[ExI] Meanwhile in China...

[John Grigg]

Stuart LaForge wrote:
I don't think I am embracing fear nor to quote Rafal "turning toward darkness".
I do think I am developing a healthy respect for the subtlety of Chinese
statesmanship, the efficiency of their bureaucracy, and the power of their
collectivism. While the U.S. is fighting trillion dollar wars ostensibly for
oil, the Chinese are developing cars with a negative carbon footprint that
run by artificial photosynthesis. Knowing the frugality of the Chinese,
they probably did for less a than a billion. And I am sorry if this sounds scary
to some, I am simply trying to wake people up to something far more threatening
to the American way of life than terrorism could ever be. And that danger is our
own greed, divisiveness, and complacency.
>>>

I have very mixed feelings about China.  I don't quite have the
"neocon knee-jerk reaction" I used to possess, but their nation still
does greatly disturb me.  I find it interesting that the Bush
administration put a greater focus on preparing for a future war with
China, than they did the current Middle Eastern war, which they had
started.  But as Secretary of Defense Gates later said after
correcting course, "if we are going to have this war, we must put all
available resources into it, to support our troops!"  And I agree with
him, though we do need to end the current war fairly soon, to better
focus on the economic & political & military struggle we now have with
China.

"The Great Firewall of China" and a govt. dept of 30,000 online spies,
shows their contempt for free speech.  And it is very common for a
Chinese commoner to get beaten up by police for daring to petition
govt. authorities to redress a basic wrong.  Hellish tales of
political prisoners being killed to harvest their organs supposedly
are a thing of the past, but I am not so sure...  The Chinese
government tramples on civil liberties on sickening scale.

And so due to social unrest from such practices, some experts go so
far as to predict massive unrest and perhaps even a civil war.  But I
tend to think due to the overwhelming size and ruthlessness of the
various government policing organizations, the people will be held in
check, despite much anger and distrust.  Chinese "collectivism" is
beginning to show in the form of labor union movements, which cannot
be seen as good by either the govt. or Wal-Mart! lol

It frightens me to think that a nation with little or no respect for
civil liberties (even of their own people), is going to probably be
the greatest economic and military power on the planet within several
decades!  I realize some experts say the upcoming generation of savvy
young Chinese college professionals are going to change everything,
but I suspect pursuing money and status will be their burning goal,
and not Western-style basic human rights.

As for the subtlety of Chinese statesmanship, a leaked document from
their war college examined the 9-11 attack, and showed support for the
use of foreign terrorists as a means to wage a peace-time covert war
against the United States.  Recently, a Chinese general gave a speech
about how the U.S. better watch out and stay out of there way, or a
nuclear strike would hit some of our major cities & military bases, to
teach us a lesson (the Chinese Communist Party supported his
statement).

The Pentagon responded (I must say I like what they did...) by saying
if such a thing happened, the U.S. would "surgically strike" with
tactical nukes and conventional weapons that would be aimed at killing
all senior Communist party officials, but not their cities!  A
Pentagon spokesman said, "as soon as they pick up a phone to give
orders we will zero in and leave a smoking crater..."  And so I guess
carrier pigeons will be instituted by the Chinese to avoid such a
fate!

I realize it is easy to either overestimate or underestimate the
Chinese.  They seem to enjoy playing smoke and mirrors games regarding
their military budget, which all agree is far far larger than what
they publicly claim.  It is well known they want a first class blue
water navy to offset American power, regain Taiwan and intimidate when
necessary, their Asian neighbors.  Our European friends (especially
the Germans and French) seem to have few qualms about selling them
advanced weaponry.  And even Israel, who we have been so generous
with, nearly sold China state of the art aerial drones (originally
gifts to Israel from the U.S.) until the U.S. Congress found out and
screamed bloody murder! lol

China seems to excel at espionage and the fine art of stealing
American know-how.  They see this as their only real means to catch up
to the U.S., since in some areas they are many years behind us (or at
least they were...).  A magnum opus event in their espionage efforts
was when they stole the Aegis missile cruiser command and control
technology.  In 2005 they introduced a new line of warships that were
clones of our Aegis...

The Chinese spymasters don't just use professional spies, but instead
use anyone who could be subverted into an asset.  A Chinese-American
engineer may not want to cooperate, but if he does not, relatives and
friends in China may be sent to prison or be used as live but soon to
be very dead organ donors...  This of course can have a very powerful
effect on the will to resist.

When it comes to the foreign policy goals of China, I think people
hyper-focus on Taiwan, and don't think enough about the Korean
peninsula.  I had read that China is very nervous about the two Korean
nations reuniting and becoming an economic and possibly military
powerhouse.  And so should North Korea entirely economically collapse
or fall apart due to war, China would swoop down to "liberate" the
nation, and keep it from reuniting with South Korea by becoming a
Chinese satellite.

The U.S. will burn itself out if we think we can single-handedly stand
up to the growing might of China (some experts say by 2050 their
military budget will be larger than ours).  We must have allies to do
it, as we did during the cold war years with the NATO Alliance.  The
U.S. could fence in China's ambitions, at least up to a point, by
having a strong bond with Japan, Korea, Vietnam, India, Europe and
even Russia (Russia controls extremely mineral rich areas north of
China, that used to belong to China, and China wants them back even if
war comes of it, but Taiwan will be dealt with first, Russia's best
military forces face China and not Europe!, always keep that in
mind...).  This would discourage China from a Tibet-style invasion &
occupation, but this time on a much bigger and more powerful neighbor
(such as Korea, Vietnam or even Japan).

But with China owning so much U.S. debt, and being so connected at the
hip with us, in regards to trade, I wonder to what extent it is
probable that the two nations will really get into a shooting war.  It
would greatly harm both our economies, and my impression is that China
has a "victory without a single shot ever fired" economic world
domination strategy in dealing with the United States.  They have a
vastly more sophisticated playbook than the old Soviet Union ever
had...

I am amazed by the power of China when they take their wealth and
political will to do something big, whether it is a dam system or
keeping their population numbers under control.  I recently visited
the Arcosanti arcology in Arizona, and thought to myself how sad that
the full scope of the design was never built, and probably never will.
 But it turns out that in China they will be building an arcology to
dwarf Arconsanti, even if it had been build to the scale of it's
creator's original vision!

China will have a major challenge when the rising generation of young
men don't have enough young women to be their brides (due to Chinese
parents wanting male offspring and the highly enforced one child only
laws, that only recently has been softened somewhat).  And this could
be a major cause of social discontent, if not properly dealt with.  I
suppose foreign girls from the Philippines and elsewhere may be
brought in.  Black market smuggling of young women into China will
also probably be a very big industry.

I hope China will evolve for the better with the rising generation and
become a representative democracy, or at the very least, a mellowed
out and more civil rights respecting communist regime.  And perhaps
once they achieve a rough military parity with the United States, they
will feel safe enough to "breathe easy" and not go into a downward
spiral of cold war nightmarishness.  But I have strong doubts that
either of these things will happen, due to the paranoia, disregard for
human rights, and lust for global status that enthralls their
Communist Party leadership.

Through the lens of transhumanism, I especially worry.  I don't want
to see AGI and advanced nanotech subverted by China and used to
control the Earth and beyond.  As much as I cringe at some of the
things the United States has done, a China that masters such
convergence technologies ahead of any other nation, would potentially
be a terrifying force for tyranny at a level never before seen.

Stuart LaForge wrote:
"I am simply trying to wake people up to something far more threatening
to the American way of life than terrorism could ever be. And that danger is our
own greed, divisiveness, and complacency."

I appreciate your sentiment.  An America that can exist on a balanced
budget and not go into massive debt seems totally beyond us, because
we all want what we want and demand it, and so our representatives go
to Washington to feed at the money trough.  And so we bind ourselves
financially to a foreign competitor such as China, and cross our
fingers that they will keep on buying up our debt, so the house of
cards does not come crashing down.

Getting real change made is extremely hard due to bi-partisan politics
and the powerful corporate interests that throw money around so their
lobbyists make sure things get done their way.  And our major
corporations have learned they don't have to take responsibility for
their foolishly risky actions, because the politicians will force the
taxpayer to foot the bill when bankruptcy and closure looms.

We talk of our love for our constitution and the rights of man, but we
use economic enslavement tactics to keep our third world neighbors
under our thumb.  We lose the moral high ground when we do such
things, and it allows our enemies to mock our claims of virtue and
goodwill.

The U.S. public educational system is seen as an outmoded institution
that has fallen far behind much of the rest of the world, in terms of
preparing students for 21st century careers where math and science
count.

The citizens of our republic are turning into sheeple who are willing
to give up civil liberties as long as the government spends countless
billions hunting shadowy middle eastern boogiemen, and the irony is
that we are becoming like the very people we are trying to fight.

We Americans think the good times can go on forever and the bills will
never come due.  The Chinese will be waiting...

John Grigg