The US State Department, its Dupes, and the Chinese Gorilla

Sunday December 12, by Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.

China is not a panda, despite the claims of the wannabe panda-hugger historians and advisors to the United States State Department. China is in reality a growing 800 lb. gorilla, bullying and buying its way through Asia and the world; in the process it tries to recapture the glory of past myths perpetuated by court historians. Ironically, in the gorilla's way is Taiwan, a nation that fought off a similar paternalistic autocratic gorilla to achieve its own democracy. It is Taiwan that exposes the hegemonic 800 lb. gorilla on the other side of the Taiwan Strait for what it is and it is Taiwan that can help deconstruct the gorilla.

The shooter, a local gangster, said he shot the wrong man. He did not want to shoot Sean Lien; he wanted to get the KMT candidate for the City Council. According to the gangster it was the result of a crooked land deal gone wrong between them. On the other hand Sean Lien still seems to think the gangster wanted to shoot him raising the question what crooked and corrupt deal had gone wrong between the gangsters and the Lien family. Whatever way you look at it, it was a deal that went wrong between the KMT and their gangster connections.

This is not the first time that the United States has faced other gorillas in the world, but the perverse wisdom that remains is how the US policy makers in Washington DC have chosen to change tactics. One certainly can wonder why those who live within the Beltway in DC and only come out to be wined and dined in China are so easily duped. With a perspective on China like that the proverbial rider on horseback (zou ma, kan hua); those in the USA ignore the perspective and reality of people having to live alongside and deal with their intransigent and greedy neighbor, China.

In the past, the US faced a one-party state gorilla in East Germany. They faced it and overcame it and the Berlin Wall fell. The US did this not by feeding the gorilla, but by seeing it for what it was. How often have you ever read about US historians, policy-makers, pundits etc. being wined and dined in East Germany and seeking cheap goods made there?

The US also faced a larger gorilla in the Soviet Union, another one-party state behemoth. Again the US faced the Soviet Union in the Cold War and watched the splintering of the Soviet Union. Again, it did this not by feeding the gorilla and helping it grow, but by seeing it for what it was. How often were US historians, policy-makers, pundits etc. wined and dined in Russia so they could sing the praises of that country? How often were they easily duped into allowing Russia to buy them with the promise of cheap goods?

Having had a policy that successfully worked twice, is it now not ironic that the US policy makers should decide that in facing a third one-party state gorilla, the best solution is to totally change and feed the gorilla. Is there no one else that finds this strange? Does anyone else out there want to say, "Duh?" as in the previous post or perhaps even stronger, "WTF" over the continuous hegemonic rise of China and the wishful stupidity of pundits?

Examine closely, how many US historians, policy-makers, pundits etc. you read about that run to China to discourse with them? Then of course after they are wined and dined they can speak glowingly on how this one-party state gorilla is different from the other one-party state gorillas that spawned it. It is the ending of "Animal Farm" revisited.

Even in Taiwan, there is this irony. Taiwan's president whose only ability seems to be that of being able to speak out of both sides of his mouth, has done a complete 180 degree turn. President Ma Ying-jeou will in one breath attempt to hold up and praise Chiang Ching-kuo as the creator of Taiwan's democracy, and then in the next breath he will preach a policy completely opposite. Chiang preached a policy of "no contact, no compromise, and no negotiation." Now Ma encourages the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) leaders to be his representative and fall all over themselves to rush to the embrace of the gorilla. The root cause of such perversity needs to be examined and will be dealt with at length later.

For now, Taiwan's freedoms of the press and human rights and its democracy stand as a reference from which to begin to deconstruct the Chinese gorilla and see it for what it is. The true history of Taiwan's democracy (not the KMT version) can expose the imaginary China image that the DC pundits do not want to question or touch. Of course if the China image was deconstructed, the pundits would have to face an inconvenient truth. By deconstructing the panda image of that state, they will lose their invitations to be wined and dined in China. They already had to give it up in East Germany and Russia, it must be too much to ask that they forego China. They can't want to miss the chance the third time, now can they?