A Chinese general said today that China was ready to attack the United States with nuclear weapons:
WASHINGTON — The State Department on Friday rejected as "highly irresponsible" a Chinese general's warning that China might use nuclear weapons against the United States in the event of a U.S. attack on China over Taiwan. (Quote from here.)
Whoa. "Highly Irresponsible"? That's it? No "Bring it on" comments from the loudmouth-in-chief? We're threatened with nuclear attack from a high ranking Chinese general, and our response is "Gosh, you didn't really mean it, did you?"
Kind of a far cry from this:
"There are some who feel like that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring them on," Bush said.
I guess President Bush only makes statements like "Bring it on" against softer targets like Iraq. Like a bully on a playground, Bush doesn't pick on opponents his own size.
Article comments
1 - Tao Jonez
oh man, i mean whoah Martian.
ya know Bush ain't gonna step ta the chinese, if he did, where would he get his sweet and sour crow?
all about da Benjamins, and da Middle Kingdom is holding da mortgate on the good old U.S.of A
sometimes it sucks ta be U.S.
2 - jojo
They are just being pragmatic about it.
What's a 100 million dead in a country of 1.3 billion?
Can the U.S. say the same?
3 - egg bastard
Get real [edited]. Talking about mutually assured destruction as if it were a practical tool for China to treat its long suffered Napoleon complex IS FUCKING IRRESPONSIBLE.
4 - Purple Tigress
The Bush Administration seems to be a little more cautious about North Korea and Mainland China. True enough.
Real nuclear threat or a threat to big business? So many American companies are using cheap Chinese labor to increase their profit margins.
How must the Taiwanese feel? Floating around, unprotected by same guys that want to spread democracy into Afghanistan and Iraq?
If only they had oil?
5 - SFC Ski
MA, you may be an anthropologist, but you are not strategist. There is a big difference between a bunch of loosely organized guerrillas with various levels of expertise and limited to small arms light artillery in Iraq and the Chinese Armed Forces. The main reason that the US hasn't struck militarily at North Korean is that doing so might provoke China to respond militarily, if you remember what happened last time the US got too close to China in during the Korean War, you understand the need for discretion.
China is using its control over North Korea as a bargaining chip alongside the pressure it will put on Taiwan.
6 - Martian Anthropologist
MA, you may be an anthropologist, but you are not strategist.
I don't claim to be; however, you're missing the point. We shouldn't be "striking at" anyone, and that includes Iraq. Bush just thought Iraq was going to be a lot easier to whip than, say, North Korea.
And speaking of not being a strategist, it should be obvious to anyone by now that Bush sure isn't one.
7 - chris franklin
Today, if China took a 100 million person hit, the red leadership would probably just cross their names off the national "guest-list" and welcome the fact that their Friday-night Party in Tiananmen-Square wouldn't need as much catering (so-to-speak :).
In 20 years, China is going to be operated by educated "only-children" (due to the population controls instituted by the Chinese government in the 1980's); these so-called "little-emperors" are likely not going to want to spend their lives manufacturing rubber-dogshit for Americans. Most Walmart crap is thus going to come from India in 20 years, since India doesn't seem to have such controls.
Ironically, in 20 years, that's when I would start worrying about armed, military conflict with the Chinese. They'll have a smarter, smaller, well-educated population, about 5% of whom will be designing, making or employing the latest in big, dangerous weapons to defend themselves against the dumb, look-a-like westerners.
8 - Tao Jonez
yo peeps,
read yer chinese history, dese folks got the longest written history around and are bigtime consistent about a lot of things
one, their view on time - ta them, all of the time being communists is a fad, like the hula hoop here, these peeps think in generations, not the next fiscal quarter. ta them, Hong Kong was a short term investment, give it ta da Brits fer a hundred years, when they took it back, that barren rock is now worth how many billions?
two, their concept of self - they think of themselves as "the Middle Kingdom", a fucking perfect land between celestial heaven, and the thousand hells. they think they don't need shit from outside, they is the only "civilized" peeps in the world
three, their military history - they only attack to drive invaders out of their "border kingdoms", the countries next to them. otherwise this whole "napoleonic" bit is total bullshit, they ain't even invaded except ta secure their borders(this don't count Gengis , they wuz mongols)
what ya gotta worry about is them buying everything up, they fucking invented money. all this paper on the US the Bank of china is buying up is a thousand times more dangerous than any kinda military scuffle they is gonna start
9 - johnboy
Tao, you're forgetting that the limits of chinese hegemony were largely technological, with greater technology, and chinese people living throughout the world, the one china policy has a lot of scope for future re-interpretation.
Still the US State Department has a proven track record of long term thinking.
The destruction of japan was planned for at least 50 years, the dismantling of the British Empire for 150.
Chinese strategic thinking has nothing on it.
10 - Tao Jonez
yo johnboy,i ain't hatin on ya, but i am thinkin ya don't know jack about shit when it comes ta china
if ya think the Middle Kingdom don't know 'bout strategy, try a lil book by Sun Tzu
damn thing is at least as old as the Bible, and still can show ya how ta hustle chess in the park today
11 - Shark
re. Bush -vs- China
One doesn't attack America's ...um, I mean... Wal-Mart's main supplier; where would we get our low-cost American flags?
Best,
Shark
...who -- last time he said "Bring it on!" -- spent that summer in a wheelchair.
12 - E L Frederick
China being such the human-rights activists, they wouldn't notice if someone else killed one hundred thousand of their citizens for a change.
With all the problems we have with the Kimchee eating asians north of China (N. Korea) why would we want to go and inflame the situation by responding to some blustering old fart who obiviously left his brain in his other pants.
China gets to rant, the US ignores it, the general saves face, and life goes on. The Middle kingdom can then thump it's chest about how it stood up to the US.