Saturday, May 23, 2020

What Did We Expect

One of the complaints about Donald Trump the man is that he has absolutely no wisdom. He looks at China right now and he is not happy. A lot of people are not happy. I haven't been happy for decades....but Trump is mad because what he thinks was a great economy....(with a $22 trillion dollar debt....that he helped grow....and an overpriced insane stock market)....an economy that he claimed was his personal economy....is gone....and his reelection chances are in doubt.....so he is doing what he does best....strike back at someone. What we need to do right now is avoid a world war. That comes first. We have to take our time....get proofs first of all....wait for this election season to be over....if the Lord lets us even do that....and come to a consensus of how we will deal with China. It would not be out of the question for them to move on Taiwan....or someone else....or up the anti another two or three levels....or even strike first....particularly if their back is absolutely to the wall....but this president inflames....purposely....it's part of his modus operandi....carry a big stick....and bang it every step of the way. The following was first posted March 31:

Preface:  The Harris Poll found that 77% of Americans....90% of whom are Republican and 67% are Democrat....believe that China is responsible for the catastrophe upon us....as we are being stirred up for retaliation primarily on talk radio....for political purposes. I have never read The Art Of War...Sun Tzu....but Donald Trump recommends you read it in his Trump 101: The Way To Success. President Xi has certainly read this ancient Chinese general's work. One recommendation in the book....I verified it from a few sources....is that you always leave an opening for an enemy if he is in a desperate situation...."Do not press a desperate foe too hard." We are now pushing for the opposite. We are tempting China to make the next step towards war. I just finished listening to an interview....as I was typing....with an 'expert' on China who spent the first half of the interview warning about what China's response might be....but concluded that we have to go on a war footing with the Chinese Communist Party anyway? Preparing for confrontations with any of our enemies has always been wise....but instigating those confrontations is not....and that is what we are doing right now.

            The plane that I was on left Tan Son Nhut Air Base outside Saigon on the same day that Air  Force One landed in Beijing....February 21, 1972. This was President Nixon's attempt to make war with China less likely....or so he explained it as such. Four months previous....mainland China was admitted to the United Nations as Taiwan was expelled. Four months after President Nixon's arrival in China....burglers were caught at the Watergate Hotel. On April 30, 1975 the Chinese variation of the Soviet T-54 tank rolled onto Tan Son Nhut. China was admitted to the World Trade Organization on December 11, 2001....three months to the day after 9/11.
            Today our relationship with China is like a clematis plant that has climbed in and out of the wires of a trellis. As a matter of fact the whole world is the trellis as China's economy weaves its way up and around and through.
            China persecutes many of its people....and steals intellectual property....and its influence around the world has been spreading as an invasive plant. What did we expect? Its economy is said to need an annual 6% growth to sustain itself. We not only allowed this economic powerhouse to come about....we wanted it to grow....and we continued to feed it.
            If China's economy were to totally collapse....what would happen? Economists attempt an answer on the economic side....but its our intelligence agencies that attempt to answer the sociopolitical concerns....but what good would that be anyway....for President Trump doesn't believe  them. Well he may now with his own appointees in there.
            It would have been one thing if our economy had been suffering and people were out of work in great numbers.....but that wasn't the case as we were constantly told that we were the greatest economy in the history of the world. So why did we pursue a risky tariff war? Was it on principle? Does Donald Trump seem to you to be a man who acts on principle?
            China was being pressured big time. Their communist leadership was moving back to a cold war stance.....and then the virus hit....and if it subsides China will then be taken to task. The Pentagon announced just today that the Marines are changing their training and equipment to focus on a more likely 21st Century war with China.
            If one is building a giant skyscraper hotel....one might be able to go back and forth on almost a daily basis....'OK we'll do it this way" and then "No we'll do it that way". If you make a mistake....worst case scenario you're out a few million bucks...but in world affairs as serious as potential major wars we need consistency. We don't need a novice stomping around saying that he's the smartest man in the room. Do we want China to at least survive....or do we want it to collapse? Let's look to both the immediate and long-term repercussions before answering that.
             What has been getting in the way of common sense is the greed of profiteering....which is short-sightedness. The tariff war was ill-advised. The dispersions cast upon NATO were ill-advised....as were purging of experienced intelligence people because they were not a rubber stamp....and as was the arm-twisting of the Fed....as was a number of other decisions made only to increase profits that were supposedly through the roof already. Whatever decisions will be made on China have to take into consideration what the communist leadership might do if their backs are absolutely up against the wall.