1997 Neo-Con report describes containing and collapsing China.
by Tony Cartalucci
Bangkok, Thailand June 25, 2011 - Neo-Con policy maker Robert Kagan penned a fairly insightful 1997 piece in the Weekly Standard titled, "What China Knows That We Don't: The Case for a New Strategy of Containment," where he discusses the prospects of an effective containment strategy coupled with the baited hook of luring China into its place amongst the "international order." The entire piece is a spectacle to behold, where Kagan, and apparently the audience he is writing for, believes America has the right to manipulate, contain, and arrange the world's nations on behalf of the "international order" as it pleases.
Kagan, in regards to the "international order" writes, "The present world order serves the needs of the United States and its allies, which constructed it. And it is poorly suited to the needs of a Chinese dictatorship trying to maintain power at home and increase its clout abroad. Chinese leaders chafe at the constraints on them and worry that they must change the rules of the international system before the international system changes them."
Further into his article Kagan concedes that the West's goal is to collapse China's government. He writes, "Some new China hands agree that the Chinese regime is vulnerable and believe that increased ties will hasten the day when political liberalization finally catches up with economic liberalization. By embracing the Chinese, by exporting our Western ways through our Western goods, we will bring them down. By helping them expand their economy, we will exacerbate the contradictions of "authoritarian capitalism" and force their resolution in favor of more democratic forms."
Kagan continues, "There's a contradiction in this argument, one that suggests the new China hands are either naive or disingenuous. How can a policy of engagement that has as its explicit goal the eventual collapse of the regime appeal to China's leaders? Can the United States win their friendship by saying, " Engage with us so we can bring you down"? Chinese leaders are more aware than anyone that there are contradictions in their system, and they will not be comforted to know that America's policy of "engagement" contains the hope that they will be swept away by an uncontrollable tide of liberalization."
The game the West has played against China has saturated the pages of their policy, their speeches and public statements to such an extent that there is a real possibility that many in China truly believe they are the "international order's" chosen ones. There is also the very real danger that the networks and influence China is building regionally and globally can be toppled and co-opted by covert destabilizations similar to what is unfolding throughout the Middle East.
Making good on a promise.
The most striking comments, however, amidst the somewhat lengthy piece included Kagan's assessment of China's military leadership. Kagan explains, "The new China hands insist that the United States needs to explain to the Chinese that its goal is merely, as Zoellick writes, to avoid "the domination of East Asia by any power or group of powers hostile to the United States." Our treaties with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, and Australia, and our naval and military forces in the region, aim only at regional stability, not aggressive encirclement.
by Tony Cartalucci
Bangkok, Thailand June 25, 2011 - Neo-Con policy maker Robert Kagan penned a fairly insightful 1997 piece in the Weekly Standard titled, "What China Knows That We Don't: The Case for a New Strategy of Containment," where he discusses the prospects of an effective containment strategy coupled with the baited hook of luring China into its place amongst the "international order." The entire piece is a spectacle to behold, where Kagan, and apparently the audience he is writing for, believes America has the right to manipulate, contain, and arrange the world's nations on behalf of the "international order" as it pleases.
Kagan, in regards to the "international order" writes, "The present world order serves the needs of the United States and its allies, which constructed it. And it is poorly suited to the needs of a Chinese dictatorship trying to maintain power at home and increase its clout abroad. Chinese leaders chafe at the constraints on them and worry that they must change the rules of the international system before the international system changes them."
Further into his article Kagan concedes that the West's goal is to collapse China's government. He writes, "Some new China hands agree that the Chinese regime is vulnerable and believe that increased ties will hasten the day when political liberalization finally catches up with economic liberalization. By embracing the Chinese, by exporting our Western ways through our Western goods, we will bring them down. By helping them expand their economy, we will exacerbate the contradictions of "authoritarian capitalism" and force their resolution in favor of more democratic forms."
Kagan continues, "There's a contradiction in this argument, one that suggests the new China hands are either naive or disingenuous. How can a policy of engagement that has as its explicit goal the eventual collapse of the regime appeal to China's leaders? Can the United States win their friendship by saying, " Engage with us so we can bring you down"? Chinese leaders are more aware than anyone that there are contradictions in their system, and they will not be comforted to know that America's policy of "engagement" contains the hope that they will be swept away by an uncontrollable tide of liberalization."
The game the West has played against China has saturated the pages of their policy, their speeches and public statements to such an extent that there is a real possibility that many in China truly believe they are the "international order's" chosen ones. There is also the very real danger that the networks and influence China is building regionally and globally can be toppled and co-opted by covert destabilizations similar to what is unfolding throughout the Middle East.
Making good on a promise.
The most striking comments, however, amidst the somewhat lengthy piece included Kagan's assessment of China's military leadership. Kagan explains, "The new China hands insist that the United States needs to explain to the Chinese that its goal is merely, as Zoellick writes, to avoid "the domination of East Asia by any power or group of powers hostile to the United States." Our treaties with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, and Australia, and our naval and military forces in the region, aim only at regional stability, not aggressive encirclement.
But the Chinese understand U.S. interests perfectly well, perhaps better than we do. While they welcome the U.S. presence as a check on Japan, the nation they fear most, they can see clearly that America's military and diplomatic efforts in the region severely limit their own ability to become the region's hegemon. According to Thomas J. Christensen, who spent several months interviewing Chinese military and civilian government analysts, Chinese leaders worry that they will "play Gulliver to Southeast Asia's Lilliputians, with the United States supplying the rope and stakes."
From SSI's 2006 "String of Pearls" report detailing a strategy of containment for China, the evolution of Kagan's 1997 paper.
....
With that in mind, consider the more recent 2006 "String of Pearls: Meeting the Challenge of China's Rising Power across the Asian Littoral," put out by the Strategic Studies Institute. In it, like Kagan's report, Robert Zoellick's comments regarding China's integration within the global system is repeated briefly before a detailed plan for China's containment is laid out. The "String of Pearls" described in the report refers to China's logistical routes from the Middle East, where it receives the majority of its oil, back to its own ports in the South China Sea and all the nations in between where China might seek to expand its influence.
Since the 2006 report was written, China has made much headway in expanding the very influence the US had sought to hem in, while simultaneously, much of the influence the West had held throughout China's peripheries had ebbed away. With China's growing relationships throughout Southeast Asia, a naval port completed in Pakistan, and growing influence in both the Middle East and Africa it appears China stripped the globalists' baited hook. It also appears that a much more aggressive attempt is being made on the West's part to roll back China's recent expansion.
Since the 2006 report was written, China has made much headway in expanding the very influence the US had sought to hem in, while simultaneously, much of the influence the West had held throughout China's peripheries had ebbed away. With China's growing relationships throughout Southeast Asia, a naval port completed in Pakistan, and growing influence in both the Middle East and Africa it appears China stripped the globalists' baited hook. It also appears that a much more aggressive attempt is being made on the West's part to roll back China's recent expansion.
The engineered "Arab Spring" and America's attempt to overturn Africa's current order through war and staged revolutions is meant to put pressure on China via its dependency on foreign oil. Concurrently, Pakistan is facing increased aggression from US intelligence and military forces in a long planned attempt to breakup the nation via a Baluchi and Pashtun insurrection. This threatens to cut off China's Gwadar port in Baluchistan and the logistical network it is trying to establish through northern Pakistan. Similarly, efforts to destabilize China's neighbors throughout Southeast Asia have been ongoing. Thailand and Myanmar in particular have suffered the most.
When Kagan penned his 1997 piece, America still held the prospect of "tying down China" with Southeast Asia. Today that prospect has largely slipped through their fingers. With globalist-stooge Thaksin Shinawatra's ouster from Thailand in 2006, and multiple failed color revolutions in both Myanmar and Thailand since then, America has suffered a noticeable deterioration regarding its influence throughout the region. It seems the best hope the West's corporatocracy holds is to create a sufficient amount of chaos throughout the region and around the world to disrupt China's economic growth, while attempting to destabilize Beijing itself through foreign-funded sedition. China has now openly accused the West of fomenting unrest both abroad and within its own borders signifying that enticement and containment have now shifted over to a confrontation of proxies.
Conclusion
It appears that Kagan's plans and those of his school of political thought have failed to contain China as thoroughly as they would have liked. It also appears that they are feverishly attempting to reclaim lost ground with their orgy of destabilization and war throughout the Middle East, a plan that seems to be losing momentum. Kagan has just recently signed his name to a letter, along with a myriad of other big-business serving, Neo-Cons imploring House Republicans to support their pet project in Libya. Should Kagan and his band of despotic slobs fail in their ambitions, we may yet be presented with a third option regarding China - respecting their sovereignty and jealously protecting our own, within our borders, as our Founding Fathers and our Constitution intended.
The people of both China and America would be wise to read the words of Kagan in 1997, the words of the Strategic Studies Institute in their 2006 "Strings of Pearls" report, and realize that the global elite are attempting to impose on us all a despotic global regime based on arbitrary laws they themselves have created, usurping both American and Chinese sovereignty and threatening the existence of both our nations. Kagan himself admits that "Western goods" are the conduit through which this modern empire expands its reach, so logically boycotting and replacing them with "local goods" and solutions is the answer.
To read Robert Kagan's full paper, click here.
