The shame lies not with Americans but with backwards-thinking China-centrism exhibited by some Koreans like yourself who view China as the future because you see China as Korea’s past. After all, it was China that dominated Korea for centuries, and China that was responsible for our North-South by invading and pushing down to the 38th parallel, successfully frustrating the US-led UN resolution to unify Korea under free elections. People who have never been in a geographical or political position to be dominated by China escape the shame of fatalism, and have a broader and clearer perspective on the future.

Lux: “how can you say that when the american economy is buoyed by the Chinese? do you have any idea how much american treasury bonds are held by the Chinese? Yes, the same moolah that is used to finance your imperial delusions”

Basic lessons in history and economics are in order here. Let me first dispense with history first by explaining that the US is not an imperial nation, but a participative democracy. Unlike other Western nations, it was not an 18th-centuray imperialist power. Since the nation-state is not the driver of economic activity in today’s world, imperialism does not apply in this sphere, either.

Now, to address economics, a recent survey showed that the majority of Korean educations did not understand the basics of capitalism, and this appears to be your problem as well.

First, the US is both a self-sustaining market and one of the most highly developed capital markets. The reason people buy t-bonds is that they are backed by the faith people hold in the US economy, which remains the world’s most competitive by every economic measure.

Second, today’s world is ruled by the profit motive. The Chinese are no exceptions. That Asians and Americans hold capital positions in one another’s economies is illustrative of the fact that there are no meaningful boundaries in the global economy. To single out T-bonds is as meaningless as to single out any other form of capital investment.

Third, it is not the Chinese political structure that holds US bonds, but Chinese economic interests. They were acquired for financial, not political reasons and are not an instrument of political pressure. No single entity or government is in any position to orchestrate a massive economic sabatage with meaningful economic consequences. What you describe is not even theoretically probable, but merely speculative in the sense of bad dime-store novels.

Fourth, capital investment and lending represent exchanges of value. Both issuers and consumers of bonds take on analogous positions of risk and reward. China’s T-bond consumption does not somehow exempt it from this economic inevitability and place it in some kind of superior economic position.

Fifth, the liklihood of a T-bond crisis is extremely low. People hold positions in one another’s economies because they represent sound values. If the value of these investments begin to decline, people will consume less of them over time. But because US bonds are long-term positions, sudden fluctuations do not occur.

Sixth, while a bond crisis could trigger a financial dip, declines and recoveries are part and parcel of capital economics, something that capitalist nations have faced time and again over time. After every decline comes a recovery. The underlying soundness of the economy has been thus tested time and again and is not an undue concern.

Seventh, you can paint numerous much more devestating - and numerous more likely doomsday scenarious than this. The world’s oil supplies could dry up tomorrow. North Korea could precipitate a nuclear conflict that would bring about massive destruction. The earth’s crust could give way. A massive meteor shower could devastate the world.

There are numerous much move valid concerns for humanity to address, such as global warming, the destruction of the rain forests, Mid Eastern unrest, AIDS, epidemics like Bird Flu and the nuclear brinkmanship of small-minded dictators in North Korea and Iran.

Americans are at the forefront in endeavors to eliminate these threats and guaranteeing human rights including your right to express your opinions on forums like this. If you feel that this is to America’s shame, you are free to express that opinion, and this is largely due to the US’s influence and tutelage to Korea in democratic principles.

Whenever I read some misguided, miseducated person like yourself spouting hate, I feel positive and encouraged. This is because I understand that the positive efforts of people working to make a difference in the world do matter, and I understand that your current intellectual darkness is just a prelude to a better understanding. If you can just take that passion and sense of justice, and shape it through education into a mature instrument of positive change, you can join such efforts and help make a big difference in this world. I have faith in you; I encourage you to have faith in humanity, and in yourself.

Lux, if you would have read what I wrote, you would have noted that I also said, “If it ever came to an all-out war with the US.” Thanks for selectively misquoting me.

And again, your other quote supposedly for me makes no sense at all if you read what I wrote. I was arguing that the Nork attack scenario is very unlikely to happen, as there’s no way that China would allow it, especially if the US is in the picture (militarily).

You seem to assume that I’m arguing that China will attack, a ridiculous conclusion if you had actually read what I wrote. Give me a break, I was arguing that the chances of the Norks attacking were extremely unlikely, not that I think the Chinese will attack. Thanks for misreading and misinterpreting.

begin quote

February 17th, 2006 at 10:15 pm
Why would China want to ??ring America down to its knees?? It?? China?? largest export market and investment destination ($244 billion in U.S. Treasury securities). The two nations are so interlinked financially it would set China back decades if it cut off that relationship. The U.S. would probably go into a recession, but would recoup and eventually replace Chinese products with ones from Brazil, India and elsewhere. You have it backwards, it?? China that would be ??ead??if they alienated the world?? largest economy.

end quote

that one was for snow

And yes, I have to agree with you that the Chinese are more astute than that. It would be foolish for them to cut ties with the outside world. And that is the scary thing, 1.3 billion Chinese fully assimilated into the world economy. The Chinese will just own everything. Middle Kingdom it will be once again.

Brazil? Brazil is nothing, all they have are pastures and rubber plantations and hot chicks.

look:

the biggest pure-play foundries are in Asia

TSMC
UMC
SMIC
Grace
Chartered Semiconductor

and the first four of them are in China

If Luxie is jonesing to live in a communist dictatorship maybe we can all chip in for a plane ticket

See how some westerners could think like a ???
I’ll bet that you live in lincoln and you have never been outside of nebraska. Or is it boise, idaho?

China today is refuge to some westerners, who, otherwise, would be downright losers in their own countries.

look at Shawn of china life blog, he used to shine helmets in new york, but according to his confession, his life has never been better now that he is in ???

The US would be better off spending its energies getting its China policies exactly right.

And what would that be? No economic cooperation without guarantees of human rights? That shipped sailed during the Clinton Administration. Kim Daejung?? Sunshine Policy was just a copying of the DLC-GOP?? own sunshine policy with Beijing.

you americans should just heed the advice of ????? , your staunchest ally in Southeast Asia

China’s ascendancy is inevitable.

empires rise and fall
america must focus on executing a graceful exit

I guess it is not really that bad. Look, the Romans, the Spaniards and the British and the French have done it

China is the future.
It is not called ??? ??? for nothing.

you americans should be ashamed.

snow Says:

The Chinese are communists, and we know from history that commies tend to fight real dirty, as nasty as they possibly could, Geneva Conventions and everything else be damned.

how can you say that when the american economy is buoyed by the Chinese?

do you have any idea how much american treasury bonds are held by the Chinese? Yes, the same moolah that is used to finance your imperial delusions

Richardson: There are no links, those quotes were from memory from Bradley Martin’s excellent new book “Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader”. You can go to a bookstore and check, though.

Now that I’m at home, book in hand, the first quote is from page 487 of the hardcover - I’ll type out a bit more of it:

“Following his arrival in Seoul in 1994, he warned publicly that his military superiors had claimed that North Korea had the capability to wipe out the South Korean population with chemical wepons as well as wreaking havoc on Japan.

I asked Lee how his superiors justified their talk of killing 40 million South Koreans. “They’re saying every South Korean is full of anti-communist ideology” he explained “When we reunite the country we can’t make them communists, so we should get rid of them.” One officeer in Lee’s unit, Lieutenant Colonel Hwang Chang-pyong, had made clear that genocide was on his mind when, in August 1993, he taught in an ideology course that “not only the U.S. army, or the South Korean army - everybody should die”

That’s the first quote. I can’t find the 2nd quote right now (it’s a rather large book) and “Oceans 12″ just started on Catch One, but…it’s there somewhere. I highly recommend buying the book, it’s an astounding read.

To be accurate, Korea sees its PAST in China, and therefore its FUTURE since Koreans are fatalistic and have a backwards-thinking fixation with the past and are therefore pretty much resigned to an eventual resumption of their perennial status as a Chineses vassel state. This complascency is largley driven as well by an irrational hatred of Japan, another manifistation this backwards-thinking living-in-the-past.

While Korea remains mired in the past, China, however, is future-oriented. It knows it will soon surpass and eclipse Korea and eventually engulf it. While mthe Chinese realize this, perhaps Koreans do as well deep down in their hearts, but are exceedingly proficient in denial and rather lacking in self-awareness.

As for Japan being the only nation “openly on America’s side”, the phrase is entirely meaningless drivel. In the global economy there are no sides. The most successful Chinese microeconomies, such as Dalian, are in intimate partnership with Japanese firms (read “The Next Global Stage” by Kenichi Ohmae).

Second, as Asia develops and awakens to the global economy, they necessarily increase their ventures with global US firms, and the US’s influence in Asia is on the rise.

Only fools mired in the past still view today’s gloabal economy in terms of nation states. The key to the future is “glocalization”, the falling away of borders, and the rise of the “region state”. Not only do US firms remain the most competitive, best capitalized, managed and operated, but the US remains the world’s most lucrative consumer market. China’s rise will not change this, but it will complement this, whereas it will not be as rosy for Korea. Korea lacks the global capital, infrastructure, management and mindset to compete in the emerging global marketplace.

Reunification,if it does occur, will not prove the godsend that short-sighted Korean thinktanks envision it to be. A united Korea will still not be of the scale to become a self-sufficient market like the US, Japan or China. Its depenence on global trade will continue even as its international competitiveness declines. Aside from reunification, the government has yet to come up with a “future strategy” to deal with the coming reality.

Given this, Korea’s ace-in-the-hole remains its alliance with the US. The US was largely behind Korea’s economic development through grants, financing, market-access, technology, and zero-net cost military protection. Since the US will remain the dominant global economic leader for years to come and an expanding Asian presence, it represents the best hope for Korea to avoid domination by China. As long as there are Koreans willing to play both ends against the middle - and there appears to be no shortage of them - Korea will continue to value the US alliance.

The Free Trade Agreement is a good illlustration of this. It is Korea that is pushing for the agreement, not the US, since Korea is at best a very minor market for most US interests. Because there is only a brief window in which to accomplish it due to a deadline on the US side, and becasue Korea is so aggressively pursuing it, Korea will likely make numerous concessions that it will probably attempt to renegotiate, characteristically crying foul. Of course, there may be no Agreement at all, but far-sighted Koreans know how much ther is to gain from expanding economic ties with the US, versus the risks that China poses to the Korean economy.

At any rate, Korea remains a “shrimp among whales” and is currently debating with whom they should throw in their lot. But the wildcard in the equation remains: how soon can Korea develop a global mindset? Given the relative disadvantages Korea faces - lack of capital, absence of brand recognition, inadequate English skills and an inward-oriented 19th century nationalistic mentality, the real question is whether Korea will be engulfed by global companies or compete along with them. What does it proffer Korea to fail to give up its uniquely Korean perspective and become truly global minded if they are bought up by Coka Cola or China Incorporated?

The challenge is clear and so is the answer. In truth, Korea has as good a chance as any competitor. But as long as people like Lux Bearer continue to debate irrelevant issues framed in 18th century thinking and fail to recognize the real issues Korea faces in the global environment, there is little hope of Korea realizing its potential.

Keep thinking that way and insisting on the Korean way over the world’s most successful global economic model. It’s bound to keep Korea an isolated developing nation for a long time to come.

For starters, Slim, I am not saying they’re not patient imperialists. They have, after all, waited over a century to get Korea entirely back under their wing.

Are the threats to Taiwan subtle? I would say the decision to declare ancient Kogury? as part of China a subtle indication of their plans, but the the decision to go to enter the war on the Korean Peninsula was not. Neither was the decision to take (back?) Tibet in 1959. Nor was the Hainan Island incident of 2001 all that subtle. When nothing’s happening, they’re moves may be glacier-like: so slow as to be undetectable but still moving in a clear direction. But God help you if you’re beneath them or next to them when a big chunk of ice is ready to break off.

It is simplistic to suggest a U.S. choice between cutting off economic ties or ignoring human rights.

I wasn’t really suggesting that. I was just pointing out that the DLC-GOP powers decided to do so back in 1995. No one is really taking Chinese human rights seriously other than talking about it. With hundreds of billions of dollars in economic ties with the United States now wide open, it’s hard for calls against China to gain any traction.

The West (and Japan and Korea, for starters) should be more subversive a modernizing presence in China by standing up firmly and consistently for shared democratic values.

Should be, but won’t be. Japan and Korea are doing what the United States and the EU are also doing: they’re too busy making money for them to be concerned about these human rights issues, and those that are concerned can lull themselves into believing that open ties, especially open economic ties, will effect a change in China, that it will magically effect an end to human rights abuses there. Last I checked, though, they’re still rounding up them North Korean refugees and sending them back to NK, among other abuses.

I see the pressure on Yahoo and Google over Chinese censorship as a great start, because ultimately it puts China?? system on trial.

Pressure only because it got public. What about all these other sectors that are not the darling of the blogosphere? Anyway, it’s disturbing that Yahoo and Google (and Oracle and others?) even got involved with China’s censorship apparatus to begin with.

But when push comes to shove, you KNOW the Europeans and the South Koreans will seek to profit from any displacement U.S. business would suffer from confronting China. Japan used to behave that way (sucking up to China after Tiananmen for example) but I?? not sure they would do so again in the current climate of Sino-Japanese friction.

Sino-Japanese friction is spilt water on a giant cake; right below the surface, you still have Japan as China’s #3 export partner and its #1 import partner.

South Korea, Japan, the United States, Australia, the EU, etc…. none of them are really interested in human rights abuses in China if it’s going to lose them money or competitiveness. None.

This is why a grass-roots effort to boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympics should go through. If our governments are going to do nothing but pay lip service to human rights abuses and businesses ignore the issue, individuals should say, “Sorry, but I’m not going to support human rights-abusing China with my eyeballs.”

The only good thing about all this economic inter-connectedness is that it makes war-mongering all that more costly. And that, at least, is a good incentive for peace.