In yet another example of the naivete of the administration’s foreign policy, president Obama declared a new era of “cooperation, not confrontation” with China, apparently the head of state has not been receiving the security memos from the Pentagon… nor has he been watching the news. While Obama’s chief concerns are getting China to cooperate over energy, nuclear proliferation, and other issues, he is completely overlooking the grand chess match that is currently taking place in the world. Russia is down but not out. Islamo-fascism is wreaking havoc worldwide. Authoritarian socialism is sweeping the globe. China is currently growing at a break-neck pace, with aspirations to overtake the first world within decades. Does China really benefit from full cooperation with the United States? Not really.

First of all, China and Russia have been indicating their lack of confidence in the US dollar. This is where Obama’s domestic policies will shift the balance of global power: with the excessive deficit spending threatening to reduce the value of the US dollar, China and other nations will be stop buying the dollar, further reducing its value. So, while China at the moment may not benefit from a precipitous fall in the value of the dollar, it is in their long term interest to promote the decrease in US economic power so that they can rise. Imagine major US firms going out of business and/or getting bought out on the cheap by rising Chinese companies. We may be looking at Chinese ownership of major formerly US-based companies in the near future. China has world power aspirations and the administration cannot lose sight of this.

Second of all, in terms of military power, China has started to beef up its military and build up its navy. The United States’ historical naval superiority is what allowed us to engage in military operations in Southeast Asia, the Korean peninsula, the Middle East, Latin America, etc. The rise of China, militarily, is problematic, especially considering their strategic aims: controlling Taiwan and controlling East Asia. Does a pesky North Korea benefit China? Yes, it distracts the US. Does international terrorism bother China? Not that much, internal ‘terrorism’ does. Does nuclear proliferation bother China? Not really. In all, the concerns of the United States are not that important to China, which means to get them to help us we will have to give up more than we should. China is an authoritarian one-party state and it enjoys close ties with every nation that considers itself an enemy of the United States. Does the spread of Anti-Americanism help China? Yes it does indeed. Chinese arms sales have fueled regional conflicts for years now and cause problems that eventually end up becoming US problems.

A policy towards China that involves some cooperation and some confrontation is what is best and we should be open about it. We should press them on the issues we care about, like we are currently doing, but also make it clear that certain things need to change, like their human rights record. We must make it clear that they should pressure North Korea more forcefully. We must support the continued independence of Taiwan. We must not be silent about their brutal repression of the Tibetan people. America stands for freedom in this world, even if we make mistakes in how we work towards that goal. China stands for the repression of its own people and global power. They have already tasted the benefits of opening up their economy, now we can only hope that they will realize the benefits of empowering their people. China is playing to win over the long term, but it looks like the administration is just playing to get some immediate political goals.

-AG