The Chinese Pacific Strategy

(Foreign Affairs) In December 2022, Japan released its first national security strategy in nearly ten years. The document committed Tokyo to strengthen the U.S.-Japanese alliance “in all areas.” And Japan is not alone. Over the last half-decade, almost all U.S. allies across the Indo-Pacific have deepened their partnerships with Washington and formed new networks with one another.

At first blush, this might seem puzzling. Chinese President Xi Jinping has voiced his desire for the United States to withdraw from the Indo-Pacific, and his government has upheld China’s long tradition of expressing hostility toward Washington’s alliances, which form the foundation of the U.S. presence in the region. Many analysts, including Rush Doshi and Elizabeth Economy, have argued that Beijing has a disciplined and coherent strategy to drive a wedge between the United States and its Indo-Pacific allies. But far from a well-executed campaign, Beijing’s effort to erode U.S. alliances has been incoherent and undisciplined, strengthening, rather than weakening, U.S. alliances in the region and producing an energized U.S.-led coalition poised to constrain Beijing for years to come.

Beijing’s ambition to isolate Washington from its Asian allies has been derailed in large part by its desire to redress more immediate grievances—namely, to reclaim what it sees as lost territory and punish countries that offend its sensibilities. Instead of staying focused on its long-term strategic objectives, China has grown preoccupied with achieving near-term tactical gains in both its territorial disputes with its neighbors and its quest for deference from other countries. These impulses have resulted in major strategic errors and suggest that Beijing is not nearly as adept at planning and executing long-term strategy as many believe…

…All of this is good news for the United States. Beijing’s diplomatic record suggests that China doesn’t pose nearly the threat to U.S. alliances that many in Washington fear. Instead of pursuing a farsighted strategy to undermine American alliances, it has prioritized other objectives—even when they have backfired. Chinese statecraft is likely to continue to provide opportunities for Washington to deepen its partnerships in the Indo-Pacific, solidifying the United States’ presence there over Beijing’s objections.

It’s not a bad article, worth your time to read the full thing. This is an excerpt.

 

Chinese Convict Labor

I am not Chinese. Given that obvious fact, there are things that I see the Chinese do that seem mystifying even today after having spent a LOT of time in and around the Worker’s Paradise. In some circles, I’m referred to as an ‘old China hand’ even though I don’t think that applies fully or correctly. Many of the people I came up with are dead (such as my friend, the late M. Cordell Hart). Others like MikeW whose memoir previews have been featured here have experienced the same thing that I have – the reaper culling the ranks.

I know, you want me to make my point and not bloviate. Ok. When China engages in construction projects outside China, they always use exclusively Chinese labor. Those of you who have knocked around Asia might have noticed this. The Chinese building projects in the Solomon Islands (see the recent article on this blog) recently reinforced this for me. Why not employ locals, boosting the economy and earning goodwill? I probed this issue rather harder and more impolitely than I usually would and it was explained. The hundreds of thousands of Chinese laborers working on projects from Africa to Asia to South America in miserable conditions with long hours and rotten food are all convict labor. They work “for free” and for their freedom. After a period of indentured servitude, they are released from bondage, are given a pittance, and are returned to society having paid their debt.

 

China’s Strategy is Changing – Subtly

For those who don’t watch closely, everything coming out of China appears to be more of the same. Except that it isn’t and the Middle Kingdom is slowly evolving and becoming more sophisticated.

 

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17 COMMENTS

  1. At some point, arrogance starts bearing a close resemblance to blind stupidity – just look at DC.
    Keep treating other people as sub-human trash? Don’t be surprised if they don’t jump and clap for joy when you say you’re moving into the area.

  2. Yes, more sophisticated. But how successful will sophistication be when they still see the rest of the world as a unch of half-breed animal/human subspecies?

    It is going to be interesting to see how the wheels fall off of the China Cart.b

    • I remember reading “The Third Wave” and “The Greening of America” back in the day, and the notion that we could send our manufacturing abroad and not suffer a huge transfer of technological training and thus lose our edge, seemed obtuse to me, not to mention “racist”.
      So where is the point of no return where they can actually design an F-35 by themselves without stealing the plans? Or are we there?

      • They’re not there. Nowhere close. With people like Pedo Joe/Ho running the show, things are likely to get worse, though. The good part is that Pedo Joe has been neutered to a great extent by permanent Washington, which operates on its own agenda with the Uniparty and media under tight control.

    • curious as to their goal with that one. education of their leaders or indoctrination of ours? when i worked at vmi i asked about the twenty or so chinese nationals coming thru drawing weapons for training. like every school these days cutting edge research goes on there. pointing this out i was told to shut up, they pay double tuition plus donations. not too long later they came out with the vax mandate for employees and we said our goodbyes, or rather i told them no and they told me get the hell off the premises with a police escort. they had already gotten rid of stonewall jackson.

  4. Sounds like the Heathen Chinee use their overseas slaves kinda like Deep State uses the American taxpayer.

    As Kevin “Hognose” Obrien a.k.a. “Weaponsman” [retired USAR SF, R.I.P.] once said, “There ain’t no party like the Dictator Party ’cause the Dictator Party don’t stop.”

  5. At least China demands something from their convicts versus the American prison business that offers 3 squares a day, cable, workouts, and all the education you want. And let’s not forget early parole, basically half sentence. Gee, what could go wrong with that plan.

    I’m with EdB, American’s were sold how this “cheap overseas labor” (children slaves) would be beneficial and not affect our way of life. The reality is it was a massive money-driven move with the unintended consequence of an stolen intellectual property expressway. [Normal] people were relieved when Trump was bringing manufacturing back. Now look…The Moron in Chief sent it all back while allowing China to continue “buying American”. No foreign power should have the ability to purchase any American infrastructure, but that assumes those allowing it aren’t being paid by our enemies to undermine our way of life.

  7. It looks like if China gets enough of those tactical victories (bases and people scattered all over the area they are interested in) it might add up to a strategic gain.

    Chinese slave labor? I would not have guessed that…

    Buying the military schools…wow! That’s called playing the long game!

    • The Solomon Islands are a money pit. Sure, it’s a territorial gain for China, sort of. The Chinese bought the shot callers on the Islands cheap – there are about 20 people to buy. And now they have a depressingly poor bunch of islanders to support because the tourist trade all but vanished. Once the Red Chinese took over, the Americans (many of them war tourists) stopped coming. The only industry worth anything there was tourism. There is a trickle of Chinese tourists but they’re notoriously cheap and had to be induced by artificially low prices to come in the first place.

    • “playing the long game!”

      Eh. The Chinese are pikers. If they were on the ball they’d control the money supply, run an astonishing amount of US foreign policy, and be massively over-represented in the Senate and the House. Also, it’d have been Chinese who gave us 2nd-wave feminism, psychoanalysis, pornography, and other stuff that destroys the cultural and moral fabric of a nation. Sorry to have to say it, but for high-IQ ethno/racial supremacists, the Chinee are doing a decidedly second-rate job.

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