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There's been a lot of press in the last week about how China is adopting a harsher tone. I am glad that their rhetoric is trending more aggressive - like Kim Jong-il (North Korea) - because their actions have been similarly aggressive for some time. Its just that the media narrative is driven by rhetoric rather than actions. Reporters get confused when aggressive actions are accompanied by nice words... and report the latter.
While the most recent news is China threatening retaliation for U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, China was aggressive and hostile at the Copenhagen climate talks, and in Obama's November trip. Not to mention the recent Google spat. The new media narrative is summed up here.
China's indignant reaction to the announcement of U.S. plans to sell weapons to Taiwan appears to be in keeping with a new triumphalist attitude from Beijing that is worrying governments and analysts across the globe.
China's actions have been aggressive for 15 years. They devalued their currency in the mid-1990's. The made baloney promises to convince the schleps in Congress to pass Permanent Normalized Trade Relations for China in 1999.
Also in 1999, a book was published by the Chinese military publishing house, the PLA Literature and Arts Publishing House. The title is "Unrestricted Warfare." Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui wrote the book. They are senior colonels from the Chinese military. The book advocates striking the United States in nonmilitary ways in times of conflict, including targeting financial institutions to bring the U.S. to heal.
We don't want conflict with China, but we don't need to pretend that they are global partners either. They are not.
We must simply protect our economic and security interests. We are not doing that.
In the economic realm, we need to recognize that they are strategic traders working hard to outsource U.S. production to China to build their country at the expense of ours.
Win-win is a nice phrase. But successful countries protect their economic interests. We are not being successful these days. We are in a trade war... now... but have not acknowledged it. We need to respond swiftly to neutralize China's economic tactics in the trade realm.
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