Let’s Hop off the China Fear Express

GlobalWonk Enters Forbidden City

President Obama’s trip to China has provided a platform from which the media has chosen to stir up domestic anxiety over China’s changing role in world affairs. If you believe what you hear in the mainstream media the United States may as well just pack it in. We stand no chance against the Chinese juggernaut. We are in a slow, painful process of slinking our way off the world stage with our tail between our legs. Fareed Zarkaria, author of The Post-American World, and host of CNN’s GPS news program had the audacity to make his question of the week; Do you believe China is now the world’s superpower? After you read my blog post, and do your own research, I suggest you respond to Mr. Zakaria’s question at gps@cnn.com

Well, as Mark Twain may have said; the news of our death is greatly exaggerated. It seems in the rush to stir the pot and keep people glued to the tube; they’ve chosen not to review the facts.

The United States has, by far, the largest economy in the world. According to World Bank figures, our gross domestic product in 2008 was over $14.2 trillion. China’s was $4.3 trillion. They were third, behind the U.S., and Japan. At number eleven on the list, Canada, our wonderful neighbor to the north, had a GDP in 2008 one-tenth the size of the United States. Our GDP was almost three times the size of #2 on the list, Japan.

When you look at the CIA Fact Book figures for 2008 per capita Gross Domestic Product, the rankings are even more interesting. The United States comes in tenth, at $47,500. China comes in one hundred thirty-third, at $6,000.

Not surprisingly, United Nations manufacturing output data has the United States and China ranked at numbers 1 & 2. The surprise however, is that the United States manufacturing output is nearly twice the size of China’s. Our annual manufacturing output has risen over $800 billion since 1990! This is more than the entire annual output of fourth-ranked global manufacturing powerhouse, Germany. (Time, May, 2009)

When it comes to military spending the United States has no peer. We spend more on our military than the next forty-five countries combined. We spend forty-eight percent of the world’s total amount spent on defense per year. We spend almost six times more than China does on their military, and ten times more than Russia. Our ability to project military power is not matched by any other power on earth.

If you look at strategic weapons, which are nuclear bombs deliverable atop intercontinental ballistic missiles, the United States maintains over seven thousand. China is estimated to have twenty strategic nuclear weapons. Total nukes, including tactical and spare puts the U.S. over ten thousand five-hundred, and China just over four hundred.

There are any number of statistics I could quote here to qualify my point that the United States is still an economic and military superpower. We in the United States have nothing to fear from China’s amazing rise from poverty. The global economy, and geopolitical affairs are not zero sum issues. We do not lose because China pulls hundreds of millions of their citizens out of poverty. The most dramatic eradication of poverty in the history of humankind.

Instead of fearing China’s rise we should welcome it. We should look forward to selling our products into their market of 1.2 billion people. We should welcome a partner to help share the burden of policing the unpolice-able. We should partner with them to develop the green technologies that will help all of us live in a world that has many more people living in urban centers, driving many more cars than anybody ever imagined.

As you know I am a realist. As China’s economy continues to grow, so will their influence. We have witnessed that, especially since the economic crash of September 2008. It used to be a given that our system, capitalism, was the way to run your economy. After the crash, and China’s relative stability during and after it, many in the world are not so sure it is the only way.

As China’s influence grows there is very likely going to be issues we do not agree with them on. There will be areas where our national interests collide. With a population four times the size of the United States, China’s GDP will eventually surpass that of ours. Many believe this could occur as soon as 2020. China may even surpass our per capita GDP at some point in the future.

So the same people who labeled the United States a hyperpower in 2001 are now saying the sky is falling. The ones who designated the post-Soviet era a uni-polar moment for the United States are now digging our geopolitical grave. My suggestion is to relax. Take a deep breath.

Do not let the media make up your mind on this issue. Do your own research. Book a trip to China and witness history there yourself. Don’t let ill-informed career politicians make decisions for us, the people, that put us on a path toward conflict with China. Do not allow those with a vested interest in those hundreds of billions of dollars in defense spending convince you that China is the next boogeyman. Do your research, make up your mind, and make your voice heard!

We have nothing to fear, but fear itself.

 

GlobalWonk’s Video Introduction

Jim Miller, GlobalWonk

Jim Miller has posted the GlobalWonk Introduction video at YouTube. Please click on the following link to view the video;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtCwQopjgxQ

Please comment on the content of the video here, or at YouTube. More video to come soon, hopefully hosted from this site.

Diplomacy. One Mind at a Time.

Russia’s Old Hookers and Hidden Camera Bit..

Who's knocking??

 Close your eyes and think back to late July of 1991. Jennifer Capriati just won Wimbledon. The U.S. military was returning from its stunning defeat of Saddam’s army. Unbeknownst to the world, we were a few weeks away from the ill fated coup attempt. GlobalWonk was a soldier in the United States Army, assigned to the White House Communications Agency. I’m sitting on the roof of the Churchill Hotel, waiting to find out if our team is going into Moscow. And…

Before we deployed from the then G-7 Economic Summit in London, to a hastily organized U.S./Soviet Summit in Moscow, we were required to attend a security brief on what to expect behind the Iron Curtain. We were told that because of our clearances, and access to sensitive information, we would be monitored 24/7 by the KGB. Just entering the U.S.S.R. back then guaranteed you would have an intelligence dossier with the KGB from that point forward. We would be staying in “Western approved” hotels that were prepped for surveillance. We were told that the KGB would prefer to get a full-body nude shot (from the bathroom/shower) to use for 100% identification in the event they turned you as a spy. This would help identify imposters, etc. We were instructed to report all contact with any Soviet citizen. The KGB would look for unusual behavior, and exploit it to blackmail you into cooperation/collaboration with them.

So, we land at the airport, off-load our C-5A Galaxy, and convoy to the Embassy. The old Embassy. The big old puke yellow one that caught fire in the eighties. (When KGB agents posing as firemen stole secrets..) From the yard of the old Embassy you could see the walls of the new one the Soviet contractors built for us. It was riddled with implanted bugs (the listening kind), and you could actually make out the letters C.C.C.P. in slightly darker colored bricks they handcrafted to thumb their nose at us. The U.S. later demolished this building and built the one we occupy today.

After a couple beverages at The Liberty Bell bar in the Embassy we headed off to the Olympic Penta Hotel. It is located next to the 1980 Winter Olympics complex (hence the name..). As you walked down the hallway we noticed that there was a small access door located between each set of room entry doors. These happen to be located adjacent to the bathrooms in each room. There was an odd area of the mirror in the bathroom that would not fog up when you ran the shower. Needless to say, they got their full body shot, and then some. But, they earned it. There is some awfully crude video somewhere…

So, knowing we were monitored 24/7, we would joke that we should just lay back on the bed and say something like “Boy, the national secrets I wouldn’t reveal for some huge breasts!”

KNOCK, KNOCK… ROOM SERVICE…

Ahh, the good old days. We turned Soviet ideologues, they gave Americans cash and sex. The system worked.

U.S. Pacific Commander Optimistic

Indispensible Presence

 

GlobalWonk recently had the great fortune to meet Admiral Timothy J. Keating, Commander, United States Pacific Command. CINCPAC for us old timers. He gave a briefing on security in his area of responsibility for the President’s Council at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

First, he is a very engaging speaker. Being a naval aviator, and forty plus years in the service gives you quite a bit of experience to draw upon when public speaking. He is due to retire in October. He will do well on the speaking circuit. I hope to have him attend a future GlobalWonk event and participate in the discussion.

He made a comment that gave me, as a veteran of the Army, goosebumps. He said that since he entered the Naval Academy all those years ago, all he has worn during his professional life was this, and he gestures to the immaculate uniform he is wearing, “the cloth of our nation”.

Admiral Keating ran down the thirty-six countries in his area of responsibility. Providing a SITREP on each. Japan, China, North Korea. He stated that in all the official visits he has made to heads-of-state, ministers, and military chiefs in the region; he receives one consistent message. The United States is an “indispensable presence” in maintaining stability in the region.

On North Korea he is confident the U.S. military has the capacity to prevent missiles from reaching U.S. territories, or harming allies in the region. He said that there is no planning currently underway for a military option in the nuclear standoff with the DPRK. I communicated to him my belief, from my visit to North Korea in September 2008, that occupying North Korea would make Afghanistan, or Iraq, look like a picnic in comparison. The people of North Korea live a life Americans can hardly imagine, and are raised from childhood to revile us. As I had recently spent five days in-country, he was interested in my perspective. I think we both agreed that a military option in North Korea should be one of last resort.

He is impressed with the strength of the U.S./Japan alliance. He mentioned that it would have been unimaginable just ten years ago to think that a nuclear powered aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. George Washington, would be stationed in Japanese waters.

His most interesting comments regarded China. He feels that the United States military does not see China as a threat. He says that they welcome, and encourage China to take a more active role in the security, and stability of the region. He made it clear that we do this at a pace they are comfortable with. He thought it would be many years before China would be capable of projecting military force beyond their immediate shores. He stated that he did not believe that was their intentions at this point.

I thought it was refreshing to hear these comments from a military commander of his stature. When I left the military in 1992 all I remember hearing was that the Soviets were gone, and China was the next near peer to worry about.

I hope for all of us, and our children, that this is true. As we know, the relationship between the United States and China, or Chimerica, as Niall Ferguson has dubbed it, can go either way.

Inside the U.S.S. Pueblo

 

The U.S.S. Pueblo moored on the Taedong in Pyongyang, DPRK

GlobalWonk toured the U.S.S. Pueblo while in Pyongyang. They even have an informative DVD with all the propaganda you can withstand… I grinned and beared it to bring these photos to you.

You can view all of the photos taken inside the captured spy ship at the following link: http://tinyurl.com/mad4bm

Take me to your Dear Leader….

Last September, after visiting the DPRK for their 60th Anniversary extravaganza, I made a covert landing on DPRK soil from the Chinese side of the Yalu River.

We were outside Dandong, on the Yalu. We boarded a rickety, old Chinese tour boat for a short ride to view the Great Wall from the river.

The photos look very far away because I had to take them from seat level. We were told not to take photos. I have authority issues….

In both the photos below you will see a DPRK border soldier. He clearly was not supervised very often. He was shirtless, and appeared very hungry.

We actaully landed on DPRK soil. The soldier boarded the small vessel and looked us over. He was interested in making this transaction as quick as possible.

We gave him a carton of Chinese cigarettes, and some yuan. He smiled, shook our hands and jumped off the boat. We shoved off and went about our tour.

 

North Korea - China Border - Yalu River - September 2008

In this photo we are approaching the DPRK shoreline. You can see the soldier in the left – middle of the photo.

Landing in DPRK - Sept. 2008

In this photo he is crouching down, preparing to grab hold of our small boat as it approached the shore.

Each time you interact with someone from there, and they realize we aren’t the monsters they’ve been taught; you are changing a mindset. Diplomacy one person at a time…

Complex and Beautiful

Complex and Beautiful

 GlobalWonk came upon this tree in the Emperor’s Garden in the Forbidden City. It’s gnarled branches analogous to the complex relationship between the United States and China. There will be twists and turns. It will not always be pretty. But, if the roots are solid, and it is nurtured properly, it will live on for generations to come.

As China’s wealth and influence grow, our interests will collide. Now is the time to nurture, and strengthen the roots of our relationship. To accomplish this we must promote understanding and exchange between our people.

What will you do to make this happen in your community? Reach out to your local members of Congress. Tell them your thoughts on these issues. Get with the school board. Does a local university have a China program you can tap into for content, or volunteers, for developing a cultural awareness program in your primary schools?

In a decade it could be your child manning battle stations on a warship. Loading armaments onto fighter planes, or aligning the sites of their rifle center mass on the silhouette of a counterpart from China. If we choose to do nothing, ten years hence we will wonder what could have been.

Phenom Obama

America's New First Family

When I first became aware of Barack Obama he reminded me of Bobby Kennedy. Young, energetic, very bright. More than that, they both seem to me to have been men supremely suited to their times. The assassination of RFK robbed us of the man with the best opportunity to bridge the racial divide in 1968. His impassioned speech to the crowd in Indianapolis on the night Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated cemented his singular ability to bring us together. He shared the pain of losing a brother to a white assassin’s bullet. He urged the crowd not to give in to revenge and hatred. In just two months, he himself would lie mortally wounded in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel. His life’s blood flowing from a gun shot wound to the head.

President-Elect Barack Obama is a man suited for his time. He has always superbly handled opportunity. When given one he has consistently knocked it out of the park. He has done so at Harvard, in the race for the Senate, his 2004 convention speech, the presidential election, and as a father (his daughters are by all accounts little gems).

It would be a tragedy of incomprehensible proportions for the United States were something to happen to this man before he has the chance to apply his many talents to the troubles we face domestically and abroad. Knowing the training and professionalism of the United States Secret Service personnel charged with his safety; I rest easier, knowing how hard they will work to ensure he has the opportunity to do so.

I began to think about the 2008 election. How historic it was. Hillary, Barack, and Sarah. All firsts of one sort or another. How in the hell did a black man with the name Barack Hussein Obama not only obtain his party’s nomination, but actually get elected to the highest office in the land? Some say the most powerful office in the world.

Now, I don’t profess to have insider information. There will be books written for years on this election. On Obama’s campaign. I would like to point out my thoughts on why, in 2008, Barack Obama was deemed electable by a majority of American voters.

First some background. I was born on the South Side of Chicago. The “South Side Irish” from a neighborhood called Roseland. It lies more than one hundred city blocks south of The Loop, or downtown Chicago. In 1970, when black people began moving into Roseland, my parents, and their parents, moved from the city to the south suburbs of Chicago.

Blacks brought crime and drugs, we were told. Black kids beat up my brother and stole his bicycle, I was told. Blacks meant our home would sell for less if we waited too long, we were told.

The N-word was not something we thought about much. It was used all the time. From my earliest memories that is how people in my life described black people to me. That N-word at work. The N-word on the corner. Those N-words on welfare…. I truly believed all black people were on welfare when I was a child.

These migrations, or emigrations from the city to the suburbs became known as “White Flight”. When the first black family bought a home in the neighborhood the stampede began. You didn’t want to be the last person to sell your house. It was kind of like being the one left without a chair when the music stopped. My parents would take flight again just thirteen years later. Relocating from the South Suburbs to the Brighton Park neighborhood of Chicago.

This is the background in which I developed. When I went to high school black kids were bussed from other towns into our school. White kids from our school were sent out of town to their school. Neither wanted to be relocated. Being at the sharp end of a social experiment created friction. Friction led to fighting. These situations played out across many suburbs of America in the late seventies and early eighties.

I graduated High School and joined the United States Army. I was immediately thrown into a world where black and white blurred. You didn’t care what color the guy was that had your back, as long as he was Army green. I was led by black soldiers, and I was given the opportunity to lead. In short, I was freed from the ignorance of the environment I was brought up in.

I had children very young. I consciously brought them up not to see color. They lived in multi-cultural environments with military families of all types. They had white friends, black friends, and Hispanic friends. The N-word was not used in our home.

How did Barack become electable? He became electable because people in America changed their mindset. Over a period of a generation or so, Gen X’ers became educated and rejected the institutional racism of previous generations. They also raised their children, who became of voting age in the 2008 election, not to see color first. We did not indoctrinate our children into a culture of racial distrust or hatred.

So the question becomes; How in the hell does this apply to China? Well, I believe it does in a very big way. I believe we need to change the mindset of the American public on their views on China. I believe we need to do this quickly before the United States and China get themselves on a collision course with destiny.

So how do we change this mindset? We do it in the same way we did it on race. Expose your children to Chinese people and culture. Replace stereotypes with positive experiences. Teach your children not to distrust. GlobalWonk will be focusing on opportunities to educate Chinese and American people, particularly our youth, on the many positive aspects of our respective cultures.

You can start today with your own family. Read your child a book about China. Take them on a trip to Chinatown in a city near you. Introduce them to Chinese friends and associates. Get involved with their school and get culture on the curriculum. Talk to your local representatives of government and share your concerns with them.

The opportunity to prevent these same children, our children, from fighting a war with the Chinese twenty years from now, presents itself now. What are you going to do to make a difference?

Perspective

 

Each of us have a lense through which we view our world. We each have a filter that outside information must pass through as we process, and attempt to understand it. These lenses and filters are the product of our experience. I have become very interested in understanding the perspective of the “other guy” as it pertains to U.S. foreign policy.

One of the most cherished ideals of the collective American psyche is revering freedom. We champion it at every opportunity. It is a founding tenet of our representative democracy.

Do others, in different societies, with disparate experiences, crave our definition of freedom? Is it fair to project our perspective onto others?

How does the average Chinese person feel about democracy? Freedom? Do they crave stability over freedom? Even if that means an autocratic government? A prominent University of Chicago scholar, and a Dean at a major University, both Chinese, expressed this very notion to me. It is hard for someone that grew up in America to wrap our mind around that. Give me Liberty, or give me Death! Remember?

Do we really expect Russia not to be concerned when NATO is knocking on it’s doorstep? How about putting a missile shield in former satellite countries? Wouldn’t we be concerned if Russia were doing the same?

How are our actions perceived by others in the world? Extending a missile defense system into Eastern Europe makes sense to us. It keeps us safe by extending a protective shield further, and further out from our shores. Distance equals reaction time. Pretty simple stuff, right?

Well, what if you are Russian? Your empire imploded back in 1991. You are still licking your wounds from that one. The United States has not exactly been humble in it’s triumph over the Soviet Union in the Cold War. Most of your former satellites aspire to membership in NATO, or are on friendly terms with the U.S. Some are even talking about allowing U.S. missile defense technology on their territory. How would you perceive these actions? Would you be concerned about U.S. unilateralism?

I plan to spend some time researching these issues in the coming months. Understanding each other’s perspective is key to developing win-win propositions. If we are going to prevent future conflict, we need to fully understand how other countries perceive themselves, and how they interpret our actions.

Will China’s Rise Lead to an Environmental Catastrophe?

 

GlobalWonk attended a debate in Chicago last week that outlined the impacts of China’s unprecedented economic rise on the environment. The debate was sponsored by The Economist and Chicago Public Radio. Orville Schell, Director of the Center on U.S./China Relations at the Asia Society, and Barry Weisberg, from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), represented the affirmative position. Vijay Vaitheeswaran, correspondent for The Economist, and Kelly Sims Gallagher, Director of the Energy Technology Innovation Project at the Belfor Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, represented the negative position.

The affirmative side won the debate. They argued that China is already in the midst of an environmental catastrophe. Vaitheeswaran and Gallagher did not disagree that there are current significant issues; but thought that all developing countries cycle through this. Early stages of development being much dirtier than later, more technically savvy stages.

During the question and answer period GlobalWonk asked the following question; “If you were a presidential candidate in the ’08 election, what policies would you pursue relative to green and renewable energies, to ensure the United States were arguing from a defensable moral position when making recommendations to China on their development?”

In our opinion, while we certainly should be concerned, we have no right to castigate the Chinese when our own house is not in order. Let’s clean up our act, in all senses of the term, before we are audacious enough to make recommendations to others.

The New York Times has done an excellent series on this topic. We highly recommend it. The link is below:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2007/08/26/world/asia/choking_on_growth.html