THE CHINA MENACE EXPLAINED

INTRODUCTORY NOTE. Our prior post on chess master Bobby Fischer and the basics of strategy received more serious attention than anticipated. In particular, readers want to know about its political implications.

Get ready, then, for the never-before-seen.

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China claims Mount Everest and blames the U.S. for the coronavirus.

A U.S.-China trade war is looming that could plunge the world into a depression greater than The Great Depression.

Yesterday, China proposed a tough new security law for Hong Kong, outlawing sedition, secession, and subversion.

Unless you are from another planet, you already know about the mounting China belligerency. Any moment, the emerging cold war could become a hot peace. Let′s cut to the quick:

The first individual human to contract coronavirus will never be known. To the contrary, the major cause of the emerging world catastrophe of which Chinese aggressiveness is the sine qua non, can be traced to one man who is only too well known:

Henry Kissinger.

As Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under President Richard Nixon, Kissinger forged much of the architecture of international relations running and ruining the world today.

I realize any Kissinger-catastrophe association is unacceptable – indeed, inconceivable -- to the vast majority of Americans. Their shock on seeing it here for the first time is the product of decades of indoctrination by Washington and the American mass media picturing Kissinger as THE world-beater negotiator; a great man; a genius′s genius.

The case for trying Kissinger for crimes against humanity is highly probative. However, our case is of another order.

Our basic premise: if Washington doesn′t get it right on China, the rest won′t matter much.

I am about to show how Kissinger created Chinese aggressiveness, bullying.

I will also reveal the long-kept secret of what motivated Kissinger. I promise you an ah-ha moment of colossal proportions.

Finally, I also promise that in six minutes and 35 seconds, you will understand international relations better than Henry Kissinger did in 50 years.

The overtime, overdrive American agit-prop machine picturing Kissinger as a great international statesman has associated -- almost as an involuntary reflex -- his name with realpolitik.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Realistic, pragmatic: Kissinger was neither.

What follows is a warning not only to Americans but also to China.

Indeed, to everyone.

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Would you like to see what authentic realpolitik in international relations looks like?

For 99% of American readers, it will be the first time.

Forget personalities. Forget hate, vengeance. Forget love, misty water-colored memories. Forget any personal bias or preference. Forget ideology. Realpolitik is the exact opposite of what Kissinger and his coterie in Washington did and are still doing.

The core of realpolitik in international relations is coalition-building. The China menace cannot be understood apart from it.

I learned about coalition-building the hard way, in the trenches. I was chief of staff to the Majority Floor Leader (Democrat) in a mean-as-snakes state House of Representatives. 11 conservative Democrats defected and formed a coalition with the Republicans to take control of the House, 36-34. If the Floor Leader wanted to get anything accomplished, we had to make coalitions on every piece of major legislation. About 2,000 bills were presented in each legislative session; that is the ground on which I make the following case: we made more coalitions in 60 days than Kissinger ever imagined, read about or heard of, much less built.

To understand coalition building requires a type of logic which is unfamiliar to most Americans. That political tone-deafness is readily understandable; it is the upshot of a two-party political system in which coalitions are rarely up front. Such is decidedly not the case, however, in countries with multiple political parties, e.g., Ecuador, Norway, South Korea and Spain.

Hence, for Americans to understand what is involved in coalitions -- and why Kissinger was so utterly incapable at building them -- a concise but crucial introduction is required.

You will find a basic presentation of coalition building in William Riker, "The Theory of Political Coalitions," Yale University Press, 1962. Riker employed game theory. I seriously doubt Kissinger read Riker′s book. If he did, he didn′t understand it.

Before proceeding, set your stopwatch for the six minutes 35 seconds mentioned above.

Riker′s basic premise: the coalition which wins is the minimal one required to take control.

An illustrative example:

Let′s assume a country has a five-party political system.

A general election takes place. The morning after, the distribution of the parties in the national legislature is as follows:

Party A: 5. Party B: 40. Party C: 26. Party D: 25. Party E: 4. Total: 100 representatives.

51 members are needed to form a majority and take control.

There are three possible winning coalitions:

Parties B and C = 66 representatives. Parties B and D = 65 representatives. Parties C and D = 51 representatives.

Let us assume also that (i) power will be divided according to strength within the coalition, and that (ii) the parties will prefer the largest relative size within a coalition. The result is that the coalition Parties C and D with 51 members will be the winning coalition.

Party B, the largest, is locked out.

Two points:

First, I underline something that is counter-intuitive:

In a situation of fragmentation of power, it is not necessarily an advantage to be the biggest, most powerful party. If you occupy that position, as does America in Southeast Asia and President Mariano Rajoy did in Spain, you had better know what to do with it ... or else.

And second, political realities temper Riker′s premise. Most importantly, the five-party model shown above assumes the parties are impregnable blocks. In practice, if worked properly, you can usually break off a few members. That is what we had to do in the House of Representatives where I worked. However, the opposition will play the same game, which is why, in any moment, you may be in for a shrewd awakening.

Tradition, distrust, family relations, hurt feelings, opposing economic interests, personality conflicts, long-standing feuds, ethnic/racial prejudices and ideological disputes can prevent party leaders from doing the "rational" thing and coalescing for control. We will show in a moment an astonishing example of how the personal spite of one man gravely -- perhaps irredeemably -- fostered a menacing China, jeopardized America′s national self-interest and endangered world peace.

Despite its deficiencies, Riker′s analysis is sound where it counts: it makes you think objectively and creatively. I always kept a copy in my office in the State Capitol Building.

Which brings us to our main point.

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Here is where Kissinger went catastrophically -- and completely naively -- wrong on China:

To lay bare the underlying power dynamics in U.S.-China relations, we return to the above model.

Indisputably, the two biggest and most powerful players in Southeast Asia are the United States and China.

Let us assume the U.S. and China are Parties B (40 members) and C (26 members) respectively.

Obviously, if they formed a coalition they would dominate the region. However, there would be no rational reason for the United States to form a coalition with China:

(i) A U.S.-China coalition would result in far more power -- 66% -- than the United States needed to dominate Southeast Asia. The U.S. could build the 51% minimum to take control by coalescing with smaller nations.

(ii) Because it had a lot to offer, the price which China would, could, and should demand for making a coalition with the U.S. would be high relative to the price demanded by smaller Southeast Asia nations.

In a word: if China had 26% of the power, it would reasonably demand 26% of the action.

(iii) From a realpolitik standpoint, any China/United States coalition could only be temporary.

Assuming China obtained the high price it wanted, it would be advantageous for it to coalesce with America -- but only as a holding action. The reason is that

(iv) even if the United States paid the 26%-price China demanded, China would still, over time, build its own coalition with smaller nations that would ask far less than the 40% the United States commanded. Indeed, only 25% more and China takes control.

What was said, then, about America coalescing with smaller Asian nations applies equally to China. By coalescing with them, Number 2 (China) becomes Number 1.

That is precisely what is happening now. China is practicing realpolitik; the United States is not.

We come to two definitions:

(i)"Kissinger′s Folly" is the United States/China coalition that Kissinger sought and obtained. A TOP SECRET document recently declassified makes clear he was fully aware of what he was doing. He told Chairman Mao, “As between you and us, even if we sometimes criticize each other, we will co-ordinate our actions with you, and we would never participate in a policy to isolate you.”

(ii) "The Kissinger Kicker" is the ruinous high price Kissinger made America pay China for forming that coalition.

Why did Kissinger so desperately want a coalition with China? Why was he willing to pay such an absurdly high price -- The Kissinger Kicker -- for it? I will provide the answer shortly.

Before continuing, let′s take a closer look at The Kicker.

"We want this; we want that"... Under Kissinger′s lead, the United States paid the exorbitant 26%-price -- and then some -- China demanded. That the price was indeed exorbitant is seen in the everyday world where Americans live and work. Professor Peter Navarro quantified The Kissinger Kicker′s damage in the documentary Death By China at 57,000 factories gone and 5.5 million jobs lost. Navarro is no visceral, Democrat Party, Obama-man Kissinger enemy. To the contrary, Navarro is a Trump advisor.

From the standpoint of coalition building, viz., of realpolitik, America should have formed a coalition with Vietnam and other Southeast Asia nations to balance China -- and not with China to form a counterweight to Vietnam. The historical, political and military foundation was in place for such a coalition. North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh had been a close American ally in World War II against Japan.

In common and common-sense parlance, Kissinger got it ass-backwards.

Look at your stopwatch. Your six minutes 35 seconds are up.

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Chinese belligerency toward America did not start with the coronavirus pandemic.

*October 28, 2015. Regarding Chinese-U.S. tensions in the South China Sea, the People′s Liberation Army Daily declared, "China, despite its unwillingness, is not frightened to fight a war with the US in the region, and is determined to safeguard its national interests and dignity.” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang piled on: "I advise the US not to make a fool out of themselves in trying to be smart.”

*December 12, 2016. China’s state-run Global Times newspaper pronounced President-elect Donald Trump to be “as ignorant as a child” in foreign relations.

Don′t try to be smart...ignorant ... Kissinger′s China Folly and The Kissinger Kicker are fueling an implacable Chinese contempt for America. No surprise there. Contempt is as predictable as it is understandable when directed at someone who doesn′t know what he is doing but keeps doing it anyway.

The origin of China′s belligerency was Kissinger′s craving to get even for his humiliating defeat in the Paris Peace Talks at the hands of the North Vietnamese. His personal malice is why he did not -- could not -- do the right thing strategically and form a coalition with Southeast Asia nations -- including Vietnam -- to balance China.

If you believe the victory of North Vietnam did not stick in Kissinger′s craw, I know somebody who disagrees with you: Henry Kissinger.

A declassified, top secret State Department memo showed what Kissinger told the Government of Thailand in a meeting in 1975:

"We don′t mind Chinese influence in Cambodia to balance North Vietnam [sic]. As I told the Chinese when we last met when we were discussing the Vietnamese victory in Indochina, it is possible to have an ideological victory which is a geopolitical defeat. The Chinese did not disagree with me."

Three observations:

(i) Kissinger believes that if Vietnam were isolated geopolitically, his defeat would be magically transformed into victory. He is searching, in league with China, an alchemical solution. The Chinese – whose economic development was spurred by The Kissinger Kicker -- are only too willing to look on benevolently. Yes, Henry, you′re so right; yes, Henry, you′re a great man.

(ii) A word in Kissinger′s above quote may have caught your eye: "Cambodia."

In 1975-79, the genocidal madman Pol Pot ruled Cambodia. To show the astonishing lengths to which Kissinger was prepared to go to avenge his Vietnam defeat, he informed the Thailand Government:

“I am personally embarrassed by the Vietnam war [sic]. I believe that if you go to war, you go to win and not lose with moderation.

We are aware that the biggest threat in Southeast Asia at the present time is North Vietnam [sic]. Our strategy is to get the Chinese into Laos and Cambodia as a barrier to the Vietnamese… You [the Thailand Government] should also tell the Cambodians that we will be friends with them. They are murderous thugs, but we won′t let that stand in our way. We are prepared to improve relations with them.”

Kissinger wanted to be friends with the “murderous thug” Pol Pot. If Kissinger is ever tried for war crimes, look for the quote you just read to be Exhibit 1.

(iii) The Chinese did not disagree with me. Here you see the end product of Kissinger′s hatred of Hanoi. He unwittingly sets up the Chinese Government as the ultimate judge and jury of who is right, who is wrong; of what should and should not be done; of who is good, who is bad. That is a textbook example of what the renowned psychoanalyst Carl Jung called a sacrificium intellectus.

In the end, a personal feeling -- not a realpolitik analysis of objective circumstances -- ultimately lay behind Kissinger′s China Folly and The Kissinger Kicker

Bad blood. It gave birth to China′s scorn for the U.S.. That ill will is what is fueling it today and will drive it tomorrow.