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To: Tom who wrote (2720)	3/15/1999 1:50:00 PM
From: Ron Bower	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 2951

Tom, Where's all this heading? I don't the vibes I'm getting. I had thought the US and China relations were making progress, now it's starting to feel like the start of another 'Cold War'. Ron

To: Tom who wrote (2720)	3/16/1999 1:15:00 AM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2951

Adm. Moorer wrote: we have abandoned our forward base at Subic Bay, a base without which we could not have waged the Vietnam conflict or any other such regional conflict and sustained our firepower at the front. The base was not abandoned. Its lease was cancelled by the Philippine Government; it could have been retained only by overthrowing that Government. Prominent figures in the US military actually advocated this step; fortunately they were overruled. The lease was cancelled primarily because of the failure of Navy commanders to control the off-base behaviour of their men, which I hope they remember if the VFA is passed, and if they succeed in positioning troops elsewhere in Asia. His analysis is interesting, though anything written by a military man should be taken with a grain of salt. There is a perspective that is usually lacking, and it certainly seems to be lacking in this case. In any event, the best way to keep China from rocking the boat is to encourage them to ride in it. If they are making enough money out of the system, they will have no interest in breaking it up.

To: Tom who wrote (2720)	3/16/1999 2:52:00 AM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2951

On rereading, I noticed this in the Moorer piece: After we abandoned Subic, the Chinese military, again through commercial fronts, tried to take it over. I have lived in the Philippines for most of the last 20 years, and I have spent the last 3 years in Subic. I followed the withdrawal and conversion process quite closely. I speak a number of Philippine languages and have reasonably good sources of information. Unless some very convincing supporting evidence can be brought forth to support this statement, I will have to regard it as absolute nonsense. Comments like this actually detract from the overall impact of the points that were made, and I'm sorry that Moorer let that one into the piece.

To: Tom who wrote (2720)	3/16/1999 10:21:00 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2951

Tom, Double OT Another curious item from Moorer's discourse, which further emphasizes my point: I have already pointed out in extensive testimony how they have positioned themselves at our weakest link, the Isthmus of Panama, through the use of closely allied commercial entities. See my Senate testimony from this past Summer. Cutting us off at that weakest point would enable the Chinese Communist military to so weaken our capacity to keep our forward forces supplied with munitions and jet fuel that we would have to bring all the troops and ships home in a matter of days. Again we see a pattern of distortion designed to inspire fear. Moorer makes a clean leap from the presence of Chinese commercial entities to the capacity to cut off traffic through the Panama canal. This leap, frankly, is way over the top. In order for a commercial entity to exert this kind of force, that commercial entity would have to be transformed into a full scale military installation. I certainly hope that US military intelligence would be sufficiently sophisticated to detect this happening, and that the US military would have the capacity to prevent it from happening. Moorer seems to believe that the presence of any Chinese commercial interest anywhere is a security threat to the US. I assume he would have the US oppose the establishment of Chinese commercial presences in any strategic areas. This, in my view, is tantamount to forcing China into the kind of economic isolation that is likely to produce military adventurism. We should be encouraging China's integration into the world economy: the more Chinese are making money out of the world, the less likely China will be to rock the boat; the more China interacts with the world outside, the more internal pressure will be generated toward political liberalization. Obviously it is prudent to monitor Chinese commercial presences to a sufficient degree that we will know if they are being upgraded to military facilities. I think this is well within our capability. Are you following the discussion of these issues on the Asia Forum thread?