洛杉矶时报 中美对战？

《世界网络日报（WorldNetDaily.com）》的创始人及编辑法拉（Joseph Farah）和《洛杉矶时报》前社论编辑、新美国基金会高级研究员马丁纳兹（Andrés Martinez）讨论中国是否给美国造成军事威胁。

法拉：根据我的理解，你（马丁纳兹）和布什总统都认为，通过合作伙伴关系、分享技术、进出口银行贷款、投资以及放宽贸易要求，以及允许中国人收购3Com等有重要战略意义的美国公司，以帮助中国发展其经济是最符合美国利益的。

　　我并不同意。

　　要改善中国人民的处境，中国需要的是放弃失败的指挥与控制式的社会主义经验。

　　里根总统拒绝了类似的对苏联政策，创造条件让那个邪恶帝国在和平革命中内爆。里根拒绝了过去的失败政策——过去美国试图以救援以及其他随意的亲善行动（实际上是我们如今对中国的行动）“帮助”苏联。

　　中国是未来的邪恶帝国。要看到这一点你无须是个先知。你只需要是个历史学生。就在两年前，一位高级中国军事官员表示如果美国人在大陆入侵台湾的行动中保卫台湾，北京会用核武器对付美国。

　　在更近的最近，我们得知中国计划以太空袭击配合太平洋上对美国航母的传统袭击。五角大楼给它编的代号是“珍珠港2（Pearl Harbor II）”，这项计划是专门为了让美国在太平洋的关键盟友日本和台湾陷于无助而设计的。这听起来像是朋友的所为吗？

　　无视中国的军事扩张，无视它对台湾的威胁，甚至无视它对美国的威胁，我们在未来对付这个扩张主义大国时只会付出沉重代价。如果我们想预防与中国开战，最好的办法是坚决、坚持原则、强大、绝不退缩。

　　绥靖从来就不奏效。担心中国的经济不是我们的工作。担心美国的国家安全才是我们的工作。

马丁纳兹：难以想象你（法拉）会把里根当作遏制中国的支持者。聆听历史吧：里根以1984年春天的北京之旅以及改善与邓小平的关系而著称，邓小平后来发动了他伟大的对世界开放。

　　里根是美国伟大的反共主义者，他为在中国“注入自由市场体系”以及这如何改变那个社会而振奋。尽管里根是一个坚定的台湾支持者，但他把中国和苏联区分开来是出了名的，他称前者不是一个扩张主义帝国。

　　在当今，这种分析比以往更正确。我们和中国有分歧，正如我们和任何大国一样，而中国在追求它自己的利益时将相当重手，但世界本来就比你所能接受的灰暗得多。美国不是地球上唯一获准耀武扬威的国家。

　　和中国做生意是互惠的；一个繁荣的中国更可能成为国际秩序中的负责任的利益攸关者。比让十亿中国人生活在朝鲜邻居那样的坏条件下（我猜想你情愿这样）要好。

　　我不是绥靖者。我认为美国应该把比目前多得多的资源投入国家安全，而且我们应该继续驻军韩国。我愿意看到日本谨慎地增强其军事能力，而且我相信美国应该向中国人清楚表明我们不能接受对自治的台湾的任何威胁。

　　没错，中国的领导人（和人民）是超级民族主义者，而且该国正学得有点狂妄自大。我确实认为美国不应该对前路的潜在危险过于天真。但我可以向你保证，释放贸易战或其他无意义的修理中国行径不仅会损害我们的经济，而且会被中国领导层中的反美分子利用。

　　就整体而言，我看不到中国在这些日子里飞扬跋扈的例子。敲击中国的一个合法理由是中国在国际舞台上总是担当妨碍者角色（即在建立对伊朗或达尔福尔问题的统一战线上），因为它过于沉迷主权，不愿意插手。

　　但即使这种情况也发生了改变，正如朝鲜核谈判显示的那样。不过即使在最坏的情况下，那些认为中国是一个扩张主义大国的人们总是不得不谈一个尚未展开的邪恶计划。真相是，北京领导人的注意力放在健康的年增长率上，以保持政治权力。

　　你谈到中国需要放弃失败的社会主义经验以减轻人民的困境，你似乎假装中国什么都没有变，那是当今世界最不真实的声明。我不知道你所兜售的所有文章说了什么，但我希望当中有一些触及中国正在发生的惊人转变。

A U.S.-China war?

What is the state of China's military and foreign-policy competition, intent, readiness and posture vis-a-vis the United States and NATO?

October 10, 2007

Today, Farah and Martinez debate whether China poses a military threat to the United States. Yesterday, they pondered Chinese imports; Monday, they discussed the broad question of U.S. engagement with the world's most populous country. Later this week, they'll debate Olympic boycotts and more.

Don't back down to China's overt military threats

By Joseph Farah

Dear Andrés,

As I understand it, you and President Bush believe it is in America's best interest to help China expand its economy through partnerships, sharing technology, Import-Export Bank loans, investment and relaxed trade requirements and allowing them to buy U.S. companies of strategic importance -- like 3Com.

I disagree.

What China needs to do to improve the plight of its people is to abandon the failed experiment with command-and-control socialism that has created a nightmare world of totalitarianism for more than 1 billion people.

President Reagan rejected similar policies toward the Soviet Union and created the conditions that resulted in the Evil Empire imploding of its own dead weight in a peaceful revolution. Reagan rejected the failed policies of the past, in which the United States tried to "help" the Soviet Union with bailouts and other random acts of kindness - virtually everything we're doing with China today.

China is the Evil Empire of the future. You don't have to be a prophet to see it. You only need to be a student of history. It was just two years ago that a top Chinese military official said Beijing would use nuclear weapons against the U.S. if Americans defended Taiwan against an invasion from the mainland.

"If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on to the target zone on China's territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons," Zhu Chenghu, a major general in the People's Liberation Army, said at an official briefing.

Chas Freeman, a former U.S. assistant secretary of Defense, said in 1999 that a PLA official had told him China would respond with a nuclear strike on the U.S. in the event of a conflict with Taiwan.

"In the end, you care more about Los Angeles than you do about Taipei," Freeman quoted this official as saying.

More recently, we learned of China's plans for a cyberwar attack on the U.S. to be launched in conjunction with a conventional assault on U.S. carriers in the Pacific.

Code-named "Pearl Harbor II" by the Pentagon, the plan was designed to leave America's key allies in the Pacific - Japan and Taiwan - virtually defenseless.

Does this sound like the work of friends?

We have a clear choice before us in dealing with the next great threat to America's future - follow the policies of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, or those of Ronald Reagan.

In ignoring China's military expansion, its threats against Taiwan, its threats even against the United States, we serve only to ensure a costly battle against the expansionist power in the future. We are making our worst fear a virtual inevitability.

If we want to prevent war with China, the best way is to be resolute, stand on principle, be strong and never back down.

Appeasement never works.

It's not our job to worry about the Chinese economy. It is our job to worry about U.S. national security. Joseph Farah is the Washington-based founder and editor of WorldNetDaily.com and the author of the new book, "Stop the Presses! The Inside Story of the New Media Revolution." He is the former editor in chief of the Sacramento Union and served as executive news editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner for six years.

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Reagan knew the Chinese weren't Soviets in 1984

By Andrés Martinez

Dear Joseph,

There you go again, as the great communicator you so reverently cite would say - twisting history and overlooking basic realities. It is astonishing to me that you hold up Ronald Reagan (in the context of what he had to say about Soviet Union) as a proponent for confrontation with China. Heed your counsel of studying history: Reagan famously visited Beijing in the spring of 1984 and improved ties with Deng Xiaoping, who was then launching his great opening to the world.

Reagan, the great American anti-communist, came home calling the People's Republic "so-called communist China." He was heartened by the "injection of a free-market system" in China, and how that would alter that society (he was perceptively early to this view). And though Reagan was a staunch supporter of Taiwan, he famously drew a distinction between the Chinese and the Soviets - stating that the former were not an expansionist empire.

This analysis is truer today than it was then. We will have disagreements with China, as we do with any great power, and China will be pretty heavy-handed in pursuing its own interests, but this is the sort of thing that makes the world a lot grayer than you seem to be comfortable with. The U.S. is not the only country on Earth allowed to throw its weight around.

Doing business with China is mutually beneficial; a thriving China is more likely to become a responsible stakeholder in the international order. Better that than to have a billion Chinese living under the kind of depraved conditions their North Korean neighbors live in, though I suppose you'd prefer it that way.

I am no appeaser. I think the U.S. should devote far more of its resources to national security than it presently does, and that we should keep our troops in South Korea. I like to see Japan gingerly enhance its military capability, and I believe the U.S. should make it clear to the Chinese that we cannot accept any threat to the self-determination of Taiwan.

That remains a huge sore point for the Chinese, who compare Taiwanese talk of independence with South Carolina's secession that kicked off our Civil War, but we do need to remain firm on that. Yes, China's leadership (and population) is hyper-nationalist, and the country is acquiring some swagger. And I do think the U.S. should not be overly naive about the potential dangers that lie ahead. But I can assure you that unleashing a trade war or otherwise engaging in senseless China-bashing will not only hurt our economy, it will play into the hands of the most anti-American elements within the Chinese leadership.

On the whole, I don't see many examples of China being a reckless power these days, and you don't provide any yourself, beyond pointing to rhetoric and war-planning (we should be shocked, shocked!). The one legitimate knock on China is that it has been too obstructionist in the international arena - say, in creating a united front on Iran or Darfur - because of its obsession with sovereignty, and not wanting to meddle.

But even that is changing, as the North Korean nuke negotiations showed. But even at its worst, people arguing that China is an expansionist power always have to talk about a nefarious plan that has yet to be unfolded. The truth is that the leadership in Beijing is focused on retaining its political power by delivering healthy annual growth. I hope they lose that bet, and that the day will come when the contradictions between a communist political structure and an increasingly market-based economy will no longer be sustainable.

So, I am there with you about being resolute, though I think Reagan's view of China was closer to my own.

Lastly, in talking about China's need to abandon its failed socialist experiment to alleviate the plight of its people, you again pretend that nothing in China is changing, which is about the least truthful statement one can say about the world today. I don't know what all the articles you are peddling say, but I hope some of them touch upon the amazing transformation that China is undergoing.

Cheers, Andrés

Andrés Martinez, a former editor of The Times' editorial page, is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation.