty renouncing its claim to Hawaii, like China did in Treaty of Shimonoseki of 1895? How do you calculate Hawaiians have 1000x better historical claim as opposed to Chinese betrayal of Taiwanese before and after the Treaty of Shimonoseki?

Posted by wyh | June 4, 2007 5:45 PM

Actually Hawaii and Taiwan are oddly similar - in both cases an indigenous population has been largely displaced by Chinese immigrants, although obviously in Hawaii the Chinese were joined by haoles, Phillipinos, Japanese and others. In Taiwan the Chinese immigrant population mostly wants to be independent of China, the Chinese immigrant descendents in Hawaii doesn't want to be part of China either.

Posted by vanya | June 4, 2007 6:01 PM

Taiwan is currently an economically successful liberal democracy. If China took over, it is possible that they would regress economically and it is certain the government would become a whole lot more authoritarian.

Well, this is hypothetical situation, and I was comparing to real, existing tyrannies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

The US supports an illiberal Saud regime. The question is, what is the alternative? How much better would it be if Saudi Arabia looked like Egypt or Iran?

First, America supports the regime in Egypt too, with, as I recall, 1.8 billion dollars per year.

Second, what if it were like Iran? Why would that be a problem? Most of the members of Al Qaeda come from Saudi Arabia (SA) already. Most of the money donated to Al Qaeda comes from private parties in SA. It wouldn't be worse if it were like Iran, it would be better.

More importantly, would this be the actual result, or would we go through an Iraq phase first?

Speculation. Are you supporting tyranny in SA for safety's sake? How much was it playing it safe to invade Iraq? Your policy makes no sense.

Additionally, this would probably not be beneficial to the world oil market. Many would suffer greatly, including non-Americans. Pretending to be unconcerned about economic issues is not a luxury that many people of the world possess.

You can perfectly fine buy oil from unfriendly regimes. One of the biggest oil imports to USA is from Venezuela. Hugo Chavez may not be US-friendly, but oil is money.

The US could buy oil from Iran, too, if it so chose.

In Europe, where I live, we buy a lot of oil and gas from Russia (very large amounts). That doesn't mean we in any way directly support Putin's regime. We don't endorse his clubbing of the opposition. We don't sell him weapons. You don't have to offer explicit policy support for a regime to buy oil from it.

This is the answer to your question. That is is not evident is disconcerting. This is obvious to those people who still believe that is better for the Taiwanese people that the US government not attempt to use Taiwanese independence, as others have noted, as a stick to poke the Chinese with.

Fine, I agree one shouldn't poke a stick in that situation.

But let me make a few more points. In Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan together there live around 250 million people. Almost all of them are Muslims. All of them have tyrants, and all of the tyrants get direct US-sponsored support, for example by direct giving of US government money, weapons sales, or diplomacy.

If China conquered Taiwan, that would mean dictatorship for around 23 million people. 250 million people already live in dictatorship, with US help. And the dictatorship in Taiwan is only a hypothetical one, because we don't know how China would act if left to its own devices.

The 250 million people in the countries mentioned live in real, ongoing tyrannies, however. That's 10 times more people in tyranny that is real, and not hypothetical. But you care about Taiwan.

The relationship to people in SA can't be based on only oil. There live about equally many people in SA as on Taiwan.

Posted by Bengt Larsson | June 4, 2007 7:16 PM

What rot.

Can either of Jeff Stein or Larry Wilkerson accurately state US policy toward Taiwan?

I'm guessing not.

For starters, the US has never "agreed that there is only “one China” —with its capital in Beijing." Never.

And the suggestion--it's hard to tell whether it is Stein's or Wilkerson's--that the "alliance is back on" would refer not to a pre-1998 state of affairs but instead to a pre-1970s state of affairs is simply the most incredible thing I've ever read. Apparently Rumsfeld broke with Nixon over China policy.

And while we're noting the continuities in US policy on the China/Taiwan question through 5 presidencies, it's worth noting that that's not an entirely accurate description, given the severe disruption in US policy announced, unscripted and unthinkingly, by President Clinton in 1998.

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