This morning MisterMix posted “If the media starts pointing out that the reason we can’t have a sequester deal is that Republicans don’t want to raise taxes on rich folks, then Boehner will feel some heat. Woodward stopped that conversation this week. I wonder what shiny thing will will come up tomorrow.”
I may have spotted a sparkly trial balloon towards that goal, now that cyberspying by the PRC People’s Liberation Army is officially a thing. Foreign Policy finds a professor at the National University of Singapore to explain that when the red phone rang at 3am, You (Ben) Know (-ghaz- ) Who ( – ayeeeeee!) failed to answer, “While America Slept“:
…[T]he United States allowed China to rise because it was so supremely self-confident that it would always remain on top. China’s benign rise was a result of American neglect, not a result of any long-term strategy. China acted strategically; America did not…
America has been sensitive to criticisms about its lack of a long-term strategy. I can speak about this from personal experience. In February 2009, Hillary Clinton visited China on her first overseas visit as U.S. secretary of state. I wrote at the time:
[T]here’s little evidence Clinton has engaged in any serious strategic thinking about U.S.-China relations. If she had, she would have asked some big questions. Traditionally, relations between dominant powers and emerging powers have been tense. This should have been the norm with China and the United States. Yet China has emerged without alarming Americans. That’s close to a geopolitical miracle. Who deserves credit for it? Beijing or Washington? China seems to have a clear, comprehensive strategy. The United States has none.Officials in Washington reacted angrily to this column. A senior official at the National Security Council called up the Singaporean Embassy in Washington to complain about a Singaporean criticizing U.S. foreign policy — even though, in theory, America welcomes debate and a free marketplace of ideas.
I also tell this story to illustrate how sensitive the establishment in Washington has become to any discussion on the nature of Sino-American relations. The real truth about this relationship is that, while there is a lot of calm on the surface, tension is brewing below. I am convinced that there is great simmering anger in Beijing about being pushed around callously by Washington. The Chinese resent, for instance, allegations of Chinese cyberspying that make no mention of America’s own activities in this area. The Chinese do not believe that they are the only ones playing this game…
The Cavuto-marked “Who lost China?” demand has been a reliable boogeyman/fundraiser for the John Birch Society and its rightwing fellow travellers since before I was born. (Wikipedia: “The question of “Matsu and Quemoy” became an issue in the 1960 American Presidential election when Richard Nixon accused John F. Kennedy of being unwilling to commit to using nuclear weapons if the People’s Republic of China invaded the Nationalist outposts.” And you younger readers wonder why us Olds are so twitchy about nuclear weapons.)
kelrian
I play Fallout, Anne. I don’t wonder why people get twitchy re.: nuclear weapons. Heck, I get twitchy.
srv
The neocons lost China. They were warning about a Peer Superpower on 9/10. Then they wet their pants and America followed.
Strategically, 9/11 was the best thing that ever happened for China. We went ape and pounded sand for a decade, they focused on growth, EU and Africa relations, and now we are inviting them to participate in ‘stabilizing’ the ME – they’re picking up the pieces as we ‘re-orient’ towards our now established Peer.
Too late Uncle Sammy, if you were really worried.
Suffern ACE
Sound the alarm! We need to be worried that there aren’t more problems in US-China relations! But there should be! Something is horribly wrong because there aren’t more problems!
David Koch
Personally, I blame the Pope for Benghazayeeeeee. What did the Pope know and when did he know it.
Omnes Omnibus
Is this 1948?
Baud
China is a great country whose people respect and admire America. These allegations are nothing more than an attempt by provocateurs to damage the strong and mutually beneficial friendship that the United States and China have forged.
.
.
.
.
Dear China, if you like what you see, please contact my agent to negotiate payment terms.
谢谢。
General Stuck
Of course not. Everyone knows that Hills is a ChiCom double agent, at least. And threw America under the rickshaw when she was first lady. Many covert trips, cavorting with the reds, giving them sekrit shit and giving Zedong woodies in his crypt.
Though recent evidence suggests Hills could be working for the Russkies.
srv
@Baud: I Trevino what you did there.
Villago Delenda Est
The story I saw on “Chinese cyberspying” on the CBS evening news basically said that yeah, some hackers are out there, and we’re offering up a defense consisting of username admin password password.
Mr Stagger Lee
Well Lenin did say when they hanged the last capitalist, the fool will sell us the rope. America has done a good job of that, whether it is Wal-Mart and Apple with their manufacturing there or our American universities educating Chinese Students because China pays the tuition. Might as well learn Mandarin, and make sure your evangelical church is Beijing approverd
JoyfulA
@David Koch: You can’t blame the pope. There isn’t one. Maybe in a month or two—
David Koch
Hillary is Wo Fat in their nightmares
David Koch
@JoyfulA:
That’s because President Rand Paul fired him.
arguingwithsignposts
Fuck, how long has China been cyberspying. That shit’s been going on for years, and they’re just coming up on it now?
MikeJ
@David Koch: Allez cuisine!
Schlemizel
@Baud:
You may have the smartest approach there. Having been studying Advanced Persistent Threats and seeing what the Chinese army already has taken (and pasta only knows what interesting things they have left behind that we have not found yet to be used later) they own us lock stock and barrel.
I know it is common for people who work in a field to see that as the path to the end of the world but, in this case, it really is. Its not just military information, they have taken it from every business that matters to them. If you work for a company that does business with China or has a business that they want and you have not found the Chinese in your systems you are not looking hard enough.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
My god. There’s so much there… I’m not gonna bother with the original, just point out that I’m confused how we get from this
(“allowed“?) to this
Not directly self-contradictory, but it certainly seems like two wildly different images of Chinese-American relations just a couple of paragraphs apart. The first could go hand-in-hand with WIllard’s pledge to “stand up to China”, the second suggests an alternative universe where he has done so.
Anne Laurie
@Omnes Omnibus: “Madame Chiang – now there was a lady could send a sparkle up your leg… “ /every paleocon, including the female ones
Schlemizel
This is a very interesting exposition of what they Chinese army has done. Most companies will not discuss what they know has been done to them but these guys will. They name 3 Chinese hackers and follow them directly to the unit they work for in the army.
http://intelreport.mandiant.com/Mandiant_APT1_Report.pdf
Roger Moore
@Mr Stagger Lee:
That one’s actually worked out pretty damn well for us. Yes, the Chinese got some of their people educated. OTOH, a good sized fraction of the Chinese students who come to the USA never go back, and the ones who do have often picked up weird Western ideas about representative governments and free speech. It’s not at all clear to me that we’ve come out behind in that transaction.
Spaghetti Lee
Richard Nixon accused John F. Kennedy of being unwilling to commit to using nuclear weapons
I don’t know much about the history of nuclear weapons, but I’d venture a guess that any president who launched a nuke in 1960 would be the last president-of anything, ever, unless the surviving roaches elected one.
And yet, there was Nixon saying that being unwilling to do it made you a wimp. So classy.
Roger Moore
@JoyfulA:
You can’t expect a minor detail like that to slow anyone down.
Yutsano
@Anne Laurie: To be fair, she was quite a woman, and not content to accept the traditional role Chinese women played in their society. She and HRC do share an alma mater…ZOMG KUNSPIRACY!!
@Roger Moore: An old family friend from Chengdu almost didn’t return because she was pregnant with her second child but her visa was expiring. She tried to stall as long as she could but the Chinese government forced her back. I think the second child was allowed to be born however.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Baud: A few years ago, SciFi channel (back then) ran a commercial that said “A message from the year 3000: Learn Chinese”.
David Koch
Mao: I voted for you in the last election.
Nixon: (laughs) I was the lesser of two evils.
Mao: You are far too modest. You are as evil as I am.
Chris
@srv:
Yep.
Everyone has forgotten this now: the original Bush foreign policy, prior to 9/11, was to restart SDI and push for development of “bunker busting” “mini nukes” – a new generation of weapons for WMD warfare. Essentially, they wanted to start a whole new arms race, and, much like the Iraq war, with ZERO justification other than making a lot of cronies rich. Without 9/11, it’s entirely possible that we’d be in the middle of a second Cold War right now.
I’m honestly not sure which is worse. In the short run, a lot less people would be dead, beginning with the 3,000 in New York and Washington. But the stakes in another WMD arms race – Yikes. And it would’ve been worse this time around. Can you imagine going through another cold war with a man as dangerous as Cheney in charge of foreign policy – especially if SDI gave him the feeling that he need no longer fear Russian and Chinese nukes? Our economy would’ve been much weaker, courtesy of all those additional years of Reaganomics. Russia and China would’ve been on the same side, no conventient split for us to exploit. World opinion would have been much less favorable to us given the blatant role we’d played in restarting the arms race. Etc, etc, etc.
Schlemizel
@Spaghetti Lee:
The big Dick also discussed dropping the big one on North Viet Nam in the early 70’s. If you think a nuclear strike would have ended the world in 1960 imagine how much better it would have been after the Ruskies had developed multiple warhead heavy lift capabilities.
GOP insanity is not new, only in the old days there was a sane wing that helped keep them in check
MikeJ
@Chris: Bush wasn’t going to attack China. Remember how he apologised for having our plane shot down?
Baud
@MikeJ:
And the MSM lauded him for it. Can you even imagine if the exact same chain of events had occurred with Obama? Impeachment wouldn’t have been enough for the GOP.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Anne Laurie: She was quite ahead of her time, actually. And Yutsie beat me to the ZOMG she and Hilary both went to Wellesely. She’s of course the real secret lover HRC had but who was never identified.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@MikeJ: And then got snottily indignant when some interviewer called it an apology, no? I remember Karen Hughes trying to convince that the Commander in Chief was on top of it because he asked really great questions: “Have they been allowed to exercise? Do they have Bibles?” I guess that’s the kind of leadership Lindsey Graham is snipe hunting for.
ericblair
@arguingwithsignposts:
No. Counterintelligence information is pretty much all classified, so you don’t hear a lot about what the US considers threats and what has been going on.
Bagofmice
It’s far too easy to believe that institutions in the lobbying business might be shocked to discover that anyone on the Internet can access their servers. One might infer that this was in fact, the point of the Internet. People so concerned with getting insider access, tipping an ear or two, and whatnot should be acutely aware that bytes can be just as useful as cash when properly used.
Suffern ACE
@Spaghetti Lee: Yep. And we’re supposed to get nuts over the Iranians getting them. Because they’ll use them. They’re crazy! Yet we’re supposed to put their use front and center whenever we are in conflict with anyone or we’re pathetic appeasing french lefse lovers.
Chris
@MikeJ:
Didn’t say “attack,” just “start a new arms race.” These things take on a life of their own pretty quickly.
Bagofmice
@Schlemizel: hey, it’s Progress.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_(spacecraft)
Woodrowfan
Someone in Singapore is parroting the official line from Beijing? There’s a shocker. Next you’ll tell me Fox quotes from Republican press releases.
Yutsano
@Suffern ACE: Gee. It’s almost like Iran doesn’t have meteorologists and haven’t studied wind patterns or something. They’d totes nuke Israel if they had the bomb!
Woodrowfan
“And you younger readers wonder why us Olds are so twitchy about nuclear weapons.”
My students laugh at the Duck and Cover film. it still gives me goose-flesh.
JasonF
Hillary Clinton is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.
Heliopause
True enough, but it was up to Dem Presidents to escalate the rhetoric to massive invasions of U.S. forces into east Asia.
arguingwithsignposts
@ericblair: Well, I don’t have any security clearance, and I’ve been hearing whispers about shit like this since at least mid-2000s.
Roger Moore
@Yutsano:
If you’re getting into full metal winger mode, ITYM CUNTSPIRACY!!
redheadedfemme
@Baud:
Hell, drawing and quartering wouldn’t have been enough. (See: “Braveheart”)
MikeBoyScout
ZOMG! The Chinese are going to discover on-line porn!
Roger Moore
@Yutsano:
My understanding is that there’s generally a fine for having more than one child, and in the cities there’s very strong social pressure, but that the horror stories about forced abortions and sterilizations are mostly isolated incidents that result from overly zealous local officials. That said, I can definitely see that freedom to have the size of family you want could be a big motivation to stay abroad.
momus
I’ve come up with a book title for a tea bagger expose,
“5-Million Shades of Crazy”. (this estimate may be low!)
Full Metal Wingnut
@Mr Stagger Lee: Fuck that. I’d rather join al Qaeda (note to FBI-this comment was a joke and if anything meant to express my loyalty for the United States in a joking manner).
Full Metal Wingnut
It always seemed distasteful to me, international relations-all the superpower/rising power tension and rivalry. I want to believe intellectually and morally that the United States does not have to be #1, or quell China, but sometimes I wonder. I know nothing about the world though.
danielx
Yup. A lot of material on this in David Halberstam’s (last) book on the Korean War, The Coldest Winter. I’ve always gotten kind of a weird vibe out of the “Who Lost China?” bit, primarily because the next thought that comes to mind is “like it was ever ours to lose in the first place”. Excellent book…
Noteworthy also because Halberstam identifies Korea – or Douglas MacArthur’s disastrous decision to push to the Yalu River – as one of this country’s three major political/military/foreign policy fuckups of the last century, the others being Vietnam and Dick and George’s Excellent Adventure in Iraq.
Jamie
It used to be Japan.
Interrobang
@Woodrowfan: Well, I know why I laughed when I saw it; my reaction was something along the lines of “ZOMG did they really think that would do anything? Boy, what a buncha maroons…” By the time I came along, they’d actually published pictures of the Hiroshima survivors; I’m so sure being under a desk would help.
I sure was twitchy about Bush the Younger wanting to restart the whole nuclear arms race, because he was the first President I can remember (including Reagan) who struck me as stupid and ignorant enough to actually use nukes.
Tonal Crow
Chinese hacking is yet another good reason to replace hand-filled paper poll-place voting with electronic voting machines or online voting.
Oh, wait….
Huashuo
Cyber spy is like unwanted guest. Any nation can invest to block them. It’s no one to be blamed of.