The following propaganda piece is instructive, since it's basically a review of a book that the US elite clearly wanted to put out there. The journalist - Bill Gertz - is a notorious establishment mouthpiece who
writes the worst tripe about Putin, while the book's author - Michael Pillsbury -
oversaw the delivery of Stinger missiles to
Islamic terrorists mujahideen in Afghanistan as part of the US government's plot to "
give Soviet Russia its Vietnam"...
Top China analyst: Beijing has been duping the US since Mao
By Bill Gertz for Washington Free Beacon - Republished in Business Insider, 2 February 2015
Washington Free Beacon said:
China launched a secret 100-year modernization program that deceived successive U.S. administrations into unknowingly promoting Beijing’s strategy of replacing the U.S.-led world order with a Chinese communist-dominated economic and political system, according to a new book by a longtime Pentagon China specialist.
For more than four decades, Chinese leaders lulled presidents, cabinet secretaries, and other government analysts and policymakers into falsely assessing China as a benign power deserving of U.S. support, says Michael Pillsbury, the Mandarin-speaking analyst who has worked on China policy and intelligence issues for every U.S. administration since Richard Nixon.
Washington Free Beacon said:
The secret strategy, based on ancient Chinese statecraft, produced a large-scale transfer of cash, technology, and expertise that bolstered military and Communist Party “superhawks” in China who are now taking steps to catch up to and ultimately surpass the United States, Pillsbury concludes in a book published this week.
Ancient Chinese statecraft?! A tad paranoid, are we not? It's just pragmatic
Realpolitik. Undoubtedly the Chinese are in the position they're in today thanks to long-term implementation of ideas, and I can even allow for a multi-generational perspective, but the notion that the US was 'nefariously deceived' is retrospective projection by an entity that came to dominate the world through subterfuge and deception. Perhaps it's understandable that long-term strategy might seem relatively mystical to the deranged minds deciding policy in the US, whose policy amounts to 'we want it all, now and forever'.
Washington Free Beacon said:
The Chinese strategic deception program was launched by Mao Zedong in 1955 and put forth the widespread misbelief that China is a poor, backward, inward-looking country. “And therefore the United States has to help them, and give away things to them, to make sure they stay friendly,” Pillsbury said in an interview. “This is totally wrong.”
China WAS a "poor, backward, inward-looking country" in the 1950s, the result of 200 years of British and then American-led imperialsm and domination, from the Opium Wars to building the Japanese war machine (twice). The only thing you could say about Mao 'playing it smart' at the time is that he played up the threat of the USSR to get the Americans to give China stuff. That was a very common practice of states during the Cold War.
Washington Free Beacon said:
The Chinese strategy also is aimed at gaining global economic dominance, he says, noting that China’s military buildup is but one part. The combined economic, political, and military power is seeking to produce China as a new global “hegemon” that will export its anti-democratic political system and predatory economic practices around the world.
"...a global hegemon that will export its anti-democratic political system and predatory economic practices around the world." Hey, that reminds me of some other hegemon, I can't quite recall its name though... wasn't it the United States of Arabia or something?...
It might well be that this is China's strategy, but if so, this strategy was decided upon, or discovered and developed, far more recently. To date, China hasn't invaded another country nor subverted its political system, so the shoe doesn't fit yet.
I don't need to explain to most forum members that the characterisation of Chinese international relations as "
exporting its anti-democratic political system and predatory economic practices around the world" is again pure projection on the part of a hegemon that does precisely that. We can debate what is democratic and what is not, but whatever relative level of internal freedoms China has, it does not invest billions via NGOs to subvert the internal affairs of other countries. A country that doesn't need to do that is a country that is internally secure and does
not rely on external powers to prop up its regime. In fact, it remains internally secure
in spite of external powers interfering in its affairs.
Wherever China
does have some degree of influence over other countries, it is to be welcomed because
relative to the US method of exerting influence, the Chinese way of conducting business is markedly more humane. Unlike the Western business model of 'pillage everything as cheaply as possible', which is THE primary driver of "
predatory economic practices around the world", China actually builds or invests in things in exchange for resources:
China, Ethiopia PMs launch Ethiopia's first ever expressway
Western corporations have no answer to that; they cannot compete with such an approach because they are locked into short-term profit-seeking, and have been since Europe first colonized the whole world. That is why their only response is war, waged deceptively. Fair terms of trade are absolutely out of the question. Developing the infrastructure of client countries is absolutely out of the question. Instead the hegemonic entity has done everything possible to retard the development of countries outside its 'Atlantic base'. And as we saw recently, the Chinese have said '
to hell with this'.
Washington Free Beacon said:
In the interview, Pillsbury, currently director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Chinese Strategy, said new details contained in the book were cleared for publication by the FBI, CIA, and Defense Department, including details of formerly classified presidential directives, testimony from previously unknown Chinese defectors, and alarming details of writings from powerful Chinese military and political hawks.
The Hudson Institute is another primary think-tank in the US imperial government.
From Wikipedia:
The Hudson Institute is an American conservative non-profit think tank based in Washington, D.C.. It was founded in 1961 in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, by futurist, military strategist, and systems theorist Herman Kahn and his colleagues at the RAND Corporation. Kahn's theories contributed heavily to the development of the nuclear strategy of the US, making him one of three historical inspirations for the title character of Stanley Kubrick's classic black comedy film satire Dr. Strangelove.
Back to the Washington Free Beacon article...
Washington Free Beacon said:
The book also discloses for the first time that the opening to China in 1969 and 1970, considered one of the United States’ most significant strategic gambits, was not initiated by then-President Nixon’s top national security aide Henry Kissinger. Instead, Pillsbury shows that it was Chinese generals who played the United States card against the Soviet Union, amid fears of a takeover of the country by Moscow.
This was par for the course during the Cold War, as explained above... but Kissinger as 'benevolent kingmaker who was duped by China'? I think not. Note that Korea and Vietnam/Laos are two peninsulas bracketing China...
Washington Free Beacon said:
Some sensitive details were removed from the manuscript by the government. However, the totality of the book represents an authorized disclosure of China’s secret strategy that is among the most significant releases of internal U.S. government information in over a decade, Pillsbury said.
This is why I say the "US elite clearly wanted to put it out there." It's a phony 'disclosure', that qualification about "
sensitive details" notwithstanding. In fact, that supports my contention that the leaked documents were cooked to 'fit the facts around the narrative'.
Washington Free Beacon said:
“That highlights the importance of the book,” Pillsbury said in an interview. “And it sends a message to China: We’re not as clueless as you think.”
Oh, I'm sure the Chinese received the message loud and clear...
Washington Free Beacon said:
Pillsbury also reveals how a Chinese government defector exposed Beijing’s effective lobbying campaign from 1995 to 2000 that led Congress to approve Most-Favored National trade status for China—several years after China was sanctioned for the bloody massacre by the military of unarmed protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
That right there tells us that the author - and the people he's speaking for - still have no clue... or they are simply still lying:
Let’s Talk About Tiananmen Square, 1989 My Hearsay is Better Than Your Hearsay
It is true that in 1989 China experienced a student protest that culminated in a sit-in (more like a camp-in, actually) in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
But thanks to Wikileaks and other (perhaps brave) Western journalists, we now know that this was all the Square experienced that day.
We now have conclusive and overwhelming documentation that the events in Beijing in 1989 were very different from those reported in the Western press. Not only that,
we have substantial evidence that the Chinese Government’s version of these events had been true all along.
Back to the Washington Free Beacon article...
Washington Free Beacon said:
The covert influence operation was carried out at a time when American concerns about Chinese human rights violations were high. Yet China was able to successfully induce U.S. leaders into making key strategic trade concessions.
Those deviant Chinese! WE were only concerned about human rights, and they exploited our altruism! Poor Dr. Strangelove is
straining so much to keep that arm down, he's about to fall out of his wheelchair!
Washington Free Beacon said:
That covert influence program was revealed by one of the six Chinese defectors Pillsbury questioned over the years, including one who turned out to be a false defector—FBI informant Katrina Leung, who was arrested in 2003.
I believe the applicable term here is 'PWNED'.
From Wikipedia:
Katrina Leung was a former high value Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and PRC Ministry of State Security (MSS) agent who, on April 9, 2003, was indicted by the United States Department of Justice for "Unauthorized Copying of National Defense Information with Intent to Injure or Benefit a Foreign Nation". Her case was later dismissed on January 6, 2005 because of prosecutorial misconduct. She was alleged by the United States Government to have contaminated twenty years of intelligence relating to the People's Republic of China as well as critically compromising the FBI's Chinese counterintelligence program.
Back to the Washington Free Beacon article...
Washington Free Beacon said:
“I tried to put a defector interview into the opening of each chapter,” Pillsbury said, noting that the defectors remain in witness protection programs and “fear for their lives” due to the possibility of Chinese retaliation.
I have found no incidence of "retaliation" by China.
Washington Free Beacon said:
The defectors disclosed details of “what China is trying to do to America in what they call the 100-year marathon,” he said.
On the Chinese hawks, Pillsbury said internal writings of these powerful political and military leaders revealed “how they draw lessons from China’s ancient past … and how can they surpass America without the Americans reacting.”
Any such long-term vision is only to be commended. And I'm reminded of this hint from the Cs:
Cs said:
A: Still waters run deep and strong. The USA and allies are in for a rude and painful awakening.
Back to the Washington Free Beacon article...
Washington Free Beacon said:
Pillsbury, whose most senior government post was assistant undersecretary of defense for policy planning in the administration of President Ronald Reagan, also worked for several senators and has been a consultant on China policy for decades.
He's also a flaming warhawk, and definitely a member of the 'Washington Crazies' club.
Washington Free Beacon said:
In the book, Pillsbury acknowledged that initially he was among the staunchest advocates of the U.S. policy of “
constructive engagement” toward China launched initially in 1969 as a way to prevent a Soviet takeover in Beijing.
Asked when he abandoned his pro-China, “panda hugger” views, he said: “
Over time… mainly after Tiananmen”—a reference to the brutal 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s main square.
“
We believed that American aid to a fragile China whose leaders thought like us would help China become a democratic and peaceful power without ambitions of regional or even global dominance,” Pillsbury wrote.
“Every one of the assumptions behind that belief was wrong—dangerously so,” he stated, noting that the power of China’s now dominant faction of anti-American ultranationalists was underestimated.
Pillsbury’s book,
The Hundred Year Marathon, reveals new details of secret CIA cooperation with China in covert action programs in Afghanistan and Angola, as well as nearly $1 billion worth of weapons transfers during the 1980s.
The covert support for China, along with a continuing flow of U.S. technology and intelligence for the past 45 years, were once among the U.S. government’s most closely guarded secrets.
The book also declassifies details of several presidential memoranda behind the covert U.S. policy of supporting China that Pillsbury states produced one of the United States’ most significant strategic blunders.
Documents and intelligence reports smuggled out of China after the bloody Tiananmen massacre, when tanks were called in to disperse tens of thousands of unarmed pro-democracy protesters, revealed that senior Chinese leaders were sharply divided over supporting the students’ calls for democratic political reform, according to the book.
Communist super hawks in the military and senior Party leadership managed to defeat and ultimately arrest senior Party officials who supported the pro-democracy reform.
The book also provides the following new disclosures on China’s strategy toward the United States:
- Chinese hardliners promoted the book of Col. Liu Mingfu, “The China Dream” that is the inspiration behind current Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s increasingly Maoist policies. Other writings by hawks reveal a future China-dominated world will that values “order over freedom, ethics over law and elite governance over democracy and human rights.”
- U.S. intelligence agencies for decades underestimated the influence of Chinese hawks and continue to dismiss their power and influence as “fringe” elements.
- Intelligence assessments in the late 1980s failed to recognize the pro-democracy sentiment inside the ruling Politburo was strong until it was crushed after the 1989 crackdown on dissent.
- After Tiananmen, China’s government created a false history to hide its past covert cooperation with the United States.
- China’s “assassin’s mace” weapons—missiles and other exotic arms—are being built to defeat satellites and knock out aircraft carriers, using high-tech arms, including electromagnetic pulse weapons.
- As part of covert U.S. offers of assistance to China in the 1970s, the CIA cut off aid to the exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama and canceled U.S. Navy patrols through the Taiwan Strait. Instead, the CIA began providing intelligence on the Soviet Union to China.
- Reagan agreed to sell six major weapons systems to China but required that continued aid be conditioned on China remaining unaligned with Moscow and liberalizing its communist system. The arms transfers were halted after Tiananmen.
- World Bank assistance to China imposed no conditions on China moving toward free market reforms. As a result, China’s government today continues to control most industries.
- China will undermine the United Nations and World Trade Organization to “delegitimize” the U.S.-led world order in order to promote its global system.
- An internal secret briefing for Chinese officials discussed China’s most important foreign policy priority as “how to manage the decline of the United States,” revealing that China is working against U.S. interests in supporting rogue states and selling arms to America’s enemies.
I wonder if covert US military cooperation with China halted after Tiananmen because the event was a failed color revolution? They were hoping to 'democratize' and 'liberalize' China, but unlike what happened in Moscow and Eastern Europe, saner heads prevailed in Beijing? As for China "undermining the UN and WTO," that is pure chutzpah! The US “delegitimized” the U.S.-led world order all by its greedy, arrogant self.
Washington Free Beacon said:
To counter what Pillsbury describes as China’s “warring states era” strategy for world dominance, an approach that outlines how a lesser power can defeat a stronger foe, the United States needs to recognize the threat and take urgent steps to prevent China from dominating the world.
There is nothing, short of global financial armageddon, that the US can do to stop China from taking its rightful place as a major power. Note that I don't say "from dominating the world" - this is what drives that breed running the Anglo-American Empire; there is nothing to suggest that China is about to embark upon a 300-year quest to invade and plunder the whole world.
Washington Free Beacon said:
Pillsbury said that as part of efforts to counter the Chinese military buildup, the Pentagon’s next budget will include funding for up to 100 new long-range bombers, funds for hardening U.S. satellites against Chinese attacks, and money for a Navy program to protect U.S. aircraft carriers from China’s carrier-killing DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile.
As always, the US answer is: more military spending! The slaves are getting restless! Let us project our awesome power once more!
There's a similar narrative going around about how the Russians decided way back in the 1950s to deliberately let the USSR collapse so that it could use liberalism as a trojan horse to recreate the Russian Empire (ie, today). It's all retroactive myth-making, of course, but it's to be expected from US policy-makers who have broken from objective reality by becoming 'reality-creators' who literally moved into castles they built in the skies.
US dominance was bought with funny money that served as a means of collecting tribute from the rest of the world. The Federal Reserve can print dollars at no cost; everyone else pays for those dollars through labor and resources. The natives have figured this out and no longer want to pay the American tax farmers.
The US strategists' nightmare is a "
Chinese communist-dominated world economic and political system." For ordinary people the world over, however,
anything has got to be better than an American capitalist-dominated world economic and political system that leaves one billion people hungry as a matter of policy.
IF there is some truth to China consciously accepting its role as provider of serfs to service the comfortable lifestyles of its Western masters... in order to study its masters' ways and thus eventually break free... then it would be a truly astounding thing we are witnessing: the application of Castaneda's four qualities of warriorship (control, discipline, forbearance and timing)
in dealing with Petty Tyrants,
on a macrosocial scale.
A somewhat more pragmatic analysis, however, is that China, like Russia, simply developed its current strategies
in the course of learning some hard lessons about how things really work on planet Earth. That there is no fooling them about 'the wonders of democracy and privatization' speaks to wisdom learned. Fool me once ('Communism'), shame on you; fool me twice... aint gonna happen!
As for these dinosaurs in the US halls of power, God, those scum really make me sick! They think they're so high and mighty, but really they're at the bottom rung on the evolutionary ladder.
