More China

The Max Boot piece in the LA Times I refer to below has a lot more to say about China's current doctrine. He quotes from a Chinese study on "Unresticted Warfare" published by the Peoples' Liberation Army in 1998.

" "Unrestricted Warfare" recognizes that it is practically impossible to challenge the U.S. on its own terms. No one else can afford to build mega-expensive weapons systems like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which will cost more than $200 billion to develop. "The way to extricate oneself from this predicament," the authors write, "is to develop a different approach."

"Their different approaches include financial warfare (subverting banking systems and stock markets), drug warfare (attacking the fabric of society by flooding it with illicit drugs), psychological and media warfare (manipulating perceptions to break down enemy will), international law warfare (blocking enemy actions using multinational organizations), resource warfare (seizing control of vital natural resources), even ecological warfare (creating man-made earthquakes or other natural disasters).
Cols. Qiao and Wang write approvingly of Al Qaeda, Colombian drug lords and computer hackers who operate outside the "bandwidths understood by the American military." They envision a scenario in which a "network attack against the enemy" — clearly a red, white and blue enemy — would be carried out "so that the civilian electricity network, traffic dispatching network, financial transaction network, telephone communications network and mass media network are completely paralyzed," leading to "social panic, street riots and a political crisis." Only then would conventional military force be deployed "until the enemy is forced to sign a dishonorable peace treaty." "

I feel a bit like Cassandra, or Cato shouting "Cartago delenda est", but, like the people I have traveled among in Asia, I fear the dragon the most; as does Boot, I see connections, and I don't think I am merely paranoid.

"The bid by the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Co., to acquire Unocal? Resource warfare. Attempts by China's spy apparatus to infiltrate U.S. high-tech firms and defense contractors? Technological warfare. China siding against the U.S. in the U.N. Security Council over the invasion of Iraq? International law warfare. Gen. Zhu's threat to nuke the U.S.? Media warfare".

In light of this, I have to find the Cato institute's Jerry Taylor and his approach a bit-- Pollyanna- ish? "Economic liberalization has had a lot to do with that - the emergence of capitalism and free trade has eroded the government's power and is likely to continue to do so in the future. Encouraging wealth creation and engagement in world markets will do more to encourage civil society in China than economic isolation, stagnation, and saber-rattling".

Yeah, right. Rope.

Update: also see this John Derbyshire essay. He has lived in China, speaks Chinese, and is married to a woman who grew up there.