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Thursday, March 20, 2008
Free Tibet? Sure.
Recent days have brought about the sudden revival of a cause which I thought had died with the Twin Towers – the movement to free Tibet from Chinese rule. Now, I have long regarded this movement as little more than a pointless exercise in moral vanity. After all, what could be more ineffectual that protests against a non-democratic government which is utterly indifferent to words? Tibet has no great store of resources or other valuables. Nor is it positioned in an area which any particular strategic value of the West.
However, if the unrest in Tibet continues – or is violently suppressed – it offers the West a strategic opening. For too long, China has been allowed a free hand on the global stage. China’s economic manipulations are met by ineffectual tears. The Chinese military build-up continues without abatement. China continues to knowingly sell weapons which are used against Allied forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Well, I put it to you that turnabout is fair play. The Chinese military, for all of its numbers and strength, doesn’t have much experience in the field. It’s taken the United States Army – the best trained, best led, and best equipped force in the world – most of a decade to get a handle on counter-insurgency. New equipment and training aside, the People’s Liberation Army remains a tool designed to attain victory through mass. It is extremely ill-suited to the sort of careful, targeted, and well-organized operations which are vital in fighting against insurgents.
Let’s make China bleed.
For far too long, we’ve restricted ourselves to fighting symmetrical battles – while allowing our enemies to use every trick in the book against us. Let’s steal a march on the People’s Republic and make their year hell.
It could be done, if we could find the will. Use third parties to ship weapons to Tibetan extremists. You may protest that the Tibetans are followers of the Dalai Lama and believe in peace and so forth. I say – we’ll find someone to do what we want.
Take the Chinese-made weapons that we capture in Iraq and Afghanistan and use third parties to transfer them to Tibetan extremists, or whomever else is convenient and willing to use them. We don’t need a lot of attacks – the Chinese are pretty eager to shoot unarmed demonstrators as it is. It’s quite likely that a few isolated attacks would trigger a massively disproportionate Chinese response which, in turn, would generate a worldwide media frenzy and probably screw up the Olympics.
For that matter, the People’s Liberation Army doesn’t seem to be particularly well-equipped or trained to meet this threat. Swarming the area with untrained men, as they seem to be doing, may constrict movement by rebels – but it also presents more targets.
Posted by Adam T. Yoshida on March 20, 2008 in International Affairs | Permalink
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Comments
It's about freeing Tibet. It's not about bleeding the Chinese. Try to think about China in a more positive light.
Posted by: dewp | 20-Mar-08 8:40:28 PM
I don't care much for Tibet. I do, on the other hand, recognize that the long cold war with China will be the second defining struggle of this century, along with the war against Islamo-fascism.
Posted by: Adam Yoshida | 20-Mar-08 9:15:15 PM
i stand somewhere in the middle of the above 2.
I love Tibet, Buddhism, non-violence, the whole bit. If i had my way we'd all live in a cuddly, Winnie the Pooh world where non-violence would actually wirk.
But it's not a Winnie the Pooh world at all, it's a Lord of the Flies world. And someone seriously needs to bloody China's nose. You can tell a lot about a person by how he treats his inferiors - this must be moreso w/ countries.
Posted by: Jeremy | 20-Mar-08 9:26:15 PM
Free Tibet? Does that mean China's going to legalize gambling? :)
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 20-Mar-08 10:08:12 PM
Funny how the same people who denounce Bush for changing regimes in Iraq are so anxious to go adventuring in Asia. Against a far more formidable opponent, to boot.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 20-Mar-08 10:39:30 PM
It sounds like you want to provide them with encouragement and then step back from the fray- much like the US did in Hungary in 1956. What was the result?
Posted by: DML | 20-Mar-08 10:56:30 PM
These activist types have the attention span of a flea. They'll goad the government into military action, and as soon as the coffins start coming home, reverse gears and accuse their own government of being even worse butchers than the enemy. If you remind them of their own early support for the war, they'll claim the government lied, that the war is unwinnable, that we're just peacekeepers, blah, blah, blah.
For just as surely as your average liberal cannot see more than two seconds into the future, nor can they remember anything that transpired more than two seconds in the past. Thus is the hidden cost of always "living in the moment"--the brain turns to cottage cheese.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 20-Mar-08 11:04:14 PM
On the surface this sounds like a neat idea. Anything that discombobulates China has to be good, right?
Then you consider the nature of the foe that confronts Tibetans. China is a brutal dictatorship that puts on a friendly face for Western consumption. The thugs who run that country do not tolerate challenges to their authority. Any armed insurrection in Tibet will be met with savagery against the Tibetan people. Does anyone think a regime that ran tanks over its own students in 1989 would think twice about mowing down Tibetans and laying waste to that country?
DML is right, it would be Hungary all over again. It is better to be patient and let China implode from its many internal stresses.
I do think, however, that the post Olympic period will be a dangerous time with China full of itself and tempted to settle the score with Taiwan once the threat of an Olympic boycott is past.
Posted by: JMD | 21-Mar-08 6:16:05 AM
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Posted by: Paulo | 21-Mar-08 11:09:35 AM
I don't think I said anywhere that I thought that such a move would be successful in actually freeing Tibet. It would instead be successful in causing the Chinese serious discomfort and, of equal joy, forcing them to play by the same annoying rules as the rest of us.
After all, the Chinese can't do 1989 all over again - it would be devastating to them. It probably would result in an Olympic boycott, just to start.
DML is closer to the point, but misses the key fact. The Soviet Union could crush Hungary in 1956 (or Prague Spring in 1968) because it was ALREADY an international paraiah. Doing this would force the Chinese to choose between expending lives and resources in an endless low-level insurgency on their own ground (for, remember, the dissent in China reaches beyond the borders of Tibet and, if weapons were supplied in sufficent quantities, I imagine they could find their ways into all sorts of interesting places) or between messing up their entire international position.
Posted by: Adam Yoshida | 21-Mar-08 11:12:19 AM
Yoshi is talking about building and supporting an insurgency.
There won't be any coffins coming home.
Tit for tat and all that.
But oh, it might ruin the entertainment value of the Olympic Games.
Yes, let's just watch some games.
For those of you that think Buddhists are totally committed to non-violence, search the net and see if Buddhists don't fight when they think it's necessary.
Bread and Circuses, citizen, Bread and Circuses.
The insurgency against China would have to be supplied through Pakistan.
An insurgency would play havoc with China/U.S. relations.
Posted by: Speller | 21-Mar-08 11:20:02 AM
Speller
"An insurgency would play havoc with China/U.S. relations."
I like the idea of a do-over. Supply the insurgents with weapons and training to drive a communist superpower from an illegally occupied neighbour right before their Olympics.
This time, no Jimmy Carter, no ungrateful religious fanatics flying planes into buildings 20 years later, and especially, no more horrible Rambo remakes.
Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 21-Mar-08 11:30:42 AM
Oh, I don't know - it could be supplied through a lot of places. There's a lot of smuggling in that part of the world.
Though, Pakistan does make the most sense. After all, it's lawless anyways - and it'll make it that much harder to trace the weapons.
Yeah, it'd mess up U.S.-Chinese relations, but - in the end - a Sino-American War is inevitable. Or, at least, we'd better hope it is because, without one, the Chinese could become the leading world power without firing a shot.
In the meantime, what are the Chinese going to do? They're already supplying the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. They're already allied with Iran. They're already manipulating currency markets.
They can't cut off trade or attack the U.S. economy without bankrupting themselves and, in such an event, the U.S. economy could recover far more quickly than the Chinese one would under a frantic program of massive rearmament.
After all, if you cut off U.S.-Chinese trade, the U.S. can buy from those sources and produce more itself. Who are the Chinese going to sell their garbage to though, if not the Americans?
As for the much-vaunted debt threat, I think that almost everyone has missed the point of the U.S.-Chinese relationship and how it's actually the United States that has the superior position.
If you owe the bank a million dollars, the bank owns you. If you owe the bank a billion dollars, you own the bank.
After all, if the Chinese do anything over-the-line or aggressive towards the United States, the United States can simply nullify its obligations towards the Chinese. It's kind of like buying guns from people, then shooting them and taking your money back.
The policy of the United States should be to maintain and outwardly cordial relationship with the Chinese while pursing the following tracks:
1) Developing a missile defense shield to nullify China's nuclear advantage.
2) Developoing plans, in a contingency, to destroy the Three Gorges Dam with plausible deniability.
3) Developing the military capability to totally dominate the Chinese coastline and the airspace along the Chinese coast. The ability to blockade China, for all intents and purposes, on a semi-permanant basis, should it come to that.
4) Developing the military capacity to and assist extended insurgent campaigns against the Chinese in any territory the Chinese might occupy in Asia. Think the Peninsular campaign.
5) Developing the ability to, in wartime, covertly disrupt the Chinese harvert - perhaps by designing parasites which attack crop strains unique to China.
That's how you beat China in a war. You can't fight them on the Asian mainland. So, you cut off their trade. You cut off their ability to project power outside of Asia. You hit them where they are vulnerable.
Remember, China is combustible.
That's the key, by the way, to the peacetime policy I propose towards China. The U.S. covert policy should be to encourage riot, tumlt, and dissent in China, especially among peasants, to the maximum degree possible.
Yeah, arming Tibet and other radicals would be useful - but imagine how much good might be done by inflaming peasant mobs, spreading rumours, and simply providing local radicals with the means to make the lives of the Chinese government hell.
Posted by: Adam Yoshida | 21-Mar-08 11:39:14 AM
>"Remember, China is combustible."
Adam Yoshida | 21-Mar-08 11:39:14 AM
I suppose you could supply an insurgency against China through Indo-China, Vietnam.
Why not cut off food shipments?
That would do the trick.
Not just for China but for other failed or hostile states.
Posted by: Speller | 21-Mar-08 11:48:28 AM
It is incorrect to believe that Tibet has nothing of value, for were it so China would not have invaded. China needs and wants the natural mineral resources of Tibet. Due her aggression at the time with India, invading and occupying Tibet allowed her to have her troops right on the Indian border.
China has committed every conceivable crime against humanity in Tibet and continues to carry out genocide against the Tibetan people. The Tibetan population continues to be replaced by Han Chinese.
The silence of the world must end. China (the thugs in power) must be put in the world spot-light and kept there instead of granting prominent seats at the UN and special trading status. Will this happen? Not likely considering how greed remains the motivating factor for most.
I would also add that were this not the case the world would also have remained a true and strong supporter of Taiwan.
Posted by: Alain | 21-Mar-08 11:56:59 AM
While the Chinese are upset about the loss of face that the Tibetans are giving them, they really fear the possibility of ethnic and religious uprisings in the western regions which border on central Asia and the "Stans".
The Islamic population of these regions hate the Chinese as occupiers and infidels, and are also a demographic threat to China, since these populations are growing while the Chinese have a distorted demographic caused by the one child policy. Will, motivation and access to reliable supplies of men and munitions through the "'Stans" equals a nightmare for the Chinese.
The East is Green, not Red.
Posted by: Thucydides | 21-Mar-08 11:08:32 PM
Are you serious? You know CIA was sponsoring something like this for 20 years after the failed uprising in 1959? They've tried this for a long time, it hasn't worked and it won't work.
Posted by: Feng | 22-Mar-08 1:45:49 AM
In '59 Mao was still alive and the PRC were still pals with the USSR.
Things have changed a lot since then.
Posted by: Speller | 22-Mar-08 3:52:34 AM
Adam, all you say is quite admirable, but still impossible. Remember, even the KGB found it impossible to carry out any major active measures against the PRC. Most of the CIA is comprised of guys who fill out expense forms all day for things like radios and pens and staplers, or worry about actually going to a place which can give them diarrhea. So while the CIA may have the resources, they do not have the will, nor is there any indication that the politcal support is there. If Hillary ever gets elected, the USA will give up on Taiwan too.
So who else is left?
Posted by: Mandate of Heaven | 22-Mar-08 3:10:21 PM
Free Hawaii! The US has completely destroyed the native Hawaiians culture, moved its own people on to their land (more whites their than natives now), and the US now makes the laws for the Hawaiian people.
The US has no claim to Hawaii. At least China has a historical claim to Tibet before the colonial days, the US has none.
If you want to return freedom back to countries, do it for all of them, don't hand pick some because enough Movie stars tell you too.
Posted by: Michael | 23-Mar-08 8:04:47 AM
Hawaii has a 9.1% Hawaiian(Polynesian) population that didn't originate there, a 28.6% White population that didn't originate there, and a 40.0% Asian population that didn't originate there.
You are a racist pig Michael.
Hawaii is a U.S. State and the U.S. has a solid claim to Hawaii.
If the U.S. were to drop it's claim to Hawaii, Japan would likely claim Hawaii as the largest single ethnic group of people are Japanese.
>"The Hawaiian Islands are not strictly in the South Pacific. They lie in the North Pacific. However, their first settlers were emigrants from southern parts of the South Pacific, and were Polynesian."
"Hawaiian culture is an adaption of that which the Polynesians migrating there brought with them."
FROM>
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/o/oceania_polynesia_hawaii.html
>"Tibet proclaimed its independence from China in 1911, right before the fall of the Qing government. However, "at no time did any western power come out in favor of its independence or grant it diplomatic recognition.”[4] The People's Republic of China (PRC), citing historical records and the Seventeen Point Agreement signed by the Tibetan government in 1951, claims Tibet as a part of China (with a small part, depending on definitions, controlled by India). Currently every country in the world recognizes China's sovereignty over Tibet. Dalai Lama, the head of the Tibetan government in exile, does not reject China’s sovereignty over Tibet: “Tibet Wants Autonomy, Not Independence.”
FROM>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibet
The people of Tibet are indigenous, however the Hawaiians(Polynesians) are not.
Posted by: Speller | 23-Mar-08 8:43:27 AM
"After all, what could be more ineffectual that protests against a non-democratic government which is utterly indifferent to words?"
What could be more ineffectual than protests? Violence against a a non-democratic government which is utterly indifferent to words could be more ineffectual than protests.
"Let’s make China bleed."
"Let's"? Let us? We? You're going to get involved from more than your keyboard Adam? Will you sign up? "Let's"? Knowing how to fire a gun doesn't qualify you. Anyone can learn to fire a gun. Anyone can play a few rounds of Ghost Recon and pick up the jargon. But have you shown the discipline, the fortitude, the sense of total self sacrifice to put the I in soldIer by enlisting? Reserves? Cadets? Scouts?
"the Chinese-made weapons that we capture in Iraq and Afghanistan"
Again the 'we' talk. Adam, 'we' didn't do anything in Afghanistan or Iraq. We sat on our asses at our desks and typed words. Soldiers may have captured weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan but you and I have done nothing at all.
Posted by: Pattern Recognition | 24-Mar-08 9:07:18 AM
Lots of tough talk, Yoshida. Maybe you can hopefully wish that China does a Pearl Harbor to fulfill your wet dream for a war.
Posted by: karma | 14-Apr-08 9:53:51 PM
Is this a war fanatic forum? Finding Chinese weapons in Afghanistan and Iraq? I think you forgot who supported the so called terrorist in the first place. Yoshida, you want another world war as another episode of Japanese invasion to China? To the rest of supporters, you can try to sign up for fighting a nuke war if you wish. Fanatic!
Posted by: KC | 15-Apr-08 1:47:24 AM
Yo,shita:
Are you a mutant offspring of the Japs who had 2 A-bombs shoved up their ass at the end of WWII?
Remember what might happen to you when you try to "bleed" someone else.
Posted by: San Xian | 16-Apr-08 3:38:11 PM
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