The threat that blows from China - China as economic and military threat

National Review, March 20, 2000 by Mark Helprin

WHAT TO DO

The Clinton presidency is coming to an end, leaving in place of a China policy only years of advertisement that Americans think small, are afraid, and can be bought. Presumably China has extensive knowledge of certain lapses, which might constrain a President Gore from adopting a new China policy even if he wanted to. That is what happens when the monkey puts his hand in the coconut and closes his fist. But, no matter: Despite delay, it is never too late for a sound U.S. policy, especially when it fills a vacuum.

That policy must be founded on the historical truth that empires in ascension share the common characteristic that they will expand only into a relatively empty and demoralized space. In the late 19th century, the British were masters of a quarter of the earth's surface. In this great area almost 400 million people were subject to British rule, and yet the entire expanse was garrisoned by only 125,000 British troops. Following the pattern of Cortez, who conquered Mexico with 600 Spaniards, and Pizarro, who subdued the Inca Empire with 183, light- occupation forces held down whole continents-but only until they met determined opposition, and then they were gone. Empires are not inevitable. They will not arise if they are resisted, and resistance is a matter of timing: The earlier it begins, the earlier and more easily imperial momentum is broken.

The effectiveness of resistance is shaped more by its character than by its mass, and fundamental to its character is its justification. The United States must counter Chinese domination of Asia to keep the balance of geostrategic power and for the sake of our economic relations and free access to the famously interdependent world economy. But we have a far more important duty. The world is full of unnecessary suffering and death. Other than God's, no compassion is deep enough to allay it. If, however, something existed that could allay it, it would be worth fighting for. Such a thing does exist. It is a weapon against human misery far more powerful than compassion or revolution. Proven and validated as it moves through history, it is the chief and outstanding principle to which the Founders were devoted and for which we have fought, justly, in war after war. The theme of American history, of Western Civilization, it has become a universal standard. It is, simply, that government shall derive its just powers from the consent of the governed. Our longstanding allies on China's seaward rim have come hard to this principle, and to abandon them other than by duress would be to abandon the principle itself. The hope of the world is that as China advances it will move peacefully toward this standard. Until then, standing firm in the Western Pacific is fully consistent with the underpinnings and traditions of this civilization. And if it is the principle of self-government that becomes once again the point of contention between East and West, so be it. We would not be imposing this principle on China, but, rather, protecting the free and viable democracies that have chosen to live by it. China's claim to Taiwan, for example, where only 14 percent of the inhabitants are mainland Chinese, is no more legitimate than would have been an American claim to Canada in 1825 because American Tories had fled there in the years after our independence. We may have accepted the idea of one China, but we have never agreed to unification by force.