The China Threat?
What do you think about China? That's a huge question, and has been at just about any point in Western Civilization since we really discovered the place sometime back in the 15th century or so.
But today it's all over the news - people hate it, love it, embrace it, want to push it away. Chinese businesses are buying out American business everywhere... economist.com points out that Chinese international mergers & acquisitions are off the chart this year. With this whole political-business mess about CNOOC's offer for Unocal, I find myself for the first time ever entirely without a valid opinion on the issue. I can cite both sides.
For 20 years old, I am a boldly opinionated fellow. I criticize top foreign policy theorists and policy-makers on both sides of the aisle with probably arrogant alacrity. I have generally well-formed, well-argued, and well-developed principles of approaching all levels of foreign and domestic policy. But what to do with China?
I think the reason for this is my determined drive to learn everything about the international situation from a U.S. strategic policy approach. This summer I am reading The New Chinese Empire and What It Means for the United States by Ross Terrill, as well as The Pentagon's New Map by Thomas Barnett. Both men have a tremendous amount of knowledge about the China and the international situation, and each argues persuasively for a different approach.
The questions I have are these, which I will try to answer in my spare time:
Does China present a legitimate military threat, or is it just a Pentagon construction to keep budget money flowing for sexy new military toys? (Apologies to my Pentagon friends who may think this is a betrayal - I'm all about sexy military toys and want budget money flowing that direction as much as any neoconservative hawk. I just wonder what the likelihood of its use would be.)
Should we let Chinese companies buy out critical U.S. technology and energy firms?
Can we better compete with China economically?
Is the yuan as dramatically undervalued as we say? (The Economist says no.)
What about Taiwan? Is there going to be a naval war in the strait, or will cooler heads prevail (cliche...sorry)? And if so, how will it play out? Is Niall Ferguson right when he says that Chinese political&military officials believe the U.S. would pull out of a conflict if they sunk one of our aircraft carriers? (As my pal Jonathan Krull, a State Department intern, is fond of responding to this, "Bull f---ing s---!")
There are billions more, but I have to get back to work on this database (blogging at work - shhh!). BTW, a shameless plug for my summer workplace, the best PLM software solutions company in the world: http://www.ugs.com. And now that I'm putting all of their company info in order for them, they'll be even better. How do I wind up with these projects?
But today it's all over the news - people hate it, love it, embrace it, want to push it away. Chinese businesses are buying out American business everywhere... economist.com points out that Chinese international mergers & acquisitions are off the chart this year. With this whole political-business mess about CNOOC's offer for Unocal, I find myself for the first time ever entirely without a valid opinion on the issue. I can cite both sides.
For 20 years old, I am a boldly opinionated fellow. I criticize top foreign policy theorists and policy-makers on both sides of the aisle with probably arrogant alacrity. I have generally well-formed, well-argued, and well-developed principles of approaching all levels of foreign and domestic policy. But what to do with China?
I think the reason for this is my determined drive to learn everything about the international situation from a U.S. strategic policy approach. This summer I am reading The New Chinese Empire and What It Means for the United States by Ross Terrill, as well as The Pentagon's New Map by Thomas Barnett. Both men have a tremendous amount of knowledge about the China and the international situation, and each argues persuasively for a different approach.
The questions I have are these, which I will try to answer in my spare time:
Does China present a legitimate military threat, or is it just a Pentagon construction to keep budget money flowing for sexy new military toys? (Apologies to my Pentagon friends who may think this is a betrayal - I'm all about sexy military toys and want budget money flowing that direction as much as any neoconservative hawk. I just wonder what the likelihood of its use would be.)
Should we let Chinese companies buy out critical U.S. technology and energy firms?
Can we better compete with China economically?
Is the yuan as dramatically undervalued as we say? (The Economist says no.)
What about Taiwan? Is there going to be a naval war in the strait, or will cooler heads prevail (cliche...sorry)? And if so, how will it play out? Is Niall Ferguson right when he says that Chinese political&military officials believe the U.S. would pull out of a conflict if they sunk one of our aircraft carriers? (As my pal Jonathan Krull, a State Department intern, is fond of responding to this, "Bull f---ing s---!")
There are billions more, but I have to get back to work on this database (blogging at work - shhh!). BTW, a shameless plug for my summer workplace, the best PLM software solutions company in the world: http://www.ugs.com. And now that I'm putting all of their company info in order for them, they'll be even better. How do I wind up with these projects?
posted by Brian at 7:35 AM
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