The Orange Peril (Red and Yellow Make Orange)

Here is a letter my brother Brian wrote to the editors of the St. Louis Past-Disgrace, er, Post-Dispatch, in response to a vacuous letter portraying China as a peace loving, innocuous nation being provoked by the imperialist ambitions of that tyrant-the United States.



To The Editors,
In the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of Monday, August 1 Gwynne Dyer wrote an urgent and breathless epistle to the readers of the newspaper warning them to beware of the Bush Administration's attempts to isolate and encircle the peaceful Chinese. He then demonstrated that China is no threat to the USA and that the administration's policies will bear bitter fruit in the near future.

Dyer's analysis of the current dynamic animating U.S.-Chinese relations is almost completely incorrect. He argues that America is attempting to "encircle" China when, in fact, the Chinese are doing the exact same thing to America. Today, the Chinese control the Panama Canal, they have negotiated for submarine bases in Venezuela and Cuba, they are attempting to corner the market on important natural resources. They are also using their government money to buy American corporations. The Chinese even had a deal to buy the Long Beach naval yard until the U.S. Congress nullified this Clinton Administration initiative. The Chinese government subsidiary that was active in this endeavor was the Chinese Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO), a group that was caught smuggling Chinese-made weapons into the USA, intended for use by street gangs in Los Angeles and Oakland, in 1996. The encirclement argument carries no weight.

Likewise, Dyer's claim that China is peaceful and unthreatening are demonstrably false. He unwittingly gives away the game when he states that "China's economy already is more robust than the Soviet economy ever was." If this is true then a booming economy, a very large and rapidly modernizing military, and an inexhausable population make China a much more dangerous adversary than the Soviets ever were.

Dyer is also on shaky ground when he claims that "Nothing in the Chinese Communist government's behavior over the past fifty years, or in China's cultural traditions over the past several thousand years suggest that a more powerful China would be territorially expansionist." This betrays a lack of understanding of recent Chinese history. The seizure of Tibet shortly after the revolution was territorial expansion. More recently, the Chinese seizure of the Spratly Islands in 1992 was naked aggression. Today the Chinese government refers to Burma and Singapore as "Greater China", and , contrary to Dyer's insistence that China does not intend to fight over Taiwan, the Chinese government contends that the Gross Domestic Product of Taiwan is a Chinese national commodity.

Dyer's contention that China does not have the military capacity to threaten the United States cannot be taken seriously. While the rest of the world celebrated the end of the Cold War and slashed defense spending the Chinese saw a once-in-a-millenium opportunity and ramped up their defense spending along with espionage and high-tech spying. Independent agencies have confirmed that the Chinese are building a "Blue Water" navy complete with fighter aircraft and submarines. This build-up, which began in the mid-1990s, is directed at one power. Along these same lines independent analysis suggests that the Chinese will be able to win a naval conflict with the American fleet in the South China Sea by 2010. If this comes to pass Taiwan will be invaded.

Finally Dyer suggests that the recent provocative rumblings emanating from Beijing indicate Chinas fear of the United States. Dyer is wrong! The Chinese threats to destroy Los Angeles and seize Taiwan, to continue to interfere with American military aircraft over international waters, and her habitual references to the USA as the "Main Enemy" prove only that China is a menace and a growing danger.


Brian E. Birdnow
Bellefontaine Neighbors