Hi Jay - are you through for now?
I clicked on my inbox and saw 13 messages, and wondered what I'd said this time.-g-
As I said on FADG, I do not perceive China as the enemy of the United States. I do perceive that China perceives itself to be the enemy of the United States. Also, as you brought up, the enemy of Japan and of India.
Lots of friction. Friction isn't good, it wears things out.
Very belligerent and touchy. China has yet to take its place as a comfortable member of the international community, where there is give and take and bumping up against one another without so much friction. Think of a great big beautiful white yacht. It's got bumpers all around it to keep the surface from being marred and the martinis from being jolted.
That's one thing. Not a problem, from my perspective, unless China decides that the way to handle the frictions in Central Asia is to arm the Islamists whom we are hunting down with surface to air missiles.
You are either with us, or against us. And we are not in a very good mood.
Nobody wants to splinter your country up or anything like that. I've got a 1:5400000 map of China and a 1:1500000 map of Afghanistan so I can see where the fighting is. There's a big green line on the right hand side of the Afghanistan map and on the other side are big magenta letters saying China and in smaller black letters Uygur Xinjiang Autonomous Region. On the China map it's easier to see that the natural barrier is the mountains. The things that are clearly Chinese seem to peter out at the mountains.
Not surprising because the people who live in those mountains are not ethnic Chinese. They are ethnic Caucasian, and for the most part, religiously Moslem.
It appears to me that the borders there are rather sketchy. So I would expect some friction there, too.
However, here in the West the game we play for the most part is balance of power. You don't kick me because you know I'll kick back, harder.
Those "stans" are independent countries now. I hope old Jiang isn't feeling grabby and out of sorts about our cowboys riding around in there, looking for bad guys.
Tell him to stay the hell out until we're done, or he'll unleash the whirlwind. Count on it.
As for the bit about our not supporting China that the Uygurs are terrorists, maybe you haven't been paying attention. Russia's trying to convince us that the Chechens are terrorists. India is trying to convince us that terrorism is going on in Kashmir. Israel is trying to convince is that the Palestinians are terrorists. Everybody wants carte blanche to take out all these little separatist movements. That's just playing games. Semantic games, diplomacy games. If you want to look at the bigger picture, come on over to FADG. |
