We Like Chinese–For the Moment

by Shelton Hull

Tensions are up between US and Chinese officials following the incident with

our EP-3E Aries II spy plane, which was doing what spy planes are meant to

do–spying–when it collided with a Chinese F-8 fighter jet and crashed onto

Hainan Island. The Chinese immediately boarded the plane and placed its crew

into custody, several hours before President Bush, eager to reverse the

Clinton-era policies of overt capitulation, declared the plane itself

sovereign US territory and thus off-limits to the Red Chinese. Of course,

the very fact that his statement was moot well before its composition brings

into relief certain aspects of the US-Chinese relationship that have gone

largely unscrutinized until now.

Our behavior toward the Chinese exposes the basic fundamental hypocrisy of

the “free-market” motif espoused first by the right and later appropriated

by Bill Clinton’s Democratic party. Appeasing the Chinese while persecuting

Cuba for equal crimes (worse, actually, from China), sends the message that

human rights aren’t really important, and that free markets aren’t

necessarily tied into freedom itself. Our approach to labor here is,

frankly, totalitarian. Workers have no real power to raise their wages,

negotiate benefits or save their jobs come time for quarterly earnings

reports, besides labor unions already corrupted in the course of maintaining

their flimsy connections to power. Do what you’re told–the alternative is

almost always worse. This is the model we hope to impose upon the Chinese by

extending them Most Favored Nation (MFN) trading status, setting up what we

call Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR).

The acronym soup is mostly symbolic, but oh the symbolism! We want to

officially recognize China as America’s number-one trade partner without

validating the legitimacy of Communism, which holds itself in opposition to

a “free”–that is, mostly deregulated, top-down–market economy. Perhaps by

approaching China as one large company run by the government, we can evade

formal concession of their right to govern themselves however they like. Or

else we can convert them, humanize the savages, if you will.

The nature of our economic system is such that it requires corporations to

either increase revenue or lower expenses at all times to maintain strong

profit margins. China is key to the sustained fulfillment of both criteria.

The Chinese need an influx of greenbacks, but we need their bodies more.

With over a billion people, China is a massive virgin territory, really the

last major one left for American capital. It’s loaded with potential

consumers who’ve never seen propaganda like the US marketing machines, with

workers who haven’t been “tainted” by minimum-wage laws, OSHA regulations or

any vague concept of what a union is or does, and a population too busy

trying to dry out before the next flood to bother questioning the

interlopers’ right to reinvent their culture as a tool of commerce. We want

them, passionately, and aren’t averse to bribery, threats and coercion.

After giving them enough missile technology to wipe us out as soon as they

can afford more warheads, we set about integrating them into the global

swap-meet.

It’s widely taken as fact, especially in right-of-center circles, that the

Clinton Administration basically handed over the long-range missile

technology needed to make their warheads fly closer to us in exchange for

surreptitious campaign funding. The question of funding remains unresolved

since Bush wants to distance his government from that of Clinton on every

level, even if it means missing the chance to put his supposed rival in

prison. In fact, Bush and Clinton are more alike than either wants to admit,

and may actually be friends. Clinton, as chairman of the National Governors

Association prior to his election, often came in direct contact with Bush

senior during his run at the top, which started in 1981 and never really

ended, if the continuity of policy is any indicator.

Both share the need to to justify unjustifiable behavior. Clinton’s

allowing of US scientists to share missile technology with the only

remaining Communist superpower (not counting Cuba and the three of four

Marxists still alive in South America) was excused through commerce: US

companies like Loral, Motorolla and Ericsson were sending their satellites

up on American rockets, but it’s cheaper to use someone else’s rockets, and

the Chinese were amenable. However, their rockets were shit-something like

75% failed to penetrate the ozone layer, often exploding on the launch

pad-costing these companies more through high insurance premiums than it

would have cost to continue using their own rockets. So aerospace engineers

were dispatched to improve their product, and no one noticed that the same

rockets that so easily carry satellites into orbit can be easily modified to

accommodate nuclear warheads. By the time conservatives in congress noticed,

it was too late, and Clinton labored ever after under the belief that he was

soft on China. Indeed: if he was any softer, he’d be cashmere.

Destroying the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1998, which killed many more

people than the P-3 incident did, was dismissed as an accident, a failure by

the world’s most splendid topographical outfit-Rand McNally lacks the

benefit of spy satellites. “The maps were outdated,” they said, and the

media left it at that. Of course, no one involved in the process of

designing the maps used for that operation has ever taken responsibility for

“my” mistake, and it’s been noted by others that the embassy was clearly

marked on road maps bought in the area. It’s now clear (to some people,

mostly obscure journalists) that we knew exactly what was there, and

destroyed the embassy because we thought the Chinese were hiding Milosevic

there, since that was presumably the last place he could’ve claimed

sanctuary.

As for the events of April 1, the timing is perfect, since April 1 is the

traditionally best day for lies and obfuscations.

Advocates of “closure” are well-intentioned, except they presume we have

some perverse interest in peace with the Chinese. In fact, I feel that

creating an atmosphere of palpable tension is vital to the Bush (and that

means American) agenda. Since the cold war’s demise we’ve used the threat of

Islamic fundamentalism (or nationalism, whichever you prefer) as an excuse

to maintain the same levels of military spending and to sustain our

incursions in sovereign territory around the world, to the point of

neglecting areas of genuinely critical concern. Africa, in particular, is in

a state of advanced crisis unseen in modern history-the only comparable

situation is that of the indigenous population in North America circa 1800,

and we see where that went. Spending upwards of $100 million on a missile

defense scheme makes no sense without the Chinese threat, a threat that only

exists (to whatever extent it does) because of the Clinton administration,

which maybe got all this started so Reagan could finally see the passage of

“Star Wars” in Congress before his body follows his brain off the planet. We

may all envy his timing if this silliness continues much longer.

Taiwan is a small island of China’s coast, long a major manufacturing base

for US light industry. Most of the toys you grew up with were produced in

Taiwan. In recent years China has moved in the direction of assimilating

Taiwan much like it did Hong Kong not long ago–the only significant change

being that deals must run through the Chinese government. Taiwanese have

resisted, afraid of being tortured for doing yoga or something, and we

support their resistance because we don’t want to deal with middlemen who’ll

add Commie tariffs and price control, and maybe shift the Taiwanese economy

away from export to industrial agriculture. In times not far from major

famine, food’s a better product than Pokemon. That would be highly

inconvenient, so we’re better off arming the Taiwanese to forestall

assimilation, even if it alienates the Chinese, who are trying to boost their

economy by channelng profits from off-shore businesses.

The implications of the present dispute are convoluted, as all dealings

between the two countries are. Any perceived danger from that region is

tempered by the fact that, between their manpower and our technological

supremacy, any war between the two countries would end as either a savage

draw or a double knockout. There’s nothing either can do to decisively harm

the other except nuclear strike, which carries the usual penalties for now.

The Chinese interpret our missile defense plans as tacit admission that a

future move into their territory is the plan, which is true. They live on

the new frontier, and we must establish a presence one way or another.

That’s why that EP-3E was working their airspace to begin with. The incident

involving the EP-3E and Chinese flyboy Wang Wie must be understood in the

context of a very weird decade of Sino/American relations. And weirdness is

the status quo in contemporary politics.