Are the Chinese nice?
Gilbert Doctorow
gilbertdoctorow.com
Without mincing words, my answer to the question is that the Chinese are not nice. They are dignified, they are hard working and commercially minded. They pay all due respect to professional competence and operate a system of governance that might fairly be described as a meritocracy. But they are not nice in the sense of tolerant of the sins and trans-gressions of others. They are not Good Christians.
That is where the Chinese should not be confused with the Russian leadership, in which President Vladimir Putin has over the two plus decades at the helm always shown restraint and frequently turned the other cheek when he and his country were abused by the United States and its allies.
Putin’s Christian convictions and the behavior that follow from them have led his domestic critics among super patriots to harshly condemn the way the war in Ukraine or Special Military Operation, if you will, is being prosecuted. Russia has the capability to decapitate the Kiev regime at any time but has not done anything of the kind. Instead it has regularly permitted Western heads of government to visit with Zelensky at his headquarters as if the country were at peace. Russia has allowed the United States to repeatedly cross its declared red lines without punishment. [*] Regrettably, judging by the U.S. activities with respect to Taiwan over the past couple of weeks, Washington does not seem to appreciate the difference between Russia and China in temperament of the leaders and national cultures.
In his present declining state, Biden has no memory. But where is the memory of his younger circle of advisers and assistants? Why are Blinken and Sullivan and Austin ignoring the lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis as they prepare to supply Taiwan with weapons that are as provocative and threatening to China as Khrushchev’s delivery of nuclear tipped missiles was to Cuba in 1962? Where is their memory of the antecedents of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor when Senator Lindsey Graham is allowed to publicly call for disruption of the sea lanes bringing oil to China from the Middle East? I have not heard or seen any criticism of this proposal from the White House.
The Chinese are not big talkers, but they are decisive actors. I have no doubt that if they believe the United States has crossed their red lines regarding aid to Taiwan and interference in the island’s domestic politics to favor independence, then the Chinese will strike. They surely have done their calculations. If they sink America’s aircraft carrier task force in the South China Sea or sink the entire U.S. Pacific fleet as Japan once did under similar circumstances, will the USA launch nuclear missiles and put its own national survival at risk? The answer is a flat no.
For the above acts of reckless endangerment of the Continental U.S., in addition to the violations of perjury before Congress in testimony over the preparedness of Ukraine for a counter-offensive against Russia that contradicts the Pentagon and CIA documents leaked over social media a couple of weeks ago, Biden and many of his team deserve impeachment. Now, before the Chinese show just how un-nice they can be.
[*] "All that we hear is the Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson Maria Zakharova wail “can you imagine!” She is as closely bound to that lament as Theresa May was to “highly likely.”" [These two sentences were edited out by this editor, as they are highly asymmetric categories, the one an exclamation, the other one a statement. – And a lie at that. This comparison adds nothing to the text.]
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