China Question

[tw]

Warning: not too long - only 40 lines.

The China problem is not fully appreciated in other threads. Noted previously was an exploded school where rumors of fireworks construction were denied at highest levels. But the telling story is that a top government offical himself did not believe the reports and sent in undercover investigators - and permitted the truth to be revealed.

China is not a monolith - which conservative 'bomb then into the stone age' fools would have us think. A better example of China is 1980 Ford Motor Company. No matter what happened where the work gets done, the knowledge at highest levels was to distorted to appreciate the problem.

In China, top level official were presented with a plane collision that was simply distorted by too many levels of bureaucracy - the nature of communism when you work for your boss and not for your underlings. Long time political advisers noted on Charlie Rose, et al that the only way this problem was going to be solved was if a trusted third party American were to make a private visit with the Chinese premier carrying, if necessary, secret facts. Ironically, one such person would have been Richard Nixon.

Having made rediculous accusations that the airplane violated Chineses airspace - only to learn later this occured after declaring a mayday - now the Chinese leadership needs a safe out. Any public reversal would be devestating to the Chinese emotions. IOW they demanded an apology from the US - regardless of what they later learned was incorrect.

Quietly, a private, third party mission may have already happened - and the George Bush declaration of regret was simply the public confirmation that the third party representative was sent by Bush. Having confirmed that the third party messenger did indeed represent a back channel (see the recent movie 14 Days to appreciate that concept), then Chinese and American negotiators sat down to hammer out a way out of this confrontation that was acceptable to the honor of both sides.

Especially scary is a public poll where 40% Americans said we should apologize just to get our 24 aircrew back. What a disaster these totally ignorant 40% represent!

We must deal with a country where top management really has little idea of what is happening inside the country. We must tread carefully here since the American economy has much at stake in China. A mistake too early would but place this top China management in a position where their only alternative was destructive action. We must ask as Kennedy kept asking during the Cuban Missile Crisis: "What are they thinking. What is their mindset." We must be careful before taking any action to be sure that top Chinese leadership really does understand the current situation.

US Military, BTW, is rumored to be very upset with this political caution.

Bush has done stupid, no intelligent decisions. The list is already quite long to include tax cuts, serious European relation problems, Middle East, arsenic drinking water, global warming, and some silly idea that an energy crisis exists. This China situation is the only thing, so far, he has done properly. Yes, up to now he has been that bad a President. However if you did not appreciate the above delicate nature of the China problem, they you probably also don't understand how much destruction Bush has created to foreign relations elsewhere.