Chinese Checkmate

How do countries wage war in an age of nuclear weapons? The threat of mutually assured destruction prevents you from ever defeating your opponent militarily--if you destroy him, he destroys you. If you defeat him on the ocean or occupy his port cities, he launches and you both lose. The options for combat between nuclear-toting countries are few.

We have already started exploring alternative war options for nuclear rivals. The 20th century saw the proxy country war, the arms build-up, the client state, the propaganda war, state-sponsored proxy terrorism, and the cold war. Of all of these, the cold war was the most dangerous madness, one built from trying to weigh different levels of mutally assured destruction.

With the end of the Cold War, everyone expected the 21st century to hold different ways for nuclear powers to interact. What we have seen so far this century are old-fashioned methods of gaining power and influence without resorting to open war--the practices of nationalistic economics and strategic diplomacy. I would argue that China is trying to defeat the U.S. using both of these methods.

Before I tell you what I think is happening, let me be clear--I respect the people of China, their culture and history, and their hopes. I hope that China's economic growth will keep lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty, and I would love to one day see a democratic China take her rightful place among the powers of the world. I believe in letting the people of China decide when they are ready for democracy, and I do not believe war is the answer to the problem I am about to present.

China is growing rapidly though growth-friendly economic policies, injections of incredible amounts of government money, and by artificial devaluation of their currency. By keeping their currency (and therefore goods) cheap through government monetary controls, China is underselling the world and stockpiling assets. Rather than sitting on a pile of cash, their government is investing a good portion of that money into the richest country in the world, the U.S.A., to the tune of $300,000,000 in American government debt. The Chinese are financing the American government's ballooning federal deficit and allowing us to keep interest rates artificially low. Low interest rates, in turn, are allowing the American economy to ignore our deficit problem. If the Chinese ever stop loaning us money, interest rates will rise and our economic bubble will burst.

So what happens if the U.S. and China ever have a major row, maybe over Taiwan? Rather than face a dangerous conventional war (our nukes maybe outnumber China's by a 100:1) and economic collapse if they lose the war, China would just do the easy thing: threaten to deep-six the U.S. economy through their investments. If given a way to save face, the U.S. would probably back down and let China have its way. Victory, through nationalistic economics, and no war.

In this fantasy confrontation, the U.S. still holds the high-card: our huge nuclear arsenal. China, to neutralize our advantage there, needs to find a way to increase its nuclear stockpile to a respectable level without drawing massive international sanctions and opprobrium. I suspect they've found it: strategic diplomacy with North Korea.

China has long had North Korea by the short and curlies--they supply their food. North Korea is therefore acquiring a nuclear arsenal and long-range missiles with China's tacit approval. At first, I asked myself, why would China do this? Why be so reckless as to allow your client state to become a nuclear blackmailer in direct conflict with Japan and the West? Even pet dogs can turn and bite.

It is entirely possible that China's inaction on North Korea is the result of a carefully calculated game of strategic diplomacy: nuclear dominoes. Or, as I think it, Chinese checkmate. Just like there are six countries in talks with North Korea, there are six players in Chinese checkers, and only one wins.

When one country in a region gets the Bomb, their neighbors suddenly want to have the bomb. Look at the U.S., the Soviet Union and China, or at Israel, Iraq, and Iran, or at India and Pakistan. Fear drives a crash of nuclear dominoes as one nation after another goes nuclear to deter the threat from their powerful neighbors.

The big winner in a nuclear dominoes scenario involving North Korea (Russia, South Korea, possibly even Japan) would be China. It would now have a perfectly acceptable reason to increase its nuclear arsenal dramatically: the threat from its 'now-rogue' former client state. This larger arsenal, along with the direct threat of economic collapse, would allow China to stand up to the United States in the 21st century as it becomes a superpower. Victory, through strategic diplomacy.

We will see in the coming years whether China is indeed playing this game. I will predict that after North Korea develops very long range missiles, China and North Korea have a public 'break-up' (but China still feeds North Korea, decrying it as blackmail). This will lead to China increasing its nuclear stockpile. Then if China annexes Taiwan in a peace deal at first objected to then grudgingly accepted by the U.S., then I think the game of Chinese checkmate is over.

I hope to goodness that I wrong, and hope even more that the U.S. takes rapid steps to cut the federal deficit and enter one-on-one talks with North Korea aimed at de-arming it and returning it to IAEA supervision. Even in the absence of a Chinese plan to take advantage of the U.S., deficits and rogue nuclear states are bad enough.

As they say, weeds in the garden mean only one thing: neglect. I hope our president eventually sees clear to tend gardens somewhere other than Crawford, Texas.