As everyone knows by now China and Russia are planning a joint military training exercise in July of next year. As everyone knows China's economy is growing at an astonishing rate. As everyone knows China is considered a strategic competitor with the United States. As everyone knows China has stolen quite a bit of military information and even technology from the United States. As everyone knows China and the United States could go to war of Taiwan. As everyone knows in the long term China is a serious threat to US global hegemony. So the question before us today is how does the US maintain it's single super power status and keep China from being one?
As strange as this may sound I've been thinking about this problem since I heard the buzz about China being a strategic competitor when my mother went through the Army Baylor program when I was in 9th grade. So I've been thinking about this problem off and on for the last... 7 years or so. In all these years I've found few people willing to talk about this issue, except Big Red from Cheyenne, who has concluded that China's culture is so ancient and superior that they deserve to conquer America, and the Little Hawaiian in Eugene who thinks we need to pre-empt them and it will be the mother of all battles, massive waves of Chinese against the best and bloodiest American technology ever.
Here are a few possible strategies.
1. Direct conflict- I don't think this is such a good idea, when I found out that Tom Clancy advocates this I stopped reading his books (that and I realized his writing stinks). Tons of people would die, and I think it would come to nukes. I've heard estimates that with our troops in Iraq China could get all the way to Iowa before we'd be able to stop them.
2. NUUUKKEEES IN SPPAACCCE- Quite simple, we stick nukes in space and establish some sort of space colony we can threaten to nuke the world and still survive. This would more or less be international blackmail. This would be really immoral.
3. Start a new Cold War- It looked like that is what Bush was trying to do before September 11th. Remember the spy plane issue at the start of his administration.
4. Destroy their culture- As I said Big Red thinks there ancient culture is what makes them so powerful, basically they have a national purpose that flows along for centuries if not millennia. The solution, WALMART. It will tear their culture apart faster than you can say McEggroll. Also this is already happening, Walmart is opening stores in China as it is.
5. Create strong alliances- I like this one... then again I liked Kerry too. It seems if a bunch of countries would side with us against China even if China is more powerful than us they wouldn't attack us since Japan, Germany and India would take China into a back alley and bust a cap.
6. Isolate China- This is the other side of the strong alliances coin if we are the lesser of two evils the world will back us. I think the Olympics being in China in '08 is a really good PR move for them, bad for us. We need to make sure people see the dissidents tortured in China.
7. Carve up the world- As you may remember Portugal and Spain called on the pope to cut up spheres of influence in South America, maybe a Lutheran Bishop could do the same for China and the US.
8. Strengthen our own culture- I like this, invest in education, literature, religious unity. Basically make ALL Americans feel like being an American is a good thing.
9. Wait for a balance of power- Other nations will be becoming powerful as well, Brazil, the EU, Pakistan, India. They can balance out both our power and Chinas, so maybe no one will go to war.
10. Mess with the global economy- As you know China has tagged their money to the dollar, so we can't get a fair deal from them. Maybe we should tie the dollar to the Euro so it would force them to take a stand either with us or with China. (I'm not quite sure this works).
Peace,
Chris
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